Impact of parents’ authoritative style on personality traits of children: a case study of Elementary class students in Pakistan

Abstract

The study was carried out to determine the effects of authoritative parenthood on the personality traits of elementary school children including all the five traits namely agreeableness, conscientiousness, extraversion, neuroticism and openness. The study is significant as it gives parents a chance to evaluate their parenting style and comprehend its positive and negative effects on children’ personality traits. It was an Ex Post Facto study in which data was collected about the cases of elementary class children in Pakistan. A multistage random sample of 30 elementary schools, three hundred cases (children and their parents) and 90 teachers was chosen. Two questionnaires were used in the study; One to evaluate the parenting styles of the parents which was adopted from Robinsons Parenting style questionnaire and second, adopted from the Big Five Inventory questionnaire to assess the personalities of the children. Cronbach’s Alpha value of the total parenting style questionnaire was 0.95 and Cronbach’s Alpha value of the total personality style tool used in this study was 0.84. Data was collected by the researchers during parent-teacher meetings and meetings with teachers in the selected schools. Percentage of frequencies, mean score, standard deviation, ANOVA statistics and correlation values were calculated using SPSS. Results indicated highly significant and positive relationship between authoritative parenting style and the four personality traits i.e. agreeableness, conscientiousness, extraversion and openness but a significant and negative relationship with neuroticism. Moreover, a highly significant impact of parenting authoritativeness level on children personality traits was explored. Therefore, it is recommended that parents should practice authoritative parenting style to raise strong and healthy individuals and refrain the negativism in the personality of children. &nbsp