The Effect of Parenting Styles on Strengths of Humanity: Love, Kindness and Social Intelligence in Myanmar Adolescents

Abstract

The main purpose of this study was to explore the effect of parenting styles on strengths of humanity (love, kindness and social intelligence) in Myanmar adolescents. 378 students from three selected secondary schools participated in this study. The Scale of Parenting Styles developed by Gafoor and Kurkkan (2014) was used to measure parental responsiveness and control, for identifying parenting styles. Strengths of humanity were measured through 96-item Value in Action Inventory designed by Park and Peterson (2006). The results showed that adolescents perceived their mothers as more responsive and more controlling than their father. Perceptions with parental responsiveness and control were not different between boys and girls. Maternal responsiveness positively predicted strengths of love and kindness, while paternal control positively predicted social intelligence. Adolescents of authoritative mothers had higher scores in all humanity strengths than those of negligent mothers, and higher scores of kindness than those of permissive mothers. Similarly, adolescents of authoritative fathers reported higher scores in all humanity strengths than those of negligent fathers, and higher scores of kindness than those of permissive fathers. Adolescents of negligent mothers also revealed lower level of love than those of permissive mothers, while adolescents of negligent fathers revealed lower level of love than those of authoritarian fathers. In social intelligence, adolescents of negligent fathers were lower than their counterparts of parents who practiced other three styles. Adolescents of permissive and authoritarian styles did not show significant differences in all three strengths of humanity. On the whole, authoritative parenting style was the best, and negligent style was the worst.

Keywords: Parenting Style, Character Strengths, Strengths of Humanity, Love, Kindness, Social Intelligence, Myanmar

DOI: 10.7176/RHSS/9-8-05

Publication date: April 30^th 2019