Abstract
Research on the antecedents and underlying mechanisms of the formation of adolescent social trust is scant. Family and school are two major environments in which adolescents become socialized. The current study examined the effect of parental rearing behaviors (rejection, emotional warmth and overprotection) on adolescent social trust, exploring the mediating role of adolescent self-esteem and the multilevel moderated role of the Level 2 variable class justice climate. The sample included 612 (12–16 years old) middle school students in China. Participants completed the s-EMBU, the Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale, Rosenberg’s Faith in People Scale and the perceptions of class justice scale, along with other control variables. The results suggested that parental rearing behaviors significantly predicted adolescent social trust, regardless of adolescent gender or age. Additional mediation analysis suggested that parental rearing behaviors had both direct effects on adolescent social trust and indirect effects through adolescent self-esteem. Further multilevel structural equation modeling indicated that class justice climate moderated the effect of parental rejection on adolescent self-esteem. The findings suggest that family and school practice jointly shape adolescents’ social trust. How parents treat their children has a huge influence on the degree to which their children trust other people. In addition, perceived class justice could buffer the harmfulness of negative parental rearing behaviors.
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Author Contributions
Y. L.: Designed and executed the study and assisted in revising the manuscript. L. F.: Conducted data analysis and wrote the method and result section of the manuscript. Y. L. and L. F. contributed equally to this work and share first authorship. X. S.: Conceptualized and designed the study, wrote the introduction and discussion section of the manuscript, and revised the manuscript. C. W.: Assisted in data analysis. F. L.: Assisted in data analysis. Z. L.: Assisted in data analysis. L. S.: Assisted in data analysis. G. X.: Collaborated in writing the manuscript. X. L.: Assisted in editing the final manuscript.
Funding
This study was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant number 71101012), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, the State Scholarship Fund from the China Scholarship Council (grant number 201406045033) and the Advanced Innovation Center for Future Education at Beijing Normal University.
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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.
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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.
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Liu, Y., Fei, L., Sun, X. et al. Parental Rearing Behaviors and Adolescent’s Social Trust: Roles of Adolescent Self-esteem and Class Justice Climate. J Child Fam Stud 27, 1415–1427 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-017-1010-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-017-1010-3