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PARENTING STYLE AS A MODERATOR OF LOCUS OF CONTROL, SELF ESTEEM

AND ACADEMIC STRESS AMONG ADOLESCENTS

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SCHOLARS WORLD-IRMJCR Online: ISSN 2320-3145, Print: ISSN 2319-5789

PARENTING STYLE AS A MODERATOR OF LOCUS

OF CONTROL, SELF ESTEEM AND ACADEMIC
STRESS AMONG ADOLESCENTS

UMA, K. MANIKANDAN, K.
Research Scholar in Psychology Associate Professor
Bharathiar University Department of Psychology
Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu-India University of Calicut, Kerala-India

ABSTRACT

Parenting styles and its impact on adolescents’ psychosocial development has been an
area of interest in the field of psychology. The aim of this study is to explore the
moderating effect of parenting styles on the relationship of locus of control, self esteem
and academic stress among adolescents. The participants of this study consist of 300
degree college students age ranging from 18- 21. The instruments used are parenting
style inventory, brief self esteem inventory, locus of control scale and academic stress
scale. The data were analyzed using moderate regression analysis and the results shows
that authoritarian and authoritative parenting styles did not show any interaction with
locus of control and self esteem in relation to academic stress. Permissive parenting
style is interacting with locus of control and academic stress. Parenting styles and other
variable has a direct relation with academic stress among adolescents.

Keywords: Parenting Styles, Self Esteem, Locus of control, Academic stress,

Adolescents.

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INTRODUCTION:
Family has an important role in the development of an adolescent. Individuals learn everything from family and
makes parents as a role model. The experiences parents acquire from the demands of the children they tend to
change (Malhas & Abdouni, 1997; Weiss & Schwarz, 1996); some parents shape their child according to their
way of upbringing. As a result parents realize about the different styles of parenting. Consequently, they show
different upbringing styles (Baumrind, 1991; John, 1989). Researchers have identified different types of
parenting styles. These parenting styles can influence in molding children’s personality and traits. Baumrind
(1971) has conceptualized three different types of parenting styles: authoritative, authoritarian and permissive.
Authoritative reflects parenting with a balance in discipline and affection, reasoning with children and being
responsive to children’s demand. Authoritarian parenting values obedience and favor power assertion. It is way
of traditional parenting were the child has given no autonomy but has to accept the disciple without question. In
permissive parenting, parents give children high level of freedom and do not restraint from their behavior unless
physical harm involved (Seguin & d’Entremont, 2006; Rossman & Rea, 2005). The individuals behavior and
personality development affected by what parenting style he/she receives from the parents and this in turn
affects different areas of life of the person.
For adolescent, home and college has equal importance in their life. Parents have an important role in molding
their attitude towards academics. Parents’ educational involvement has been linked to children’s academic
outcomes in a variety of ways, including higher academic achievement (Bogenschneider,1997) and more
positive attitudes toward school (Gonzalez-DeHass, Willems, & Holbein, 2005). One way that parents can
influence children’s academic outcomes is through active participation in and management of learning in the
home. This typically involves activities such as engaging in cognitively stimulating tasks, like reading together
(Evans, 1998), and managing children’s school-related behaviors, such as organizing and monitoring children’s
time (Finn, 1998). Such active management from parents in the home environment can support children’s
educational endeavors and provide motivation to learn (Seginer, 2006).
Researchers have focused on the style or emotional tone of parent–child interactions regarding school issues.
When parents use a supportive and encouraging style of involvement, they provide their children with a sense
of initiative and confidence in relations to learning. Supportive and encouraging parental involvement, such as
rewarding learning-related behaviors with encouragement and praise, is typically associated with higher school
achievement in children (Callahan, Rademacher, & Hildreth, 1998; Martinez-Pons, 1996; Simpkins, Weiss,
McCartney, Kreider, & Dearing, 2006). By contrast, pressure from parents through the use of commands,
punishment, or coercive interactions is negatively associated with children’s school outcomes. Parental
punishment, intrusion, and criticism in reaction to children’s grades and homework are in relation to lower
academic performance (Ginsburg & Bronstein, 1993; Niggli, Trautwein, Schnyder, Ludtke, & Neumann, 2007;
Pomerantz & Eaton, 2001).
Along with parental involvement in handling the stress in academics other personality factors like locus of
control and self esteem are also involved in individual’s ability to manage stressful situation. Parenting style
can influence the development of these personality patterns of adolescents. Parental upbringing influences the
way they look the external world and how he/she act in stressful situations.
Locus of control plays a major role in many aspects of human behavior such as achievement motivation
success-orientation, self-control, socially adjustment, independence and expectancy. Students with an internal
locus of control may be more likely to do well in independent learning situations. Students with an external
locus of control will need more encouragement and guidance from the instructor (Beck, 1979). Locus of control
may also determine one's perceptions and expectances of success (Wise, 2005).
Locus of control can be related to some other factors such as family upbringing and education. It would be thought
that it is possible to incite a type of locus of control. Literature suggests that it is possible to assist students to
become into internals and thus enhance their efforts to achieve better (Beck, 1979; Findley & Cooper, 1983;
Mandy, 2005). To develop an internal locus of control, students must be able to attribute success to their own
efforts. For example, to become internals, students develop an individualized learning plan that lists their goals,
how they plan to achieve those goals, a timeline, and the outcome. This may make one believe that changing
people's beliefs to control, make efforts and determine the cause they attribute their behavior to can be somehow
influenced by socialization. Anderman and Midgley (1997) noted that “students who believe that their poor
performance is caused by factors out of their control are unlikely to see any reason to hope for improvement. In
contrast, if students attribute their poor performance to a lack of important skills or to poor study habits, they are

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more likely to persist in the future”. Noel, Forsyth and Kelley (1987) have shown that if students are taught to
have a more hopeful attitude (develop an internal locus of control), their grades tend to rise.
Few studies concerning locus of control have examined its relation to parenting styles, and of them, many have
had methodological problems concerning the definitions and measurements of parenting style and have
predominately involved children (Krampen, 1989). These studies indicate that the parenting style under which
children were raised affect their locus of control (McClun & Merrill, 1998). An internal locus of control tends to
result from consistency of discipline, reinforcement of positive behaviors, and balanced autonomy: characteristics
of authoritative parenting (Krampen, 1989). Additionally, positive parental involvement has been implicated in the
development of an internal locus of control in academic contexts (Grolnick & Ryan, 1989). Internal locus of
control, high levels of internal personal trust, and an active coping style were positively related to the parents who
exhibit high levels of warmth, acceptance, helpfulness and low levels of disapproval when interacting with their
children (Mondell & Tyler, 1981). It was found that positive parental involvement has been implicated in the
development of an internal locus of control in academic contexts (Grolnick & Ryan, 1989). External locus of
control has been associated with higher levels of stress, frequent illness, psychological distress, and relationship
dissatisfaction (Morry, 2003; Muhonen & Torkelson, 2004; Wu, Tang, & Kwok, 2004).
Parenting style has been found to be a significant antecedent variable for the development of self esteem among
adolescent. Studies shows significant positive impact with authoritative parenting and positive child
development and negative impact with authoritarian and permissive parenting and negative child functioning
(Cohen, Richardson, & LaBree, 1994; Epstein, 2001; Lamborn, Mounts, Steinberg, & Dornbusch,1992;
Steinberg, Lamborn, Darling, Mounts, & Dornbusch,1994), i.e., self- esteem (Robin & Foster, 1989), academic
performance (Dornbusch, et al.,1987; Paulson,1994).
One of the classic measures of adolescent adjustment in parenting studies is the self esteem (Rudy & Grusec,
2006). Several studies have explored the relationship between parenting styles and self-esteem. Martinez and
Garcia (2007) found that adolescents of indulgent parents show highest scores in self esteem whereas
adolescents from authoritarian parents obtain the worst results. Several other researchers have stressed the
importance of parenting styles in children’s internalization of social values (Grusec, Goodnow, & Kuczynski,
2000; Martínez, García, & Yubero, 2007). The environment in which the child develops has deeply associated
with the child’s development of self esteem (Hosogi, Okada, Fuji, Noguchi, & Watanabe, 2012) and supportive
parenting style can improves the individual’s self esteem (Yang & Liang, 2008). The individual’s perception of
supportiveness predicted higher level of implicit self esteem (Antonopoulou, Alexopoulos, & Maridaki-
Kassotaki, 2012).
Martinez and Garcia (2007) found that children of indulgent parents had the highest levels of self-esteem while
children of authoritarian parents had the lowest. Another study done by Martínez and García (2008) found that
adolescents with indulgent parents had equal or higher levels of self-esteem than adolescents with authoritative
parents. The research additionally showed that adolescents with authoritarian and neglectful parents had the
lowest levels of self-esteem. Alternatively, Garcia and Gracia (2009) found that both the children of indulgent
parenting style as well as the authoritative parenting styles had the highest levels of self-esteem. It was also
concluded in 2007 that the authoritative and indulgent parents’ children scored highest on levels of self-esteem
(Martínez, Garcia, & Yubero, 2007).
When looking at the adolescent stage, there is a general increase in self-esteem throughout adolescence (Orth,
Robins, & Widaman, 2012). Similarly, it is essential to look at possible confounding variables affecting this
increase in self esteem during adolescence. One variable that was found to have an important effect is education
level. It was found that as education level increases there is higher level of self-esteem (Hallsten, Rudman, &
Gustavsson, 2012). While discussing factors that affect self-esteem levels and the ways that self-esteem can
change over time, it is relevant to acknowledge that parenting styles could change over time as well. This is
important to recognize because different parenting styles could have positive or negative effects on the child’s
self-esteem levels through time and development.
Previous research done on the subject of parenting styles has investigated a wide variety of elements. A large
body of research has explored the influence of parental participation in children’s homework (Cooper, Lindsay,
& Nye, 2000; Xu & Corno, 2006) but with inconsistent results (Hoover-Dempsey, et al., 2001). Some studies
have found parental involvement in homework to be positively associated with achievement (Callahan,
Rademacher, & Hildreth, 1998), whereas others have found it to be negatively associated (Muller, 1995). It is
noteworthy that the majority of published studies on parental involvement have investigated primarily parents’
self-reported behaviors, whereas few studies have examined parental involvement from the children’s

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perspective. Current study focuses on the moderating role of parenting style on the relationship of self esteem,
locus of control and academic stress among adolescent.

OBJECTIVE:
1. To understand the moderating effect of parenting style on the relationship of locus of control, self esteem
and academic stress among adolescence.

METHOD:

Participants:
The present study consists of 300 degree college students from different colleges in Bangalore, aged between
18- 21. Respondents were selected by using random sampling method. The participants were from different
disciplines like BA, BCom and Engineering and they were from first to final year.

Instruments:
1. The Parenting Style Inventory: The Parenting Style Inventory developed by Divya and Manikandan
(2013) measure about perception of the children about their parent’s behaviour. Here the perception of the
child is important. It asses perceived parenting style of the subjects with regard to three dimensions such
as authoritarian, authoritative and permissive. It consists of 30 items in which responses were elicited in a
five point likert scale. The participants could mark his or her response in the response sheet. Scoring of
each parenting style was done independently. The reliability of the scale was calculated by Cronbach
Alpha which is .86 and the scale was found to be reasonably valid.
2. Brief Self Esteem Inventory: Brief Self Esteem Inventory originally developed by Williams (2000), and
re-standardized by Uma and Manikandan (2013) in Indian population is used to measure the self esteem
of the subjects, which consists of 20 items that measures 10 areas of self esteem. Participants asked to
gone through the statements and respond in given 4 options, viz, “if you feel definitely yes or almost
always, if you feel probably yes or often, if you feel probably not or seldom, if you feel definitely not or
almost never”. The reliability coefficient Cronbach Alpha of the inventory was found to be .78.
3. Locus of Control Scale: This scale was developed by Uma and Manikandan (2013) to measure locus of
control of students, which consists of 22 items indicating external and internal locus of control. This scale
was developed based on the theoretical frame work proposed by Rotter. Here the respondents were
asked to make yes or no options to the given statements. Since it is based on pure theory, this scale can
said to be valid and the reliability coefficient Cronbach alpha was found to be .67.
4. Academic Stress Inventory: Academic Stress Inventory by Uma and Manikandan (2013) in Indian
context to measure the stress experienced by the students in their academic endower. This inventory was
based on the theoretical background of original scale by Lin and Chen (2009). The response categories
are viz, strongly agree, agree, neither agree nor disagree, disagree, strongly disagree. The higher the
score, the higher is the degree of stress experienced. The reliability coefficient Cronbach alpha was found
to be .89.
5. Personal Informational Schedule: To measure the personal data like sex, age, class of study, college etc.,
personal information schedule was used.

PROCEDURE:
Written approval to conduct the study in the colleges were collected from the head of the institutions. Participants
were informed about the aim and the procedure of the study prior to data collection and were asked to sign a
consent form, agreeing to participate in the study. The research instruments were distributed among the subjects
and asked them to go through it carefully and mark their responses. Then the instruments were scored according
the scoring scheme. The responses were fed in to a spread sheet then processed using appropriate statistics.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION:

The current study focuses on the moderating effect of parenting style on the relationship of self
esteem and locus of control with academic stress. This study tried to find out the relationship
between parenting style with other psychological variables and academic stress among adolescents.

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Statistical analysis like, moderate regression analysis was used for consolidating and verifying the
hypothesis formulated for this study.
Moderated regression model often used to examine when an independent variable influences the dependent
variable. Researchers may look for moderating effect, an attempt to improve the fit of their model, given the
main effect alone may not provide sufficient accuracy in prediction. In these situations, the ideal outcome is the
finding that there is strong moderated relationship. Regardless of the outcome, the study of moderated variable
has implication for both theory and practice because it provides information on the boundary condition for the
relationship of interest.

In statistics and regression analysis, moderation occurs when the relationship between two variables depends on
a third variable. The third variable is referred to as the moderator variable or simply the moderator. The effect
of a moderating variable is characterized statistically as an interaction; that is, a qualitative or quantitative
variable that affects the direction and/or strength of the relation between dependent and independent variables.
The Moderate variable is also known as intervening or process variable, because they explain the relationship
between two variables. They explain the changes in the nature of the X variable to Y. (Baron & Kenny, 1986).
Specifically within a correlational analysis framework, a moderator is a third variable that affects the zero-order
correlation between two other variables. In analysis of variance (ANOVA) terms, a basic moderator effect can
be represented as an interaction between a focal independent variable and a factor that specifies the appropriate
conditions for its operation.

To have general idea of data and its distribution basic statistics were calculated and the results are
presented in table 1.

TABLE 1DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS OF THE VARIABLES UNDER STUDY

Variables Mean Median Mode SD Kurtosis Skewness
Self Esteem 61.25 62.00 62 8.116 -.823 1.062
Locus of Control 12.34 13.00 11 3.314 -.386 -.315
Authoritative 23.38 22.00 19 6.889 .609 .007
Authoritarian 32.78 33.00 33 7.042 -.523 .008
Permissive 35.07 35.00 31 7.996 -.219 -.345
Academic Stress 106.38 105.00 113 13.482 .678 .186

From table 1, it can be seen that the values of the major central tendencies, viz arithmetic mean, median and
mode of the variables under study. Regarding the variable self esteem the mean, median and mode are 61.25, 62
and 62 respectively. The standard deviation is 8.116, kurtosis -.823 and skewness 1.062. in the case of locus of
control the mean, median and mode are 12.34, 13 and 11 respectively. The calculated standard deviation is
3.314, Kurtosis and skewness are -.386 and -.315, and revealed a slight negatively skewed distribution. The
distribution of authoritative parenting style: mean, median and mode are 23.28, 22 and 19 respectively.
Standard deviation is 6.889. The kurtosis and skewness are .609 and .007, which shows positive distribution.
Arithmetic mean, median and mode of authoritarian parenting style are 32.78, 33 and 33, standard deviation is
7.042. The value for kurtosis and skewness are -.523 and .008, shows positively skewed distribution. The mean,
median and mode of permissive parenting style are 35.07, 35 and 31. The standard deviation is 7.996. The
kurtosis and skewness are -.219 and -.345, shows negatively skewed distribution. The mean, median and mode
of academic stress are 106.38, 105 and 113 respectively. The standard deviation is 13.482. Kurtosis and
skewness are .678 and .186 respectively. This shows a positively skewed distribution. These statistics of
variables under study suggests that the variables are more or less normally distributed. Thus preliminary
analysis of the variables under study satisfied the assumption of normality and can be viable for further
parametric statistical analysis.

To know how the variables under study viz., Self Esteem Locus of Control, Authoritarian, Authoritative and
Permissive Parenting Style and Academic Stress were related each other, Pearson product moment correlation
was calculated and the results are presented in table 2.

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TABLE 2CORRELATION OF SELF ESTEEM LOCUS OF CONTROL, AUTHORITARIAN,

AUTHORITATIVE AND PERMISSIVE PARENTING STYLE AND ACADEMIC STRESS
Self Locus of Academic
Variables Authoritative Authoritarian Permissive
Esteem Control Stress
Self Esteem -
Locus of
.106 -
Control
Authoritative -.049 .347** -
Authoritarian .231** -.238** -.420** -
Permissive -.029 -.310** -.360** .415** -
Academic
.071 .293** .290** -.307** -.287** -
Stress
*p< .05, **p< .01
From table 2, it can be seen that, authoritative parenting has significant positive correlation (r=.347, p< .01)
with locus of control. This indicates authoritative parenting increases the externality in locus of control.
Authoritarian parenting shows significant positive correlation with self esteem (r=.231, p<.01) and negative
correlation with locus of control (-.238, p<.01). Authoritarian parenting style increases the self esteem and
decreases the externality of locus of control, in turn increases the internal aspect of locus of control. This is not
in accordance with the earlier study that authoritative parenting increases the internal locus of control and
authoritarian parenting decreases the internal locus of control (Almajali, nd). Permissive parenting style shows a
negative correlation with self esteem and locus of control style (r=-.029; r=-.310, p< .01). This shows the
tendency to decrease self esteem and external locus of control when there is an increase in permissive parenting
style and vice versa. Wolfradt, Hempel and Miles (2002) found that adolescents who perceived their parents as
permissive seemed to manifest distinctively better psychological adjustment. Academic stress shows a positive
correlation with locus of control (r=.293, p< .01) and negative correlation with authoritarian and permissive
parenting styles (r=-.307; r=-.287, p< .01). Academic stress has positively related to external aspect of locus of
control and academic stress increases with an increase in authoritarian and permissive parenting styles and vice
versa. This result is not in line with the previous study that levels of permissive parenting were significantly
related with academic stress (Roche, Ensminger, & Cherlin, 2007). Parents with permissive style allow their
children to have free control of their behavior and actions. Therefore, it is likely that adolescents from highly
permissive environment create their own rules and expectations for high achievements, which consequently
may lead to low academic stress among adolescents. Similarly, authoritarian parents tend to practice rigid and
high level of monitoring (Cooper, Lindsay, & Nye, 2000). The parents who provide a secured environment for
adolescents to move ahead with a pre planned schedules, may decrease burden and stress in academics.

TABLE 3 MODERATED REGRESSION ANALYSIS-

AUTHORITATIVE PARENTING STYLE AS MODERATOR
Unstandardized Standardized
Model Coefficients Coefficients ‘t’
b Std. Error Beta
(Constant) 79.419 6.346 12.514**
Self Esteem .101 .091 .061 1.105
Locus of Control .882 .239 .217 3.684**
Authoritative Parenting Style .412 .115 .211 3.571**
Self Esteem x Authoritative
-.006 .013 -.025 -.467
parenting Style
Locus of Control x Authoritative
.034 .033 .056 1.010
Parenting Style
*p< .05, **p< .01

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Table 3 shows the result of moderated regression analysis of authoritative parenting style as moderating variable in
the relationship of self esteem, locus control on academic stress among adolescents. The results revealed that
authoritative parenting style has no interaction with self esteem and locus of control. But there is a significant main
effect on academic stress by locus of control (b=.882, sd error=.239, β= .217, t=3.684, p< .01) and similarly by
authoritative parenting style (b=.412, sd error=.115, β=.211, t=3.571, p< .01). There is an increase in academic stress
when the external locus of control is high. Adolescents who had authoritative parenting style show an increase in
academic stress. This is not in line with earlier research that authoritative parenting decreases the academic stress in
turn high academic achievement (Dehyadegary, Yaccob, Juhari, & Talib, 2012).

TABLE 4 MODERATED REGRESSION ANALYSIS –

AUTHORITARIAN PARENTING STYLE AS MODERATOR
Unstandardized Standardized
Models Coefficients Coefficients t
b Std. Error Beta
(Constant) 99.674 6.756 14.753**
Self Esteem .192 .094 .116 2.037*
Locus of Control .888 .227 .218 3.920**
Authoritarian Parenting Style -.500 .111 -.261 -4.507**
Self Esteem x Authoritarian
.005 .012 .022 0.401
Parenting Style
Locus of Control x Authoritarian
-.057 .031 -.099 -1.821
Parenting Style
*p< .05, **p< .01
Table 4 shows that the variable self esteem (b=.192, sd.error=.094, β= .118, t= 2.037, p< .05) and locus of
control (b= .888, sd. Error= .227, β= .218, t= 3.920, p< .01) has significant main effect on academic stress of
the participants. Regarding the effect of authoritarian parenting style, the results revealed that authoritarian
parenting style negatively influencing the academic stress of the participants (b= -.500, sd. Error= .111, β= -
.261, t= -.4.507, p< .01). Individuals with high self esteem will try to increase their performance for that they
may evaluate and relate to their academic performance time to time. This causes increase of academic stress in
students with high self esteem. To keep the self esteem in high level they need to work hard, which in turn
causes more stress on students. Students with high self esteem will have a positive aspect related to study and
will be working more towards academic achievement and higher grades (Michie, Glachan, & Bray, 2001). The
more students try to attribute their success or failure to external factors the more will be the stress. The more
internal attribution increases the academic achievements (Maureen & Harris, 1977).
TABLE 5 MODERATED REGRESSION ANALYSIS –
PERMISSIVE PARENTING STYLE AS MODERATOR
Unstandardized Standardized
Model Coefficients Coefficients t
b Std. Error Beta
(Constant) 101.950 7.223 14.115**
Self Esteem .076 .090 .046 0.849
Locus of Control .991 .231 .243 4.286**
Permissive Parenting Style -.378 .095 -.224 -3.989**
Self Esteem x Permissive
.005 .011 .026 0.492
Parenting Style
Locus of Control x Permissive
-.098 .029 -.185 -3.433**
Parenting Style
*p< .05, **p< .01

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Results of Moderated regression analysis of academic by Permissive Parenting Style as moderator, reveled
(table 5) a significant moderating effect of permissive parenting style with locus of control (b= -.098, sd. Error=
.029, β= -.185, t= -3.433, p< .01) on academic stress. This indicates that the effect of locus of control on
academic stress depended on the level of permissiveness perceived by the student. The results revealed a
significant negative effect of permissive parenting style in the relationship of locus of control and academic
stress. From the table it can be also seen that the permissive parenting style has a significant main effect (b= -
.378, sd. Error= .095, β= -.224, t= 3.989, p< .01) on academic stress of the participants. Permissive parenting
allows the adolescents to have a free control over their actions and decisions. This helps them to have their own
rules in their academics, which in turn reduce their stress.

CONCLUSIONS:
This study aims to understand the moderating effect of parenting style in the relationship of locus of control,
self esteem and academic stress among adolescents. Authoritarian and authoritative parenting styles did not
showed any interaction effect with self esteem and locus of control. Permissive parenting has shown an
interaction with locus of control on adolescent academic stress. Even though there is less interaction effect,
there is significant influence of parenting style on academic stress among adolescents. The finding of this study
implies that parents play a significant role in determining the level of academic stress among adolescents. Thus,
it is essential that parents should be equipped with appropriate knowledge and skills so that they can provide
better guidance for their adolescents’ positive development especially in academic aspects.

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