The interplay between perceived parents' academic socialization and psychological control in predicting youth's grit: An investigation across elementary, middle, and high schools in China

This research tested whether parents' academic socialization and psychological control interacted to predict the passion and perseverance component of grit among Chinese youth across different developmental phases. Participants were 4421 Chinese youths ( M age = 13.90 years, SD = 2.57 years) in elementary, middle, and high schools, who reported on their grit and perceptions of parents' academic socialization and psychological control. In both elementary and middle schools, parents' academic socialization mainly predicted youth's greater perseverance of effort, whereas parents' psychological control mainly predicted youth's less consistency of interest and more perseverance of efforts. Importantly, only in high schools did parents' academic socialization interact with psychological control in predicting both grit components: Parents' academic socialization predicted less consistency of interests and perseverance of effort when parents were perceived as average or high as opposed to low in psychological control. Taken together, the findings highlight that both the quantity and quality of parents' academic socialization may have implications on youth's grit. • Parents' academic socialization (AS) predicted youth's more perseverance of efforts • Parents' psychological control (PC) predicted youth's less consistency of interests • Parents' AS and PC interacted to predict youth's grit merely in high school • Parents' AS predicted lower grit of youth when parents were average or high in PC