influence of family on personality essay

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Best Family Essay Examples

How my family influenced me.

663 words | 3 page(s)

My family has had a strong influence on shaping me into the person that I am now, and has taught me that love, kindness, respect, and honesty are all important qualities. However, education has also been a strong factor in shaping me, and helping me grow as an individual. School has strengthened my social skills, and built my base in academic skills.

My family was my first source of love, and has shaped me into who I am today. Growing up my father has regularly gone out of his way to make sure that I feel special and valued, which may seem simple or frivolous, but it is extremely important to me. He can be a strict disciplinarian, and teach myself and my siblings lessons through daily occurrences, or he can be understanding and almost philosophical, teaching us the ways of the broader universe, and making us understand that we are only a small part of this world.

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I have been inspired to treat others with friendly manners and to try to help everyone that I can through my daily actions. It seems that my father has had the most important role of my shaping, and through watching him my entire life I have grown an understanding that by helping other people and trying to have positive effect on everyone, leads to a happy life with no few enemies. One of the basic reasons I respect my father, is that he is happy, when he makes other people’s days just a little better.

What has helped build my character is my father’s Trust. Because he has shown me throughout my life how much he trusts me, he has managed to persuade me to always do what is right so that I do not lose his trust. He has prepared me for life. His is open mind has helped to form my own personality and intellect into a more open minded type. He has never told me what to do. He explains how he feels and then lets me make my own decisions.

The importance of an education has also been stressed all of my life. My schooling has revealed the importance of a sampling of societal behaviors and interactions. This has shaped me by showing me examples of appropriate behavior in interpersonal relationships, and strengthened how much I value some of my behaviors. I believe that social interactions show how others view myself as an individual, and allow me a look into another person’s behaviors and morals. These momentary glances into other’s beliefs creates and understanding of myself and my beliefs in relationship to the world that I live in. Every social interaction that I take part in whether it be buying a cup of coffee in the mall, or an in depth discussion with a close friend, has an impact on my character. My education has helped to mold me, but my home life built my foundation as an individual.

My parents have also always acknowledged the importance of my education in teaching me independence, and how to take responsibility for my actions. I have been allowed the room to make mistakes, and more importantly, the space to fix any mistakes that I may make. This is also true about my education. I have been allowed to thrive in classrooms, or if I chose to falter, but regardless, it is my responsibility to fix my mistakes. This faith in my own ability has allowed me to develop a high level of motivation for my studies, and healthy study habits.

While education is an endeavor that will better my life and contribute to my happiness, I want to be able to use my knowledge to help others, and contribute to the wellbeing of other people. I have my family to thank for my motivation to better the world through my life, and I have my education to thank for giving me the understanding and skills to make it happen.

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Home — Essay Samples — Life — Family Relationship — The Impact of Family on Identity

The Impact of Family on Identity

Categories: Family Relationship

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Published: Sep 1, 2023

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Published: 27 August 2020

The relationship between family function and personality traits with general self-efficacy (parallel samples studies)

Ali Zakiei 1 ,
Hosna Vafapoor 2 ,
Mostafa Alikhani 3 ,
Vahid Farnia 3 &
Farnaz Radmehr 3

BMC Psychology volume 8 , Article number: 88 ( 2020 ) Cite this article

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General Self-efficacy is a key variable in clinical, educational, social, developmental, health and personality psychology that can affect the outcomes of people’s lives. The present study aimed to investigate the relationship between family functions and personality traits with general self-efficacy among university students and the general population.

To conduct this two-part study, the first part was carried out on a sample of 500 students, and in the second part the study was repeated on a larger sample consisting of 1000 participants from the general population data were collected from the General Self-Efficacy Scale (GSE), Family Assessment Device (FAD), and the Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO PI-R). The analysis was performed using Pearson’s correlation coefficient, Fisher’s z test and regression analysis.

The results of the present study revealed that all the subscales of family functions and all personality traits are significantly related to general self-efficacy among university students and general population ( p < 0.001). But in the general population, there was no significant correlation between openness to experience with general self-efficacy) ( p > 0.05). Furthermore, the results of regression analysis showed subscales of family functions and all personality traits together can predict 27 and 35% of the variance in general self-efficacy among university students and the general population, respectively.

Personality traits play a role in predicting general self-efficacy, but the personality trait of conscientiousness plays a greater role than other personality traits and also compared to family functioning, personality traits play a greater role in predicting general self-efficacy.

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General self-efficacy is one of the interesting psychological issues for researchers. So that some consider self-efficacy as an important precondition for self-management in the process [ 1 ]. Some researchers have shown that general self-efficacy is an important predicting factor for academic achievement at various levels of education [ 2 ]. Furthermore, self-efficacy is one of the factors influencing health promotion, for example, it has an important role in reducing high-risk behaviors leading to HIV [ 3 , 4 , 5 ]. Moreover, it is also associated with behaviors such as oral health behaviors and smoking [ 6 , 7 ]. On the other hand, its relationship with depression, anxiety, and other mental health indicators have also been confirmed [ 8 , 9 , 10 ].

In the psychology literature, general self-efficacy is considered as a motivational construct and has been defined as a person’s belief in his abilities and competencies for the success of a particular assignment [ 11 , 12 ]. Self-efficacy beliefs mean confidence in our ability to organize, manage, and control life situations [ 13 ]. Bandura believes that the origins of self-efficacy are from early family experiences [ 13 ].

Family function or efficiency is a collaborative effort to the establishment and maintain the family balance. A family with an optimal function is an open system whose members are emotionally interconnected, but members have nevertheless been encouraged to expand their identities. Such a family is full of love and every family member is accepted unconditionally. As a result of this acceptance, the family can resolve conflicts and willingly respond to the request for help from members [ 14 ].

The family function in essence refers to the systemic characteristics of the family. In other words, family function means the ability of the family to protect the entire family system to keep pace with changes in life, to resolve conflicts, to reach union among members and success in discipline, compliance with the boundaries between individuals and the enforcement of the rules and principles governing the family institution. One of the important models in the field of family function is McMaster’s family pattern. This pattern was introduced by Epstein, Baldwin & Bishop in 1983 at McMaster University [ 15 ].

Family function evaluation according to this model is based on a system approach. The model utilizes a general systems theory approach in an attempt to describe the structure, organization, and transactional patterns of the family unit. The basic principles of this model include: the relationship between parts and components of the family with each other, the incomprehensibility of a component separate from other components of the family, the important role of structure and Interactive patterns of family in determining and shaping the behavior of family members [ 16 ]. Therefore, in this study, considering the comprehensiveness of this model, it was used.

Personality marks the relatively stable individual difference in physical appearance, behavior and experience of humans over time [ 17 ].

One of the most prominent personality models is the model of the five big personality factors [ 18 ], which is the dominant approach for representing the human trait structure today [ 19 ].

The big five personality factors include: neuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness to experience. Neuroticism refers to the vulnerability to emotional instability and self-consciousness. Openness to experience is characterized by the cognitive disposition to creativity and esthetics. Agreeableness and extraversion focus on the interpersonal relationship: Extraversion reflects the tendency to be gregarious, enthusiastic, assertive, and to seek excitement, whereas agreeableness refers to the tendency to be warm, kind, gentle, trusting, and reliable. Conscientiousness is understood as the tendency toward dutifulness and competence [ 20 ].

A review of previous studies shows that general self-efficacy and personality traits are strongly related. For example, the results of the study Judge & Ilies (2002) indicated that there was a negative correlation between general self-efficacy and neuroticism. Also, the results of this study showed that there were positive correlations between general self-efficacy and variables of extraversion, openness to experience, and conscientiousness [ 21 ]. The results of another study indicated that, besides the four traits mentioned by Judge and Ilies (2002), agreeableness and general self-efficacy were significantly related, and neuroticism could negatively predict general self-efficacy [ 22 ]. Ebstrup et al. (2011) in their study, confirmed the findings of Judge and Ilies (2002) and showed that self-efficacy beliefs significantly predict the relationship between the four factors of neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, and conscientiousness [ 22 ].

For researchers, there is a question that self-efficacy is more influenced by personality traits or family factors? So far, no research has responded to this question. Responding to this question may help to a better understanding of this concept. On the other hand, it seems that to answer this important question, we need to study simultaneously (parallel), so that we can compare the results with each other.

A more comprehensive understanding of the interactions between family function and personality traits with self-efficacy seems necessary. There are claims in this regard that make the problem complicated and confusing. For example, some people believe that the impact of the life important persons (for example parents) in development of self - efficacy has been declared previously [ 23 , 24 ]. On the other hand, some researchers have confirmed that there is a relationship between self-efficacy and personality traits [ 22 ]. Their results showed that there is a relationship between all five big personality factors and self-efficacy [ 22 ].

Rationale and objectives

General Self-efficacy is a key variable in clinical, educational, social, growth, health and personality psychology that can affect the outcomes of people’s lives.

General self-efficacy plays a key role in academic achievement. The results of studies conducted on 23 countries worldwide indicated the fact that general self-efficacy and academic achievement have a positive relationship [ 25 ].

Considering the importance of self-efficacy in health, improving the performance and success of individuals in life and education, carrying out studies on self-efficacy among university students and other people seems necessary. Also, paying attention to the associated factors with general self-efficacy can help us to a better understanding of the matter of this concept. Therefore, the present study aimed to investigate the relationship between family functions and personality traits with general self-efficacy among university students and the general population.

In previous studies conducted in a statistical sample, personality and family variables were not investigated simultaneously. On the other hand, comparing correlations and impact coefficients in two statistically different age samples can help us better understand general self-efficacy.

Considering the importance of self-efficacy in daily life, and to allow for comparing the results between two different age groups, we have selected two distinct samples which made it possible to investigate and evaluate the relationship between family function and personality traits with general self-efficacy.

Also, this study was conducted to investigate the role of family functioning and personality traits in predicting general self-efficacy and we were looking for an answer to the question that which components of family functioning and personality traits play a greater role in predicting general self-efficacy?

Study design and participants

This correlational study included two parts. In the first part, the statistical population included all students at Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences in 2015. The age range of the participants was 18–27 years.

Sampling method in the first study, the random stratified sampling method was that each faculty was considered as a community category and within each category sampling was done by simple random sampling. Random selection of individuals in each faculty was done in such a way that first by throwing the dice and the number 4 came, the researcher selected the students who entered the faculty according to the multiple of 4 from the entrance of the university, and if desired and qualified Being entered into the study according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria of the research. This process continued until the sample size was completed in each faculty. Thus, 500 people were selected as a sample from different faculties.

To determine the sample size, the Cochran’s sample size formula, depicted below, was used. Cochran’s Formula for estimating the size of the sample: \( n=\frac{Z_{1-\frac{\alpha }{2}}P\left(1-P\right)}{d^2} \) . (z = 1.96, d = 0.05, p = 0.5). Based on this formula, the size of the sample was determined 350. Considering the possibility of a drop of participants and to decrease the second type error, the size of the sample for the study was determined 500.

Participants were asked to respond to the questionnaires. Detailed explanations on how to complete the questionnaires were provided by the researchers, and the participants were requested to ask for more clarification in case of encountering problems filling out the questionnaires. Further, the questionnaires were completed individually in the presence of the researchers. Finally, the questionnaires were collected and the obtained data were analyzed.

In the second part of the study, the statistical population included all individuals aged 20 to 60, have been living in Kermanshah City (Iran) for at least 5 years before the study and did not have the conditions for entering the student group.

For the second sample, 1000 participants were selected. Because of the lack of a list of the statistical population and the possibility to utilize random sampling (the most appropriate method in this study) two-stage cluster sampling was recognized. In this method, the city was first divided into six regions (the criterion was the municipal areas). After that, each area was divided into clusters and from each cluster, the samples were randomly selected.

Also, the random selection of individuals in each cluster was performed in this way that the researcher first stood on the main street of that area, and selected the passengers whose order of passing was according to the multiple of 4, then if they were willing, were included in the study according to the criteria of inclusion and exclusion.

Individuals volunteered to participate in this study and signed an informed consent form. They were also assured of the confidentiality of the information contained in the questionnaires. This study was registered in the Research Center of Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences and approved by the local ethics committee.

Instruments

The data collection instruments were similar in both studies, and three questionnaires were used: the general self-efficacy scale (GSE), family assessment device (FAD), and the revised NEO personality inventory (NEO PI-R).

The general self-efficacy scale

This 10-item psychometric scale with multiple choice questions (MCQ) was developed by Schwarzer, Jerusalem and Romek [ 26 ]. Moreover, each question can have a score of 1 to 4 (1 = not at all true, 2 = hardly true, 3 = moderately true, 4 = exactly true), and the total score of the questionnaire range from 10 to 40. Its Cronbach’s alpha and internal consistency coefficient have been reported to be .81–.91 [ 27 ]. This scale was normalized by Rajabi [ 28 ] in Iran (α = 0.82). In the present study, Cronbach’s alpha was 0.88 for the first sample and 0.91 for the second one.

The family assessment device (FAD)

This 60-item scale was developed based on the McMaster model of family functions, and it measures the structural, occupational, and interactive characteristics of families. This model evaluates six dimensions of family function: 1- Problem-solving 2- Communication 3- Roles 4- Affective involvement 5- Behavior Control 6- Affective Response [ 29 ].

The response option for each statement was 1 = strongly agree, 2 = agree, 3 = disagree, and 4 = strongly disagree. After recoding positively oriented items, item scores were summed to obtain a total score, which could range from 60 to 240, with higher scores representing better functioning [ 30 ]. The scoring is based on the Likert spectrum, lower scores indicate healthier functioning. Furthermore, the reliability of the scale was reported .72–.92 [ 30 ]. The reliability and validity of this scale have been confirmed in various studies [ 31 ]. The FAD shows good reliability and validity, with a Cronbach’s alpha coefficient between 0.78 and 0.86 [ 32 ]. Also, Zadehmohamadi and Malekkhosravi (2006), by Cronbach’s alpha, the reliability coefficient for the total questionnaire 0.71 and the sub-scales, Problem-solving 0.72, Communication 0.70, Roles 0.71, Affective Involvement 0.73, Behavior Control 0.66, Affective Response 0.71 are reported [ 33 ]. In the present study, the Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was 0.86 for the first sample and 0.92 for the second one.

The revised NEO personality inventory

In the current study, the short form of the NEO Five Factor personality inventory was applied. In 1989, Costa and McCrae have designed the short form of the five factor inventory for measuring the five main personality traits, which included conscientiousness, neuroticism, openness to experience, agreeableness, and extraversion. This questionnaire includes 60 items and only measures the five main personality traits. The procedure for developing this scale was such that using factor analysis, 12 questions with the highest factor weight for all five factors were selected to form the short form of the inventory [ 34 ]. The short form of the NEO Five Factor Inventory has been translated into many languages and has been validated many times. Roshanchsly et al. [ 35 ] and Pakdaman et al. [ 36 ], validated this inventory. The responses to the questions in this inventory are based on a five-option Likert spectrum ranging from “completely disagree = 5” to “completely agree = 1”. In the current study, the Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient for the questionnaire on the first sample set was 0.79, while it was 0.66 for the second sample of the study. Furthermore, in the present study, the Cronbach’s Alpha coefficients for neuroticism (N), extraversion (E), agreeableness (A), conscientiousness (C), and openness to experience (O) were 0.71, 0.82, 0.86, 0.78, 0.75, respectively , for the students sample, and the Cronbach’s alpha coefficients for neuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness to experience were 0.69, 0.80, 0.88, 0.71, and 0.70, respectively, for the general population. In a study, Cronbach Alpha coefficients for the scales were 0.84, 0.79, 0.74, 0.72, and 0.82 for N, E, O, A, and C respectively [ 37 ].

Data analysis

Descriptive statistics were used as mean and standard deviation. The One-Sample Kolmogorov-Smirnov test was performed to evaluate the normal distribution of depression scores, personality traits, general self-efficacy, and family function. Pearson correlation coefficient test to investigate the relationship between personality traits and family function with general self-efficacy, Fisher’s z test to compare correlation coefficients and linear regression model to predict general self-efficacy (dependent variable) based on personality traits and family function (independents variable) were used. All analyses were performed using SPSS21 statistical software (JB39397R39KFC9) at a significant level of 5%.

The mean age in the students group (21.78 ± 2.28) was lower than the general population (33.49 ± 10.28) (Student’s t-test =25.18, < 0.001). In both groups, the majority of people were female, with a percentage of 58% in the student group and 55.8% in the general population, respectively. In Table 1 , the mean and standard deviations of the variables studied are in the whole sample.

To examine the relationship between family functions and personality traits with GSE in both groups selected for the study, the Pearson’s correlation coefficient was employed.

The results of Table 2 showed that in both studies, there was a significant negative relationship between all family subscales and self-efficacy. This means that increasing self-efficacy is possible by reducing each of the subscales and the overall family function score.

In general, there was a significant negative relationship between total FAD and self-efficacy with a correlation coefficient of − 0.50 at the level of P < 0.001 in the first study and with a correlation of − 42 at − 0 P < 0.001 in the second study (lower scores in FAD questionnaire indicate healthier functioning). On the other hand, only in the first study, there was a significant positive relationship between the openness to experience personality trait and self-efficacy ( p < 0.05). Therefore, only among students increased the openness to experience personality by increasing self-efficacy. Also, the results showed that in the first and second studies, there was a significant positive relationship between the personality traits of extraversion, agreeableness, and conscientiousness with self-efficacy. In that sense, that with the increase of each personality traits (extraversion, agreeableness and conscientiousness), the level of self-efficacy increased. However, in both studies, the neuroticism personality trait with self-efficacy had a significant negative relationship with p < 0.001 and this personality trait had a reverse effect on self-efficacy. Also, the results of Fisher test showed that there was no significant difference between the two groups in the correlations. Therefore, it can be said that the relationship between personality traits and self-efficacy was not influenced by the groups we studied.

In order to predict general self-efficacy based on family functions and personality traits, regression analysis was utilized (Table 3 ).

The results of the regression analysis of the first study showed that the subscales of family functions and personality traits together can predict 27% of the variance in general self-efficacy. Among the subscales of family functioning, the subscale of communication (− 0.15) and general functioning (− 0.18) could predict general self-efficacy. In addition, among the personality traits, neuroticism (− 0.14), extraversion (0.14), agreeableness (0.12) and conscientiousness (0.30) were able to predict general self-efficacy. These results showed that in the first study, the relationship between family function and personality traits of neuroticism had a significant role in decreasing self-efficacy, and personality traits of responsibility, extroversion and conscientiousness had a significant role in increasing self-efficacy.

Additionally, the results of enter method regression analysis indicated that among the predicting variables, conscientiousness can predict general self-efficacy the most. Also, in a separate regression analysis, in which the total score of family functions was entered into the equation, the results indicated that it could predict general self-efficacy with an effect size of − 0.15. Therefore, according to the results of analysis in the first study, it can be argued that conscientiousness plays the most prominent role in predicting general self-efficacy compared to all the other variables.

Furthermore, the results of the regression analysis in the second study revealed that the subscales of family functions and personality traits together could predict 35% of the variance in general self-efficacy. Among the subscales of family functioning, the subscales of communication, problem solving and general functioning were able to predict general self-efficacy. Additionally, neuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness and conscientiousness were able to predict general self-efficacy. The regression results also showed that in the second study, the relationship between subscales, Communication, Problem solving and General Functioning as well as personality traits of neuroticism have a significant and decreasing role in self-efficacy and also personality traits of responsibility, extroversion and conscientiousness have a significant and increasing role in self-efficacy.

Additionally, the results of enter method regression analysis indicated that among the predicting variables, conscientiousness can predict general self-efficacy the most. Also, in a separate regression analysis, in which the total score of family functions was entered into the equation, the results indicated that it could predict general self-efficacy with an effect size of − 0.20. So, according to the results of the analysis in the second study, it can be argued that conscientiousness played the most prominent role in predicting general self-efficacy compared to all the other variables.

Given that the status of the age variable in the second sample (the general publicatin) was different from that in the sample consisting of university students, it was decided that the role of age is to be controlled in the relationship between family function and personality traits and general self-efficacy (Table 4 ).

β Standardized coefficient in regression analyses.

The results of the analysis showed that, in the group aged under 30 years old, family functions and personality traits together were able to predict 47% of general self-efficacy, while this rate was equal to 29 and 53% in the 30–50 age range and the age group over 50 years old, respectively. Therefore, the highest impact of personality traits and family function on self-efficacy was in the age group above 50 and under the age group of 30 years.

The results depicted in Table 4 show that by controlling the age variable (split-half correlation), a significant relationship was found between all personality traits, except for openness to experience, and family functioning. Also, in the group aged less than 30 years old, the highest effect sizes belonged to general family functions and conscientiousness, respectively. Moreover, in the 30–50 age group, the highest effect size belonged to conscientiousness. In other words, conscientiousness played a prominent role in predicting general self-efficacy. As for the third age range, i.e. older than 50 years, agreeableness played a significant role in predicting general self-efficacy. Comparing the mean scores of general self-efficacy of the three age groups showed that there was no significant difference between these three groups with regards to general self-efficacy.

For controlling the role of age in predicting self-efficacy in the second sample, multiple regression analysis was used, and the results are presented in Table 5 . The results of the analysis showed that age had a moderating role in the relationship between variables.

Our findings revealed that there was a relationship between family functions and general self-efficacy in both studies. This means that the healthier functioning of the family, the higher the general self-efficacy of its members. These results were in line with the results of studies conducted by Hall [ 38 ]; Caprara et al. [ 39 ]; Hoeltje et al. [ 40 ]; Lotfinia et al. [ 41 ].

To explain the relationship between family functions and general self-efficacy, it is noteworthy that a healthy family with optimum functioning is supported by its members, and general self-efficacy can be strengthened by social support [ 42 ]. Additionally, families with optimum functioning boast parenting styles that can nurture self-efficacy beliefs [ 12 ]. Moreover, the most important explanation for this part of the results is Bandura’s perspective based on social learning the family is regarded as one of the crucial sources for imitation and mimicking of general self-efficacy, and parental behaviors and lifestyles are effective patterns for nurturing general self-efficacy [ 12 ].

The children of from families with proper functioning are free to have their say and are provided with the opportunity to express their thoughts on various issues and make suggestions when necessary. As a result, this feeling is bred that they will be able to find suitable solutions for problems, believe in their abilities, and experience higher efficacy. Also, children can express their strengths and weaknesses without any fear in dialogue and interaction-inducing atmosphere, resulting in strengthening one’s beliefs in their strengths, their ability to find solutions to their weaknesses, and their general self-efficacy.

The results of the present study suggested that the general family functions had the strongest correlation with general self-efficacy among all the components of family functions in both groups. The results also showed that there was a relationship between all personality traits and general self-efficacy in the first study, while in the second one, four personality traits and general self-efficacy were correlated, and no relationship was observed between openness to experience and general self-efficacy. In addition, the results of the present study indicated that conscientiousness had the strongest correlation with general self-efficacy in both groups.

Furthermore, the results of studies carried out by Judge and Ilies (2002), Caprara et al. (2005), Stroble et al. (2011),, Gerhardt et al. (2007), and McGeown et al. (2014) indicated that personality traits and general self-efficacy were correlated, which is consistent with the results of the present study [ 21 , 39 , 43 , 44 , 45 ]. According to the results of the present study, it can be expressed that the higher neuroticism trait is accompanied with the lower general self-efficacy. Additionally, it can be stated that the more the features of extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness to experience are increased, the higher increased the general self-efficacy will be, and vice versa. Judge et al. (2007) and Saleem et al. (2011) concluded that self-efficacy was correlated with personality traits, especially neuroticism and extraversion [ 46 , 47 ]. Also, the results of a study on teachers showed that self-efficacy was positively correlated with conscientiousness, openness to experience, and agreeableness, whereas no relationship was observed between neuroticism and self-efficacy [ 48 ]. In this study, agreeableness and general self-efficacy were strongly related, and the reasons for the inconsistency of the results could be the sample size and the instrument employed for measuring general self-efficacy.

Also people with neuroticism display incompatibility when faced with tough conditions, and so they are not capable of managing and controlling situations, and have low self-esteem. Therefore, general self-efficacy is also low [ 48 ]. On the other hand, extroverts seek the support of others when faced with tough conditions because of their high flexibility [ 39 , 49 ]. They also receive the encouragement of others because of higher sociability, leading to placing more emphasis on one’s capabilities and competency [ 50 ]. Besides, extroverts tend to express their ideas and feelings, which is deemed a great source for general self-efficacy [ 12 ].

To better explain the relationship between general self-efficacy and openness to experience, it can be stated that one with this personality trait will be interested in experiencing new and unfamiliar things [ 51 ]. That is why they feel that they can handle academic tasks and assignments and feel bound to carry out their tasks, increasing their efforts because they believe in themselves which will help them reach general self-efficacy. Moreover, those who are open to experience tend to meet challenging situations and get less disappointed when faced with unexpected situations; rather, they embrace such situations and display this characteristic most of the time [ 50 ].

The results of the present study showed that conscientiousness and general self-efficacy were correlated, which is consistent with the results of studies carried out by Colquitt & Simmering (1998) and Jones & Green (2001). It can be argued that it is not unexpected that one with more conscientiousness will have more general self-efficacy because they probably believe in their abilities and limitations and select realizable goals for themselves. People with conscientiousness are characterized as being diligent, feeling duty bound, not giving up in the face of obstacles, and being goal-oriented. They also perform their tasks carefully, which will help them achieve success, that will in turn result in the formation of feelings of competence and general self-efficacy [ 52 , 53 ]. On the other hand, people with conscientiousness often work in groups, benefiting from the support of the group [ 49 ]. Therefore, the higher the level of one’s conscientiousness, the higher their general self-efficacy [ 21 ].

We suggested that there is a significant relationship between agreeableness and general self-efficacy among the students. However, in the general population (the second study), this relationship is not significant. To explain this finding of the study, we have to focus on the characteristics of the participants in the two samples since considering the age range of the students, agreeableness will be higher, and this trait is reduced when age increases.

The study results revealed that the subscales of family functions and personality traits together can predict between 27 and 35% of the general self-efficacy. These results explain that between 27 and 35% of the general self-efficacy is under the influence of family functions and personality traits, future researches can find other related variables.

Reciprocal determinism in social cognitive theory which was introduced by Bandura [ 54 ] explains the relationships among the environment, self, and behavior. Our study is matching this theory, because we investigated the family function and personality traits, so we considered the environment (Family), self (personality traits), and behavior (general self- efficacy).

Our results revealed that conscientiousness played the most prominent role in predicting general self-efficacy compared to all other variables.

Given the values of the regression coefficients in the regression analysis, it can be concluded that general self-efficacy is more personality-oriented and is highly influenced by personality traits, which is in line with theories stressing that general self-efficacy is personality-oriented. On the other hand, this finding can be intriguing for psychologists and behavioral science researchers.

We concluded that after controlling the age variable, a significant relationship was found between family functions and all personality traits, except for openness to experience, among the general population. In addition, in the group aged less than 30 years old, the general family functions and conscientiousness had the strongest correlations with general self-efficacy, respectively. This result is inconsistent with the general findings of the present study, indicating the importance of family in this age range. Moreover, in the 30–50 age range, the highest effect size belonged to conscientiousness. In other words, conscientiousness plays an important role in predicting general self-efficacy, which is in line with the overall findings of the present study. As for the third age group, i.e. those over the age of 50, agreeableness plays a considerable role in predicting general self-efficacy. The role of the age should be considered to determine which factor has more influence on self-efficacy, however, general self-efficacy is not influenced by age since the results of our study showed that there was no relationship between age and general self-efficacy.

As a result, Annesi (2007) reported that no change in general self-efficacy was seen by changing age [ 55 ].

The results of this study led us to the conclusion that self-efficacy is influenced by personality traits and these traits are more influenced by genetics and nature. It is suggested that in future research, the contribution of each of the nature and nurture factors in the formation of self-efficacy be determined.

Limitations and strengths

Our study has several limitations. Due to the length of the research questionnaire questions, it may affect the accuracy of the participants’ answers. Therefore, it is suggested that shorter forms of these questionnaires be used in future research. Also, this research was conducted in one of the Kurdish cities of western Iran (Kermanshah), so the generalization of these results to other cultures and cities of Iran and the world should be cautious. Finally, the cross-sectional design was another limitation of the present study. It is recommended that longitudinal design be performed in the future. This study was conducted with a large sample conducted in western Iran. Also, participants were evaluated in the study sample by trained and experienced individuals.

Conclusions

This study again highlights the role and importance of personality traits for researchers and psychologists. Since general self-efficacy plays an essential role in psychosocial health and human progression. This leads us to realize that the effect of personality traits can be considered through self-efficacy on psychosocial health and performance. However, other studies need to investigate the moderating role of self-efficacy in the relationship between personality traits and psychosocial health and performance.

Availability of data and materials

The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Abbreviations

General Self-Efficacy Scale

Family Assessment Device

Revised NEO Personality Inventory

Multiple choice questions

Neuroticism

Extraversion

Agreeableness

Conscientiousness

Openness to experience

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the Substance abuse prevention research center and clinical Research Development Unit (CRDU) of Imam Khomeini, Mohammad Kermanshahi and Farabi Hospital, University of Medical sciences, Kermanshah, Iran for their support, cooperation and assistance throughout the period of study.

This article is the result of the findings of the research project 95091that was approved and financed by Vice Chancellor for research and Research and Technology, Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences, Kermanshah, Iran. The funder had a role in the design of the study and collection, analysis, and interpretation of data and in writing the manuscript.

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AZ, MA conceived, designed, evaluated, and drafted the manuscript, HF, FR Data collection, AZ conduct data analyses, VF, MA, FR, AZ interpreted findings and revised the manuscript, VF contributed to grammar editing, All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Zakiei, A., Vafapoor, H., Alikhani, M. et al. The relationship between family function and personality traits with general self-efficacy (parallel samples studies). BMC Psychol 8 , 88 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40359-020-00462-w

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The nature versus nurture debate has been one of the oldest, recurrent issues in psychology. Nature represents genetics that individuals inherited from birth parents, creating predetermined courses of development. Nature also encompasses biological processes (e.g., brain activities, hormones) that are believed to be largely controlled by genetics. Nurture, on the other hand, represents everything outside one’s body, including both physical environments (e.g., family, neighborhood, school, and culture) and interpersonal relationships (e.g., family, peers). Developmental psychologists and family scientists have been taking a great interest in the role of nurture, particularly family, for every aspect of human development, including personality development.

The Role of Nature in Personality Development

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Sharma, A. R., McGue, M. K., & Benson, P. L. (1996a). The emotional and behavioral adjustment of United States adopted adolescents: Part I. An overview. Children and Youth Services Review, 18 (1–2), 83–100. https://doi.org/10.1016/0190-7409(95)00055-0 .

Sharma, A. R., McGue, M. K., & Benson, P. L. (1996b). The emotional and behavioral adjustment of United States adopted adolescents: Part II. Age at adoption. Children and Youth Services Review, 18(1–2), 101–114. https://doi.org/10.1016/0190-7409(95)00056-9

Simpson, J. A., Collins, W. A., Tran, S., & Haydon, K. C. (2007). Attachment and the experience and expression of emotions in romantic relationships: A developmental perspective. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92 , 355–367. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.92.2.355 .

Sroufe, L. A. (1997). Psychopathology as an outcome of development. Development and Psychopathology, 9 , 251–268. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954579497002046 .

Thomas, A., & Chess, S. (1977). Temperament and development . New York: Brunner/Mazel.

Thomas, A., & Chess, S. (1986). The New York longitudinal study: From infancy to early adult life. In R. Plomin & J. Dunn (Eds.), The study of temperament: Changes, continuities, and challenges (pp. 39–52). Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum.

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van den Boom, D. C. (1994). The influence of temperament and mothering on attachment and exploration: An experimental manipulation of sensitive responsiveness among lower-class mothers with irritable infants. Child Development, 65 , 1457–1477. https://doi.org/10.2307/1131511 .

van IJzendoorn, M., & Kroonenberg, P. (1988). Cross-Cultural patterns of attachment: A meta-analysis of the Strange Situation. Child Development, 59 (1), 147–156. https://doi.org/10.2307/1130396 .

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Shigeto, A., Voltaire, M. (2018). The Role of the Family in Personality Development. In: Zeigler-Hill, V., Shackelford, T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_1932-1

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PARENTAL INFLUENCE: DIRECT INTERACTIONS

Emotional identification, family stories, indicators of family relevance, other influences on child development, the role of parents in children's psychological development.

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Jerome Kagan; The Role of Parents in Children's Psychological Development. Pediatrics July 1999; 104 (Supplement_1): 164–167. 10.1542/peds.104.S1.164

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This article reviews the three major ways parents influence children: direct interaction, identification, and transmission of family stories. This essay summarizes some of the relevant empiric data in support of this claim and describes the operation of other mechanisms that also contribute to the child's development.

The profile of cognitive abilities, beliefs, ethical values, coping defenses, and salient emotional moods that characterizes each child at each developmental stage is the result of diverse influences operating in complex ways. Most students of human development agree that the most important determinants of the different profiles include 1) the inherited physiologic patterns that are called temperamental qualities, 2) parental practices and personality, 3) quality of schools attended, 4) relationships with peers, 5) ordinal position in the family, and, finally, 6) the historical era in which late childhood and early adolescence are spent. 1 Each of these factors exerts its major influence on only some components of the psychological profile and is usually most effective during particular age periods. For example, the quality of social relations with peers affects primarily the child's beliefs about his/her acceptability to others and has its major effect after school entrance. 2 By contrast, parental conversations with the child, and especially naming unfamiliar objects, affect the child's future verbal talents and have maximal effect during the first 6 years of life. 3

Current discussions of the consequences of parental practices, whether in the media or in professional journals, favor one of two positions. One awards seminal power to parental factors; the other minimizes the family. The advocates of attachment theory, for example, propose that the relationships established between an infant and its caretakers during the first 2 years of life have a permanent effect on the child's future. 4 But Harris's recent book, The Nurture Assumption , makes the opposite claim by arguing that parents have little or no permanent influence on their child's future personality. 5 Although the attachment theorists take too strong a position, I side with a majority of developmental scholars who, in disagreement with Harris, believe that parents do affect their child's psychological growth. This article summarizes what most developmental scientists believe to be the major effects of parents on children.

It is important to appreciate, however, that some of these effects are difficult to quantify and, as a result, scholars working in this domain are caught between two opposing imperatives. On the one hand, they recognize that conclusions must be based on empiric evidence; if one does not have valid measurements, one should be cautious. On the other hand, investigators also recognize the error of awarding significance only to statements that rest on objective measurements. Because the current Zeitgeist is more positivistic than it was a half-century earlier, contemporary scientists usually have ignored important causative conditions that are subtle in their expression.

Parents can affect their children through at least three different mechanisms. The most obvious, and the one easiest both to imagine and to measure, involves the consequences of direct interactions with the child that could be recorded on film. For example, a mother praises a 3-year-old for eating properly, a father threatens the loss of a privilege because a child refuses to go to bed, a parent names an unfamiliar animal in a picture book. These everyday events that involve the rewarding of desirable actions, the punishment of undesired ones, and the transfer of knowledge from parent to child have a cumulative effect. Failure to discipline acts of disobedience and/or aggression is correlated with children's asocial behavior. 6 Display of interest in a young child's activities is correlated with greater levels of responsivity in the child. 7

However, these first-order effects can have second-order consequences that appear later in life. A 7-year-old with a more extensive vocabulary than her peers, because her parents encouraged language development 5 years earlier, will master the tasks of the elementary grades more easily and, as a result, perceive herself as more competent than her peers. This belief is likely to embolden her to resist domination by others and, perhaps, motivate the initiation of unusually challenging tasks. The 7-year-old who was not chastised for aggressive behavior earlier or who had abusive or overly intrusive parents is likely to be aggressive with peers. As a result, these children provoke peer rejection and eventually come to question their acceptability to others. 8–10

An emotional identification with either or both parents represents a second, quite different way in which the family affects children. By age 4 to 5 years, children believe, unconsciously, that some of the attributes of their parents are part of their own repertoire, even although this belief might have no objective basis. 11 A girl whose mother is afraid of storms and large animals is tempted to assume that she, too, is afraid of these dangerous events; a girl with a relatively fearless mother will come to the opposite conclusion. In addition, children share vicariously in some of the experiences that occur to the parents with whom they are identified. A boy whose father is popular with friends and relatives, for example, will find it easier to conclude that he, too, has qualities that make him acceptable to others.

The more distinctive the features shared between child and parent, the stronger the identification of the former with the latter. A father who is tall, thin, and has red hair and freckles will, other things equal, engender a stronger identification in a son with these four features than in a son who is short, chubby, brown-haired, and has no freckles. 1 That is why many members of minority groups that possess distinctive features have a strong identification; for example, whites in South Africa are more strongly identified with their ethnic group than whites in the United States.

Children also can identify with the class, ethnic, or religious group to which their family belongs and often feel an imperative to honor the identification. To fail to do so is to violate a principle of cognitive consistency between an ethical standard and an action and, as a result, to feel uncertain. Some adolescents for whom the group identification generates anxiety may attempt to minimize bases for the perceived similarity; hence, some Jews change their last name, some Mexicans try to lighten their skin, and some African-Americans straighten their hair.

The importance of identification for personality development means that the parents' personality, talents, and character, as they are perceived by the child, are of significance. When the content of parental rewards and punishments is in accord with the adult's persona as a role model, the content of adult socialization is potentiated. A child praised for her intellectual competence by parents who read books and display a curiosity about the world is more likely to value intellectual pursuits than one whose parents praise academic success but do not display any interest in intellectual competence in their personal lives. Children tend to honor what parents do rather than what they say.

The power of identification can be seen in the robust relation between the educational level of the parents, which is a good index of the social class of the family, and many psychological outcomes, including level of school achievement, frequency of aggressive behavior, and attitude toward authority. 12 The psychological differences between young adults born to college graduates, compared with those born to parents who never graduated from high school, cannot be explained completely as a result of direct interactions between parents and children. These psychological products also involve the child's identification with the family's social class. The features that define social class, as distinct from ethnicity, include place of residence, nature of the neighborhood, and material possessions. But because most parents do not remind their children of their social class and signs of family's social class position can be subtle, a child's discovery of the family's class is conceptually more difficult than discovery of his/her gender or ethnicity and usually is not articulated before 7 years of age.

The proportion of economically stressed families in a particular region will affect the strength of a child's identification. An awareness of those who are affluent and those who are not is most distinctive in societies like our own, where there is considerable variation in material wealth. No uniform psychological outcomes flow from absolute poverty, but many predictable outcomes flow from the belief that one's family is either advantaged or disadvantaged relative to others. Because many Americans believe that persistent hard work and intelligence are all that are needed to gain the wealth that has become, in this century, a defining feature of personal worth, class has a greater potential for shame in America than it does in many countries of the world. Ten-year-olds who identify with their relatively poor families are vulnerable to feelings of shame or psychological impotence if they wonder whether their family's status is attributable to the fact that their parents were either lazy or incompetent. The literary critic Frank Kermode, born to poor parents, once admitted to feeling like an outsider, “Looking the part while not being equal to it seems to be something I do rather well.” 13 Because identification with a poor family can generate anxiety, shame, or anger, it can represent a chronic psychological stress that might contribute to the generally poorer health of the economically disadvantaged. 14

It has proven difficult to gather the objective evidence needed to affirm beyond doubt the truth of these statements about identification because of insufficiently sensitive procedures. However, some evidence does support this claim. In one unpublished study from my laboratory, white high school students, all with good grades, who came from either upper-middle or working-class families in the Boston area, came to a laboratory at Harvard University to be interviewed and evaluated for autonomic functioning. The working-class adolescents were more subdued in their interaction with the female examiner. In addition, the working-class youth had greater power in the lower-frequency band of the cardiac spectrum. This second fact implies greater sympathetic tone on the baroreceptor reflex, perhaps attributable to greater apprehension in a context that was symbolic of affluence and privilege.

A third mechanism of family influence is related to identification, but is more symbolic. Some parents tell their children stories about relatives —uncles, aunts, grandparents, cousins—who were, or are, especially accomplished in some domain. Perhaps an uncle made an important discovery, accumulated wealth, performed a courageous act, was a talented athlete or writer, or a respected public official. The child is likely to feel pride on hearing these stories because of the implication that if he or she is biologically related to this important family member, the child, too, must also possess some admirable characteristics. George Homans, an influential Harvard sociologist, noted in a memoir written shortly before his death that he coped with his childhood anxiety over poor school grades and unpopularity with peers by reminding himself that he could trace his pedigree back to John Adams. 15 Charles Darwin's description of his father glows with awe for his father's intelligence, sympathy, kindness, and business sense. 16 Darwin knew about the inheritance of psychological features through his acquaintance with animal breeders and may have felt that his cognitive talents were inevitable given his family's eminence.

Direct interactions, identification, and knowledge of the accomplishments of family members are three important ways in which families influence children. The first mechanism has its greatest effect on intellectual development and character traits, especially the control of aggression and motivation for achievement. The second and third mechanisms, identification and family myths, have a greater influence on the child's confidence or doubt about his/her talent and, therefore, on the child's expectation of future success or failure.

A persuasive source of support for the significance of family experience is found in follow-up studies of young children who suffered serious privation, usually the result of war, and were later adopted by nurturant families. Many of the orphans produced by World War II and the Korean conflict, who had extremely fragile bonds to any caretaker in their early years, appeared to develop well after adoption by loving foster parents. 17 ,18 More recently, a group of children who had spent the first year in depriving orphanages in Romania were adopted by nurturant British parents. When they arrived in London, they were emaciated and psychologically retarded, as one would expect, given their harsh experience. However, when they were evaluated several years later, after adoption by middle-class parents, a majority, although not all, were similar in their intellectual profile to the average British child (Michael Rutter, personal communication, 1998).

A study of 13 624 families living in 10 different cities provides a particularly persuasive demonstration of the importance of the family. The children, who were observed as infants and again at 3 years of age, had experienced varied forms of early care. Some were in day care centers, some were in family day care, and some were raised only at home. The form of care outside the home had little effect on the prevalence of problems with self-control, compliance, and asocial behavior; variation among the families was a critical determinant of differences in these psychological traits. 19

Although empiric data affirm that parental behaviors and personality traits influence the child's talents, motivation, academic performance, and social behavior, 20 their influence is part of a larger web of conditions that includes inherited temperamental biases, ordinal position, social class, ethnicity, quality of peer friendships, and the historical era in which adolescence is spent. The importance of temperament is seen in a longitudinal study of a large group of healthy children. Approximately 20% of these healthy infants inherited a temperament that was revealed at 4 months of age in vigorous levels of motor activity and irritability to unfamiliar stimulation. 21 Approximately one third of these infants, called high reactive, were shy and fearful to unfamiliar people and settings during the preschool years, and approximately one fourth were likely to develop anxious symptoms when they were 7 years old. 22 Although only 20% of the high reactive infants were consistently shy and fearful from 14 months to 8 years of age, it was rare for a high reactive infant to become a consistently bold, extroverted child.

The influence of ordinal position is affirmed by the fact that, controlling for social class, first-born children obtain better grades and are more often high school valedictorians than later born children. 23

The influence of historical era is revealed in a study of the cohort of Americans that was between 10 and 20 years of age during the economic Depression in America from 1930 to 1940. A large proportion of these American adolescents, who are now in their 7th decade, saved more money than the generation before or after and conducted their lives with a gnawing concern over financial loss. 24

The protest against the Vietnam War at the end of the 1960s also affected large numbers of privileged adolescents who turned against the values of established authority. College students seized administration buildings or shared sexual partners in unheated communal homes. High school youth defiantly left their classrooms to protest the war, and they got away with it. It is heady for a 16-year-old to defy the rules of authority and escape punishment. For many youth, such experiences eroded a tendency to worry about coming to work at 10:00 in the morning instead of 9 and leaving at 4 instead of 5. Many of these middle-class youth thumbed their noses at authority because they happened to be born during a brief period when segments of American society were uncertain as to which actions were legitimate. When history tears a hole in the fabric of consensual assumptions, the mind flies through it into a space free of hoary myth to invent a new conception of self, ethics, and society.

The influence of these extrafamilial factors suggests that it is more accurate to state that parental qualities contribute to a child's psychological profile, rather than to conclude that family conditions determine a particular outcome. An infant's secure attachment to a parent does not guarantee a benevolent outcome or protect a child against psychological problems later in life, but the secure attachment probably constrains the likelihood of producing an adult who is homeless. Physicians are familiar with this form of restrained conclusion. Chronic middle ear infection during the first 2 years of life does not always lead to language delay, but it can make a small contribution to that phenomenon.

Eleanor Maccoby, a colleague and a distinguished developmental psychologist, wrote that the contribution of parental practices to children's personality cannot be viewed in isolation. Each parental behavior or parental personality trait is part of a complex system that in some respects is unique to each parent–child relationship. 25

This conclusion is not different in substance from most generalizations about complex natural phenomena, including the appearance or extinction of a species or the duration of an infectious epidemic. The proper conceptual posture is restraint on shrill dogma that claims either that the family is without significance or that it represents the only conditions that matter.

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4: Influences of Family, Society, and Culture on Childhood

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Page ID 64519

Susan Eliason
Bridgewater State University

Learning Objectives

This week you will:

Describe and analyze the influences of family, society, and culture influence the lives of children.

Introduction

How are childhoods influenced by nature and nurture? This week we will consider how family society and culture influence the lives of children. You will explore how the natural sciences (biology) and social sciences (anthropology, psychology, social work, and sociology) study these influences on children. We will use an interdisciplinary approach to learn more about the topic of sexuality. I like to use Urie Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Theory to illustrate how the influences of nurture impact childhood. Watch Urie Bronfenbrenner Ecological Theory explained on You Tube on Blackboard to learn more about this model . How might Urie Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological theory help you study your research question or childhood in general ?

Terms and Definitions

Important concepts to look for in this chapter:

Socialization: the process where children learn to meet the expectations of and how to fit into a society.
self-chosen and self-directed
an activity in which means are more valued than end
structure, or rules determined by the players
imaginative, non-literal, mentally removed in some way from “real” or “serious” life
involves an active, alert, but non-stressed frame of mind. (Gray, 2008)
Competence: The ability, capacity, or qualification to perform a task, fulfill a function, or meet the requirements of a role to an acceptable standard.
Cultural Relativism : a person’s beliefs and activities should be understood based on that person’s own culture.
Developmentalism : The behavior of children is shaped by physical, psychological, and emotional development. Maturity is determined by age and stage of development.
Diversity : There are many different types of childhood.
Ethnicity : The culture of people in a given geographic region, including their language, heritage, religion and customs. To be a member of an ethnic group is to conform to some or all of those practices. Race is associated with biology, whereas ethnicity is associated with culture.
Familialization : the caring of children in individual households and homes by family members rather than in state institutions.
Gender : The condition of being male, female, or neuter. In a human context, the distinction between gender and SEX reflects the usage of these terms: Sex usually refers to the biological aspects of maleness or femaleness, whereas gender implies the psychological, behavioral, social, and cultural aspects of being male or female (i.e., masculinity or femininity.) [American Psychological Association, 2015]
Friendship : Children’s affective social relations with their peers and others.

American Psychological Association. (2015). APA dictionary of psychology (2nd ed.). Washington, DC: Author.

Ecological Systems Theory – used often in Social Work

Urie Bronfenbrenner (1917-2005) developed the ecological systems theory to explain how everything in a child and the child’s environment affects how a child grows and develops. The theory is illustrated in the figure below. This chapter will concentrate on the the Micro and Mesosystem levels. I find this model helpful in understanding the influences of nurture on childhood.

Bronfenbrenners_Ecological_Theory_of_Development_English.jpg

The microsystem is the small, immediate environment the child lives in. How these groups or organizations interact with the child will have an effect on how the child grows; the more encouraging and nurturing these relationships and places are, the better the child will be able to grow. Furthermore, how a child acts or reacts to these people in the microsystem will affect how they treat her in return. Each child’s special genetic and biologically influenced personality traits, what is known as temperament, end up affecting how others treat them.

The mesosystem , describes how the different parts of a child’s microsystem work together for the sake of the child. For example, if a child’s caregivers take an active role in a child’s school, such as going to parent-teacher conferences and watching their child’s soccer games, this will help ensure the child’s overall growth.

The exosystem includes the other people and places that the child herself may not interact with often herself but that still have a large effect on her, such as families workplaces, extended family members, the neighborhood,.

The macrosystem , which is the largest and most remote set of people and things to a child but which still has a great influence over the child. The macrosystem includes things such as the relative freedoms permitted by the national government, cultural values, the economy, wars, etc.

Chronosystem developmental processes vary according to the specific historical events that are occurring as the developing individuals are at one age or another. Moreover, cultures also are continually undergoing change.

As you read and explore the topics in the chapter, think about how the influences impact children.

Nature and Nurture Shape Childhood

Now, let’s use the concept of sexuality to see how nature and nurture are interconnected.

Nature and nurture, biology and culture, work together to shape human lives. Nature and nurture are intertwined, processes.

Do you assume biology (nature) is destiny that may be minimally modified by culture (nurture, or environment) throughout childhood?
Do you assume environment (nurture) is a more important factor in shaping individual psychology than biology (nature)?
Specifically, what is the relationship between biology and culture with respect to sexuality ?

The biological features of sex and sexuality are determined by chromosomes and hormones such as testosterone, estrogen, and progesterone. Biologically, there are more than 2 sexes – chromosomes which can be XX, XY, XXX, XXY, XO, XYY. XX is female and XY is male; usually if the Y exists the person is generally seen as male. O produces ambiguous sexual features. Hormones and sex are apparent at seven weeks in utero.

The difference between sex and gender is: sex is male or female and is biological . Gender is meaning given to biological sex by culture . We develop a gender identity which is how an individual identifies as masculine or feminine. Gender is a spectrum. We learn gender roles during childhood, such as, appropriate behaviors and work or division of labor

Can a male can be a female?
Is it only one or the other?
Are gender and sexuality fluid over a lifespan?
Can they change? Is sex a spectrum like gender?
nadleehi (born male functions in women roles)
Dilbaa (born female functions in male role)

I challenge you to reflect on gender and sexual diversity. Imagine you have a child who is born with an intersex anatomy [XXX, XXY, XO, XYY] You read up on diagnostic testing and the recommendations of the Intersex Society of North America , that suggest you give your child a binary gender assignment (girl or boy). Do you follow the advice of the ISNA? Why/why not? If not, what do you name your child? How do you dress your child? As your child acquires language, what pronouns do you use for your child? Would you use he, she, ze, or they? You inform yourself and read about current possibilities at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Resource Center’s article on Gender Pronouns What is ‘competency’?

Families should help children mature and become competent. The concept of competency is related to the concept of agency discussed in Chapter 2. Listening to children and respecting their opinions can contribute to their personal development. A supportive environment can lead to children to making better decisions, prepare them to participate in society and strengthen their accountability. Children’s competency or abilities may be recognized, ignored, encouraged or inhibited. The supporting adults’ willingness to respect children’s decisions will determine whether the children’s choices are honored Figure 1, described by Alderson (1992) and illustrated by Orr (1999), illustrate the internal and external variants that may influence a child’s competency. (van Rooyen, Water, Rasmussen, & Diesfeld, 2015)

When we consider competence, we should also think about cultural relativism, are there universal standards we can apply to childhood? Is the UNCRC a set of universal standards? Implementation of the UNCRC can be difficult when violations of the rights of children are justified on the basis of cultural practice. Think about the practice of female circumcision.

In 1996, a 17-year-old girl named Fauziya Kassindja arrived at Newark International Airport and asked for asylum. She had fled her native country of Togo, a small west African nation, to escape what people there call excision.

Excision is a permanently disfiguring procedure that is sometimes called “female circumcision,” although it bears little resemblance to the Jewish ritual. More commonly, at least in Western newspapers, it is referred to as “genital mutilation.” According to the World Health Organization, the practice is widespread in 26 African nations, and two million girls each year are “excised.” In some instances, excision is part of an elaborate tribal ritual, performed in small traditional villages, and girls look forward to it because it signals their acceptance into the adult world. In other instances, the practice is carried out by families living in cities on young women who desperately resist. For more information read the World Health Organization Fact sheet (2017) Female genital mutilation

Cultural relativism would accept the practice. Does the UNCRC allow the practice?

Role of families

As discussed during Week 1, we see the world through our cultural lens, we are cultural conditioned. Conditioning happens at different levels

Societal [Macrosystem in Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Theory]
Institutional [Exosystem in Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Theory]
Group [Microsystem in Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Theory]
Individual [The center of Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Theory]

The group level or microsystem in Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Theory includes families. One of the major influences on childhood is families. The family is the principal institution responsible for childbearing and childrearing so society assumes a more passive role in facing the commitments and costs connected to childhood. The UNCRC gives all children the right to a family. The right to a family allows children to be connected to their history, and it offers a protective perimeter against violation of their rights. Children separated from their families can become victims of violence, exploitation, trafficking, discrimination and all other types of abuse. However, sometimes the family which should be protecting the child is in fact inflicting the abuse.

Families are the first to have the power to act on behalf of the child and ensure their rights are respected. Hopefully, their objectives are to protect the child and to secure the child an education, development, security, health and morality. To achieve these objectives, a family should provide supervision by controlling the child’s comings and goings, relationships, and communications. For example, they may forbid the child from maintaining relationships with certain persons that they believe are not in his or her best interest. Families make educational decisions including religious and sex education and decide on the health care to give their child. Families are responsible for the needs of the child, such as food, clothing, shelter, educational costs, vacations (if possible), and health coverage. What happens to children when families find it difficult to provide basic needs? Families often struggle with finding time, money and resources to effectively parent. In the US, families may have difficulty earning a living wage, finding social supports, securing affordable housing, high-quality child care and paid family leave. It can be difficult to provide a nurturing environment all children need and may result in neglectful or abusive environment.

Did you know that in 2016 the relative poverty rate for children 0-5 in the U.S. was more than 25%; for ages 0-18 years the rate was about 22%. In other words about 1 out of 4 young children in the United States live in poverty. What changes in the US might lower the child poverty rate? How can we create environments that enrich the lives of all young children and their families, allowing them the opportunity to realize their full human potential?

A former student shared: So I definitely think that the Department of Children and Families (DCF) needs to be more pro-active in checking in on families, especially families living under the poverty line, to ensure they are receiving assistance if needed and that the child is living in a stable home where he/she is healthy and can thrive. I agree with the student that all children deserve a safe and healthy environment and our society should support them. I wonder why income often is the only resource considered when giving families assistance. To help you think about interacting with diverse families, please read the following scenario:

You are a teacher in the 4-year-old room at Kids Place child care center.Daequan and Mathew are two children in your class. Both were born at 30 weeks’ gestation and had hospital stays of about 6 weeks. Both are in generally good health and are monitored for respiratory illnesses. For the most part, the boys are reaching their developmental milestones, with slight delays in language/emotional development.

At the present time, Daequan and his mother, Shania, are living in a homeless shelter. Their home burned down 2 weeks ago and they had nowhere else to go. Matthew is part of an intact family. Ralph and Sue are his parents, and he has an older brother, Nick. The family lives in an affluent community a mile from Kids Place.

Which child would appear to be experiencing a greater number of risk factors that can affect his development?
With which family would it appear to be easier to develop a partnership? Why?

Then you learn:

Daequan and his mother have a number of extended family members available for support and will be moving into an apartment within a month’s time. Shania has contacted a number of local agencies for assistance to rebuild her and her son’s lives.

Matthew’s father travels 3 weeks out of the month. Sue is on medication for depression and has recently started drinking around the boys during the evenings and weekends. She turns down offers of help from her friends and family and tells them everything is fine with her marriage and her ability to raise her sons.

What questions might you or others ask to find out “the whole story”? Ruby Payne (2009) describes the nine resources by which one negotiates their environment. Poverty is when you need too many of these resources, not just financial.

Language (ability to speak formally)
Support systems
Relationships/role models
Knowledge of middle class rules

How do you and other discover what resources are available to children and families? How do you build on a families strengths. Everything that improves the economic security, safety and peace of mind of families improves parenting—and increases children’s chances for growing into healthy, compassionate and responsible adults. These include living wages and reliable hours, secure housing, high-quality childcare, paid family leave, safe neighborhoods, flex time, desegregation and social inclusion. Which disciplinary perspectives might help you understand family influences on childhood?

Friendships

Besides family and other adults in the culture, peers can be an influence on childhood. Recent research shows the importance of friendship, and its impact on mental and physical health. Preschool friendships are helpful in developing social and emotional skills, increasing a sense of belonging and decreasing stress. (Yu, Ostrosky, & Fowler, 2011). People who feel lonely or socially isolated tend to be more depressed, have more health issues and may have a shorter lifespan. (Lewis, 2016). Having a support system can help us handle hardships.

Selman and colleagues identified five successive stages in how children view friendships. The chart below illustrates the theory. Why might it be helpful to understand the stages of friendship? How would it inform your possible work with children and families?

Play in one way in which families and peers interact with the child. Play is essential to the cognitive, physical, social, and emotional well-being of children and youth and is one of the rights in the UNCRC. Article 31 of the UNCRC states:

1. Parties recognize the right of the child to rest and leisure, to engage in play and recreational activities appropriate to the age of the child and to participate freely in cultural life and the arts.

2. Parties shall respect and promote the right of the child to participate fully in cultural and artistic life and shall encourage the provision of appropriate and equal opportunities for cultural, artistic, recreational and leisure activity.

It is through play that children engage and interact in the world around them at an early age. Play allows children to create and explore a world they can master, conquering their fears while practicing adult roles, developing new competencies that lead to enhanced confidence and the resiliency they will need to face future challenges.

Child-directed play allows children to practice decision-making skills, move at their own pace, discover their own areas of interest, and ultimately engage fully in the passions they wish to pursue. When play is controlled by adults, children follow adult rules and lose some of the benefits child-directed play offers them, such as developing creativity, leadership, and group skills. Play builds active, healthy bodies. Play is a simple joy that is a cherished part of childhood. However, play can be challenged by child labor and exploitation practices, war and neighborhood violence, living in poverty, over scheduling, and pressures on children to achieve. (Ginsburg, 2007)

A wonderful resource to learn more about play is available on the National Association for the Education of Young Children website . After reviewing the information on the website reflect on these questions:

How can we enhance the opportunities for balance in children’s lives that will create the optimal development to prepare them to be academically, socially, and emotionally equipped for future growth? How can we make sure we play enough?

Genes make us human, but our humanity is a result of the complex interplay of biological and cultural factors. This week you read about the of the influences of family, society, and culture as they bear on the lives of children. As you discuss, try to answer: How are interactions between children and adults shaped, modified and redefined by overlapping institutional and organizational forces such as the economy, family, education, politics, religion, and so on? What is the impact of experiences in childhood later in life?

After reading this chapter and completing the activities you should be able to

Describe and analyze the influences of family, society, and culture influence the lives of children as seen the discussion and assumptions inventory

Reflection and Discussion

This week we explored the influences of family, society, and culture influence the lives of children. Reflect on your understanding of these ideas:

Now you are ready to type in Pages or in a Word document, a minimum of 3 paragraphs explaining your connections, extensions, and curiosities. Copy and paste your response in the Blackboard discussion or in class

Collaborative Research Project

So far during this course, you brainstormed a research question and should be using at least 2 disciplines to examine the question. Your work this week is to present your preliminary findings as a draft of the final project. Soon you will submit a video or some other oral report as well as written materials. You will likely use the same format as the Assumption Inventory. The report should

Summarize your research question ( What ). Remember to relate the question to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC)
Present the research from different disciplines that help to answer or explain the question. ( So What )
Apply criteria listed in the grading rubrics to create a persuasive presentation
Discuss possible solutions. (This is the start of the Now What of the project)
Complete a peer feedback questionnaire.

Ginsburg, K. R. (2007) The Importance of Play in Promoting Healthy Child Development and Maintaining Strong Parent-Child Bonds. Pediatrics, 119, (1). doi: 10.1542/peds.2006-2697 Available at http://pediatrics.aappublications.or...1/182.full.pdf

Lewis, T. (2016). This common characteristic may be as big a risk to your health as smoking. Business Insider Website available at: http://www.businessinsider.com/how-social-isolation-affects-your-health-2016-1

Selman, R. (1981). The child as a friendship philosopher. In S. A. Asher & J. M. Gottman (Eds.), Development of Children’s Friendships. (pp. 250-251). (Original work published 1978) Retrieved from http://books.google.com

van Rooyen, A., Water, T., Rasmussen, S., and Diesfeld, K. (2015). What makes a child a ‘competent’ child? The New Zealand Medical Journal, 128, (1426). Available at www.nzma.org.nz/__data/assets/pdf_file/0012/46110/van-Rooyen-1628FINAL1426.pdf

Yu, S. Y., Ostrosky, M. M. & Fowler, S. A. (2011). Children’s Friendship Development: A Comparative Study. Early Childhood Research and Practice, 13 , (1).

Personality

Do People in the Same Family Share a Personality Type?

"resilient" families may produce happier children..

Posted December 30, 2021 | Reviewed by Vanessa Lancaster

What Is Personality?
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Recent research indicates that families seem to have shared personality profiles.
Shared family personality profiles can affect the health and happiness of children well into adulthood.
A critical element that may differentiate healthy from unhealthy shared family personalities is the levels of shared neuroticism.

Do families “share” personality types, and do those early shared personalities affect you as an adult?

We all know that some aspects of personality are inborn, and the family environment shapes other parts. In a new study from longitudinal research following people from infancy to middle adulthood, it appears that families do indeed share personality profiles. More importantly, those personality types can affect an individual’s health and happiness well into adulthood.

A recent study from the Fullerton Longitudinal Study used advanced statistical techniques (Latent Profile Analysis) to examine “shared” family personality. Teenage children and their parents participated in the study, completing the Big Five personality inventory. The analysis looked at how the parents’ and child’s personality profiles revealed shared elements. Three personality profiles emerged:

The first was labeled the “ordinary family.” It consisted of shared above-average levels of Extraversion and Openness to Experience , below-average levels of Agreeableness and Conscientiousness , and average levels of Neuroticism . This was the most common family personality profile, covering more than half of the families.

The second profile was labeled the “ resilient family” and consisted of above-average levels of Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Openness, and below-average levels of Neuroticism .

The third and least common profile was labeled the “unhealthful family.” It was characterized by below-average levels of Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness , average levels of Openness, and above-average levels of Neuroticism .

The Results

At age 38, the children completed self-report measures of happiness and global health (both self-reported physical and psychological health). Children from the “resilient” families reported the highest levels of happiness as adults, followed by children from “ordinary” families, with the children of “unhealthful” families reporting the lowest levels of adult happiness.

A similar pattern was found with global health. In this case, children from “resilient” and “ordinary” families had higher levels of health compared to the children from the “unhealthful” families. Children from the “resilient” and “ordinary” families did not differ statistically on their self-reported physical and psychological health.

Implications

This is the first study to identify shared family personality—combining the personality inventories completed by mothers, fathers, and children—and measure the impact on the children decades later. It suggests that aspects of personality are shared among family members, but more importantly, these shared personality profiles can impact children likely throughout their adult lives.

An important component that seems to be influencing the positive-negative outcomes of adult happiness and health seems to be neuroticism, which is consistent with other research that suggests that individuals high on the neuroticism scale are at greater risk of experiencing adverse psychological outcomes.

This research is in press in the journal Personality and Individual Differences .

Facebook image: Monkey Business Images/Shutterstock

LinkedIn image: ravipat/Shutterstock

Preston, K.S.J., Pizano, N.K., Garner, K.M., Gottfried, A.W., Gottfried, A.E., Guerin, D.W., Ramos, M.C., Cheng, C.E., & Oliver, P.H. (in press). Identifying family personality profiles using latent profile analysis: Relations to happiness and health. Personality and Individual Differences.

Merz, E.L., & Roesch, S.C. (2011). A latent profile analysis of the Five Factor Model of personality: Modeling trait interactions. Personality and Individual Differences, 47, 1181-1195.

Ronald E. Riggio, Ph.D. , is the Henry R. Kravis Professor of Leadership and Organizational Psychology at Claremont McKenna College.

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How Does Culture Affect the Self Identity Personal Essay

Introduction, culture influence on personality identity, chinese – indonesians’ culture in relation to personal identity, how am i shaped and influenced by culture.

Culture or the way of life is attributed to the personality of an individual and makes them who they really are. Self awareness emphasizes the significance of an individual to exist and is attributed to social views and practices. It defines individual characteristics and contributes to the diversity of people in the world and this makes life interesting.

Culture and personal identity relate closely and are dependent on each other. Construction of identities is within individual in relation to a particular historical background and organization. This paper shall explore the personality trait explained above and explain the contribution that culture has made.

The vibrant Indonesian culture is ethnic and is also being influenced by countries such as China and India which neighbor it. Cultural identity is marked by the influence from the family, regional, and religious aspects. For instance, am a mixture of Chinese and Indonesian, born in Indonesia and have lived there my entire life.

My family background is relatively humble although my parents provide for my basic needs. However, Luxuries are not always present when needed. With hard work, the family is better than before since the parents have worked extra hard to make ends meet. Nevertheless, the initial financial constrains that my family experienced contributed to my personality.

I have come to be known as a girl of low profile since my cultural background has dictated so. I have learnt to save money and use it on important things only. In addition, I’ve learnt to share with others and not to become self-engrossed, an image that I always portray not only to my parents and friends but also to the society at large. This has made me and the whole family relate well with others.

Chinese- Indonesians are an ethnic minority whose culture is heterogeneous. They have been categorized into totok and peranakan. Since peranakan have their birthplace as Indonesia, they are identified with the ethnic regions of Indonesia and they disregard their Chinese origin.

In contrast, the totok has a lesser Indonesian orientation instead, are more of Chinese since them or their parents have been born in china (Aimee 77).

Another distinction is in the commercial activities undertaken by the groups. Totok group are geared on achieving business success and accumulate wealth. Thus, this is reflected in their self-reliance, investment approach, and prowess which are aspects that have greatly influenced my identity.

As a totok I practice a significant cultural value known as the guanxi . It is a concept which points out that for one to succeed, he or she should relate with people who matter and one must harmonize with the environment instead of altering it.

“For instance, through his personal and financial connections with government officials, particularly Suharto, whom he befriended long before he became Indonesia’s president, Liem Sioe Liong amassed a multibillion dollar importer that encompassed the manufacturing of cement and steel, automobile distribution …” (Aimee 78).

The example emphasizes the aggressiveness of the totok which in turn has taught me to avoid being self-centered but instead count on others in every activity I undertake in life.

On the other hand, the peranakan base their engagements on merit hence are not very successful in the Indonesian commercialism. Therefore, being a totok means that the culture has dictated my hardworking nature and most significantly, my networking and social nature. This has in turn affected my personality of being considerate of others and avoiding being self-centered.

Religious aspects, social environment, and distinct originality have had a strong effect on my identity. Being a Chinese- Indonesian I have learnt proper use of money and resources in order to become successful in life contribute to my identity of being low profile.

The family is a very important institution based on the cultural values if Chinese-Indonesians. Family ties are maintained and preserved by practice of norms such as marriage which ensures solidarity among members (Aimee 74).

It is the role of the parents to teach their children proper manners in life and this has been properly implemented by both of my parents in a strict way which has enabled me to follow the rules and regulations set in various areas quite easily. The family union is relevant to set a good example to the children and ensure happiness in marriage. Marriage is one cultural value that is highly regarded by Chinese-Indonesians.

Indonesian culture is very categorical on religious morals which are elements that are reflected in the entire society and more specifically by my trait of putting others ahead of me and sharing my resources with them. I believe that Sex before marriage is a vice that is forbidden by my culture which helps maintain an environment where children can grow well, become educated, and attain a high degree of moral standards.

Being a Muslim country it is also under the influence of other religions such as Buddhism as well as Hinduism which may as well have played a part on my personal identity. Its cultural, richness is depicted in the country’s art and theatre work such as dances and music.

The economic background, family relations and ethnic distinctions have contributed significantly to the personality trait of being a low profile person who is considerate of others. Moreover, belonging to a Chinese-Indonesian ethnicity means that I have interacted with several cultures.

A multicultural interaction may have similar or contradicting effects on personal identity which is reflected in my personality making it hard to evaluate specifically whether I am of totok o r peranakan origin.

Nevertheless the role played by my immediate family has guided me as I interact with the social environment around me. The culture has enabled me be identified in the society as a low profile woman. This does not only help to deliberately avoid undue prominence but also to exercise personal freedom and acceptance.

Aimee, Dawis. The Chinese of Indonesia and their Search For Identity: The Relationship Between Collective Memory and the Media . New York: Cambria Press. 2009. Print.

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The influences of family environment on personality traits

Affiliation.

1 Department of Clinical Neuroscience (Psychiatry), Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine, Suita, Osaka, Japan. [email protected]
PMID: 15558885
DOI: 10.1046/j.1440-1819.2000.00642.x

In order to clarify the influences of family environment on the development of personality traits, 150 children (104 males and 46 females, mean age 13.2 +/- 2.4 years) who had been interviewed at the Child Guidance Clinic in Osaka were investigated. From 13 behavioral characteristics (activity, talkativeness, sociability, social skills, rule-keeping, will, aggression, emotional control, imagination, anxiety, maturity, intelligence, and neuroticism), factor analysis identified three personality traits: extraversion, maturity, and intellect. The effects of family environment (maternal and paternal participation in child rearing before and after 4years of age, child-rearing style, parental relationship, sibling relationship, number of siblings, birth order, and socioeconomic status) on these personality traits were examined based on a structural equation model. The results found, first, that extraversion was negatively associated with overprotection/interference and with maternal participation in child rearing. Maturity correlated with high socioeconomic status, appropriate child-rearing style, and paternal participation in child rearing. Intellect was related to high socioeconomic status and maternal participation in child rearing. Second, path analysis with selected variables revealed that 8% of variance in extraversion, 14% in maturity, and 10% in intellect was due to family environment. Third, children with high introversion or high intellect had stronger influences from family environment than did those with high extraversion or low intellect.

Birth Order
Child Development*
Environment
Family Relations*
Parent-Child Relations
Personality*
Social Behavior*
Social Class
Temperament

Amelia Earhart Personality

This essay about Amelia Earhart’s childhood explores the formative experiences that shaped the pioneering aviator’s character and ambitions. Born into a household that valued independence and defied traditional gender roles, Earhart, known as “Meeley,” demonstrated an adventurous spirit and resilience from an early age. Despite the instability caused by her father’s employment and alcoholism issues, Earhart’s education and development were prioritized, fostering her innate curiosity and adaptability. A pivotal moment in her youth was her indifferent first encounter with an aircraft at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair, which contrasted sharply with the exhilaration she felt witnessing a stunt-flying exhibition years later, awakening her passion for aviation. The essay highlights how Earhart’s nurturing environment, combined with personal challenges and key experiences, ignited her interest in flying and set the foundation for her legendary career in aviation and her role as an inspiration to women aspiring to break barriers.

How it works

Amelia Earhart’s formative years were a mosaic of encounters and influences that sculpted her into the pioneering aviatrix and enduring emblem of bravery and exploration she is commemorated as today. Born on July 24, 1897, in Atchison, Kansas, Earhart’s nascent existence bore the imprint of an independent spirit and a proclivity for challenging the traditional gender roles prescribed to women in her epoch.

Since her early days, Amelia, affectionately dubbed “Meeley” by her kin, displayed an adventurous disposition and a defiance against conforming to the societal expectations of femininity prevailing at the time.

Nurtured in a household alongside her younger sibling, Muriel, Amelia found encouragement from their mother, Amy Otis Earhart, who advocated against confining her daughters within societal confines. This nurturing atmosphere granted Amelia the liberty to explore her inclinations, from entomology to arboreal escapades and participation in pursuits conventionally reserved for males during her youth.

The trajectory of Earhart’s education played a pivotal role in her maturation. Her scholastic journey traversed various institutions owing to her family’s frequent relocations, prompted by her father’s struggles with alcoholism and his intermittent employability. Despite the turbulence these circumstances wrought upon her life, they also imbued Earhart with a tenacity and adaptability that would emerge as defining traits of her character. Despite the financial constraints plaguing the family, Amelia’s mother safeguarded her educational pursuits, instilling in her a fervor for knowledge and a probing intellect.

A seminal juncture in Earhart’s juvenile years materialized during a sojourn to the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair, where she encountered her inaugural aircraft. Though this encounter failed to immediately kindle her ardor for aviation—it registered as a rather unremarkable incident at the time—it sowed the seeds for her subsequent fascination with flight. It was not until a decade later, at a daredevil airshow, that Earhart’s passion for aviation was genuinely ignited. As a plane careened past in a daring maneuver, she was seized by a surge of exhilaration that propelled her onto the trajectory of becoming one of history’s most celebrated aviators.

Amelia Earhart’s juvenile years were characterized by a nurturing milieu that prized autonomy and erudition, adversities that fortified her resilience, and pivotal episodes that ignited her passion for aviation. These components coalesced to mold a woman who shattered numerous records, defied gender stereotypes, and galvanized generations of women to pursue their aspirations, irrespective of societal constraints. Her formative years stand as a testament to the proposition that a spirit of exploration and a resolve to carve one’s own path can yield extraordinary accomplishments.

In summation, Amelia Earhart’s nascent experiences were pivotal in shaping the persona she would ultimately embody. The support of her family, coupled with the personal trials she confronted, engendered a plucky and venturesome spirit. Earhart’s juvenile escapades, from her tomboyish antics to the watershed moments that beckoned her to aviation, underscore the significance of milieu, education, and early passions in charting one’s trajectory in life. Through her narrative, we are reminded of the potency of nurturing a spirit of inquisitiveness and valor in the face of societal strictures, lessons as pertinent today as they were in the early 20th century.

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Impacts of family environment on adolescents’ academic achievement: The role of peer interaction quality and educational expectation gap

Associated data.

Publicly available datasets were analyzed in this study, this original data can be found here: http://ceps.ruc.edu.cn .

The current study uses a two-wave longitudinal survey to explores the influence mechanism of the family environment on adolescents’ academic achievement. The family environment is measured by parents and children’s reports, including family atmosphere, parent–child interaction, and family rules, to reveal the mediating effect of adolescents’ positive or negative peers between the family environment and academic achievement, and whether the gap between self- and parental educational expectation plays a moderating effect. This study uses the data of the China Education Panel Study (CEPS); the survey samples include 9,449 eighth-grade students (M age = 13.55 years, SD = 0.70), establishing a multilevel moderated mediating effect model. The results showed (1) the family environment and peer interaction quality can positively predict adolescents’ academic achievement. (2) Using the KHB test, peer interaction quality plays a partial mediating role in the process of family environment positively affecting academic achievement, and the mediating ratio is 27.5%. (3) The educational expectation gap moderates the effect of the family environment on academic achievement and also on peer interaction quality. Therefore, from the perspective of environment and important others, to correctly grasp the academic achievement of junior high school students in the process of socialization, it is necessary to recognize that the family environment, peer interaction quality, and educational expectation gap play an important role.

Introduction

The salient characteristic feature of junior high school students’ academic achievement is the systematic study and participation in various comprehensive practical activities to improve their knowledge and skills in preparation for their future development, including the perception of both students’ self-competence (reading, spelling, language, arithmetic) and school performance (daily ability, writing ability, school satisfaction, calligraphy ability) ( Chapman, 1988 ). Academic achievement in a narrow sense refers to students’ academic performance and course acceptance in school, while academic achievement in a broad sense refers to the knowledge, skills, and cognitive abilities that students acquire through certain teaching and training, both of which reflect the overall learning status and development of students ( Sacco, 1997 ). As the main manifestation of adolescents’ achievements in receiving school education, it is the goal of adolescents’ development in the student period, which is related to the success of adolescents’ future career opportunities. Some scholars focus on adolescents’ cognitive ability and non-cognitive ability ( Adams, 2021 ), prosocial behavior and problem behavior ( Karmakar, 2017 ; Padilla et al., 2018 ), social development ( Walters, 2013 ), and academic achievement ( Zhang et al., 2020 ) issues; a study found that knowledgeable and successful families are conducive to children’s non-cognitive ability and social development, and a good family atmosphere and a parent–child relationship contribute to the development of physical and mental health ( Marcenaro and Lopez, 2017 ; Obimakinde et al., 2019 ). Parents who communicate with their children, visit museums, or record daily activities can cultivate children’s information literacy, improve math and reading scores, and directly stimulate cognitive development ( Sibley and Dearing, 2014 ; Choe, 2020 ). Moreover, family socioeconomic status (SES), related developmental resources (including parental support, expectations, and reading resources), and students’ individual reading motivation (including reading engagement and reading confidence) also affect adolescents’ learning outcomes (including academic achievement, school grades, and reading competence) ( Mudrak et al., 2020 ).

With the increase in communication time between adolescent students and their peers, they gradually break away from their families to participate in peer interaction; peers have become another major field affecting their development ( Criss et al., 2016 ). The interpersonal relationship established by teenagers in the school field plays an essential role in their behavior development, cognitive ability, and academic performance, especially adolescents’ academic engagement or learning performance is influenced by friendship quality ( Sebanc et al., 2016 ), friends’ gain and loss ( Lessard and Juvonen, 2018 ), and peer personality ( Golsteyn et al., 2021 ) factors in peer groups. Reviewing the research on the influence of family and important others on students’ achievement, there are two main points of view: On the one hand, according to American psychologist Harris’ group socialization development theory, parents and peers are the main objects for adolescents to realize social dependence, and they advocate that individual development (physical and mental development, and academic performance) is affected by the two ‘independent systems’ inside and outside the family ( Harris, 1995 ). On the other hand, some scholars expressed that the influence of family members and peer groups on adolescents’ academic achievement was a kind of ‘mutual compensation’ ( Fukuoka and Hashimoto, 1997 ). Although considerable research has involved single factors in the family environment (including socioeconomic status, parental autonomy support, and parental involvement in education) ( Joussemet et al., 2005 ; Vasquez et al., 2016 ; Froiland and Worrell, 2017 ; Mudrak et al., 2020 ), important others, including teacher autonomy support, learning competition among students, and positive or negative learning behaviors of classmates, affect academic achievement ( Diseth and Samdal, 2014 ; Li et al., 2022 ; Qiu and Chai, 2022 ). A small number of studies have also introduced emotion regulation, adaptive competencies, and sense of autonomy at the individual level as mediating variables, and these influencing processes are different due to different grades and genders ( Liew et al., 2014 ; Qiu and Chai, 2022 ). However, from the beginning of junior high school, parents pay more attention to students’ academic achievement, and the time of students getting along with their peers in school is also significantly increased; much less is known about the role of peer relationships in the impact of family environment on academic achievement, and at the middle school stage, differences in educational expectations between parents and adolescents are constantly changing, which is particularly reflected in Chinese students. Therefore, this study is based on the academic achievement of Chinese adolescents; it is necessary to further study the internal relationship between the family environment and academic achievement by introducing the quality of peer interaction as a mediator and the factors of the gap between self- and parental educational expectations. This study seeks intervention measures from the factors of the quality of peer interaction and educational expectation gap, which will provide new ideas for improving the academic achievement of Chinese adolescents.

Literature review and hypotheses

Family environment and academic achievement.

The family environment is the sum of physical and psychological conditions, which carries the development of individual personality and behavior, among which family relations and parent–child interaction are its important components, affecting children’s academic achievement, character quality, and the expression of psychological modeling functions ( Wilder, 2014 ; Krauss et al., 2020 ). According to the family systems theory, the family is composed of several subsystems, which are interconnected and mutually constrained to make the whole family function well, and the better the coordination of the family system, the better the psychological shape and academic performance of the members ( Miller et al., 1985 ). Leung and Shek (2016) divided family functioning into five dimensions: family members’ relationship, communication and adaptation, conflict and harmony, parental attention, and parental control; in other words, the more harmonious family functioning is, the higher the self-rated family environment score is, emphasizing that family cohesion and harmonious parent–child relationship can promote adolescents’ physical and mental development. Findings of related scholars’ research on the impact of parental participation on children’s academic performance, development skills, and social behavior are given as follows ( McCormick et al., 2013 ; Karmakar, 2017 ; Boonk et al., 2018 ): Parents’ educational level directly affects their children’s reading comprehension and math achievement; among them, the influence of mothers’ education level will be more lasting. Parents’ active participation in education has a significant effect on children’s academic achievement, educational achievement, and mental health, in particular parents’ support for the educational process, the cultivation of extracurricular interest, and the guidance of homework have a strong positive effect on the academic performance of adolescents ( Wang and Sheikh, 2014 ; Benner et al., 2016 ). The family investment theory explains the effect of the family socioeconomic status on academic achievement ( Duleep, 1998 ). Parents with high socioeconomic status will invest more in their children’s education (parents’ attention, support, and investment), and their children‘s academic achievement will be better ( Mudrak et al., 2020 ; Poon, 2020 ; Zhang et al., 2020 ). At the same time, perceived positive emotional expression in the family, daily communication, rule-making, and conflicting parental relationships have varying degrees of impact on adolescents’ behavioral tendencies (learning method and problem behavior) and academic achievement (social science, reading, language, and natural science scores) ( Ghazarian and Buehler, 2010 ; Veas et al., 2019 ). It can be seen that previous studies mainly focus on the influence of factors from one aspect: family on children’s academic achievement. In addition, while promoting the smooth development of family education, recognizing the characteristics of the cognitive level and social competence of students at the junior high school stage, students’ academic achievements in a broad sense are affected by factors such as family atmosphere, parent–child interaction, and family rules. As Bronfenbrenner emphasized family as a microsystem that directly affects individual development ( Bronfenbrenner, 1986 ), it serves as an educational ground for children’s symbolic values, sense of honor and disgrace, lifestyle, and various action strategies. It is further speculated that the score of the family environment generated by a family atmosphere, parent–child interaction, and family rules will have a direct effect on children’s academic achievement.

Peer interaction quality and academic achievement

Students in junior high school travel between home and school, with alternating contact with parents and peers, and it is a process of gradual stabilization and continuous cognitive reproduction. In a diverse school, students tend to view themselves by the preferences or standards of their peer group, which subconsciously affects the acquisition of social values and the completion of their studies. In Coleman’s book “ The Adolescent Society ,” he points out that “teens suffering from rejection from peers is almost equivalent to being rejected by their parents” ( Coleman, 1961 ). Combined with the peer group effect theory, peer group interaction conveys social norms, values, knowledge, and skills, and positive or negative peer relationships affect the learning attitude, self-expectation, and cognitive development of the participants ( Winkler, 1975 ). Academic interaction between students in the classroom and the average score are all related to learning performance (math scores); forming a learning group can increase the possibility of cooperating to complete homework and enhance learning interest ( Carman and Zhang, 2012 ). Comparing students in the classroom with their peers in the living environment and interaction with roommates in the informal environment have a stronger impact on academic performance ( Jain and Kapoor, 2015 ; Fang and Wan, 2020 ). In essence, the structure of the peer network (quality, scale, heterogeneity, and cohesion) and students’ learning behavior (positive and negative) have an effect on students’ academic achievement ( Berthelon et al., 2019 ; Qiu and Chai, 2022 ). For example, with diligent and dedicated classmates, the higher the quality of peer interaction (more positive peers and less negative peers in peer interaction), the better the results in subsequent learning ( Golsteyn et al., 2021 ). In addition, in a better school, this peer effect will be amplified accordingly, that is, in a better school environment, students can interact with better peers, and the quality of making friends will be higher. They supervise each other in learning, and their academic performance will be better ( Wang et al., 2021 ). Previous studies have not taken the quality of adolescents’ peer interaction as an important variable for research. Therefore, based on the quality of peer interaction in adolescents, that is, the “negative” or “positive” behavior of friends will affect their external performance and internal cognition, it is inferred that the more positive the quality of peer interaction, the more conducive to higher academic achievement.

Mediating effect of peer interaction quality

The social development of students in adolescence is crucial. As adolescents are gradually fleeing from getting along with their parents to making new friends, it is predicted that the effect of peers in the group on the social action or mentality structure of adolescents is increasing ( Brown et al., 1993 ); peers play an important role in academic achievement. Parents and peers are the main objects for adolescents to rely on and complain to, and both of them play an important role in the process of individual socialization. Sociologists Hartup and Stevens (1997) proposed two different types of interpersonal relationships, vertical and horizontal, for children. Vertical relationship refers to the relationship between children and adults, such as the parent–child relationship and teacher–student relationship, which are complementary and provide children with a safety guarantee and a learning environment. Horizontal relationship refers to the peer relationship with the level of self-development, which has the function of providing physical and mental development and interaction for children. Therefore, students lack the support of parents and peer friendship and are prone to depression, resulting in academic waste, and it is prone to depression, resulting in academic abandonment. Research on the family environment (family social capital and parenting style), peer interaction, and adolescents’ academic achievement, there are two types of views: First, family and peer influence on adolescents is “independent.” According to Harris’ group socialization development theory ( Harris, 1995 ): individuals acquire two independent behavioral systems inside and outside the family—the effect of family on children’s socialization is weakening, while the influence of peer groups in schools is increasing; for example, family education resources and parents’ SES have direct effects on adolescents’ math achievement and problem-solving ability ( Long and Pang, 2016 ; Wang et al., 2021 ), and peer friendship quality and friends’ gain and loss predict adolescents’ learning engagement and academic achievement ( Sebanc et al., 2016 ; Lessard and Juvonen, 2018 )—getting along with friends who study well and live actively influences their initial study and helps in getting better grades. Second, the influence of peers and family on adolescents is a “complementary” view ( Fukuoka and Hashimoto, 1997 ), that is, peer interaction transmits the effect of family environment on adolescents’ academic performance, compared with childhood, at the adolescent stage, parent education and parent-child interaction no longer meet their needs, but gradually extend to seeking support or help among peers, and peer interaction and family environment together influence adolescents’ growth. The family environment (parenting style, behavior supervision, and emotional intervention) plays a decisive role in the quality of peer interaction among adolescents; for example, parents supervise their children’s home time, places to go out, friend interactions, and homework completion, which would increase children’s exposure to peers with positive learning behaviors ( Deutsch et al., 2012 ; DeAnna, 2016 ), which indicates that parent–child communication and parental educational involvement influence children’s interpersonal interactions. At the same time, the peer network structure, friend quality, and personality orientation also affect students’ academic achievement ( Berthelon et al., 2019 ; Golsteyn et al., 2021 ). Based on the available research, a more superior family environment may have a positive effect on students’ academic achievement by increasing their peer interaction quality.

Moderating effect of educational expectation gap

Educational expectation is based on one’s cognitive ability, realistic conditions, and parents’ expectation of children or adolescents’ academic achievements in their future ( Wang and Benner, 2014 ). It belongs to a category of social cognition, including the sender and the expected. When the two are the same individual, it is called “self-education expectation,” and when the expectation is sender by parents and the expectation is expected by children, it is called “parental education expectation” ( Wang and Benner, 2014 ; Castro et al., 2015 ). The identity control theory points out ( Peter, 1991 ) that parental education expectation is seen as a reflective evaluation of important others, and it is an important type of social environment information input; self-education expectation is regarded as an individual’s identification standard of the current social role. When the two are inconsistent, individuals will have a sense of stress, which even leads to psychological distress and affects development, and is closely related to individual intrinsic motivation ( Moe, 2016 ). When parents’ educational expectation is moderate, it is conducive to the cultivation of children’s social value and the shaping of healthy personality, while when parents’ expectation is much higher than their children’s self-expectation, it will make the goal impossible to achieve, resulting in tense parent–child relationship and weariness of learning, which will harm academic achievement ( Marcenaro and Lopez, 2017 ; Lv et al., 2018 ). On the one hand, children’s reading and math scores are related to net household assets; the higher the SES of parents, the higher the educational expectation for their children, providing a quality educational environment to ensure that children have good supportive resources. Parents’ higher education expectation or lower self-education expectation moderates this effect ( Zhan, 2006 ; Zhang et al., 2011 ). The higher parental expectation and short-term educational expectation in junior high school have a lasting positive effect on children’s academic performance (school achievement, test scores, and academic completion) ( Yamamoto and Holloway, 2010 ). In fact, in the study of parents’ expectations and their children’s academic achievement (reading achievement and academic achievement), parents’ expectation of their children’s study is consistent with their expectation of self-education, which can better improve their social cognitive ability ( Phillipson and Phillipson, 2012 ; John and Bierman, 2017 ). It shows that the educational expectation gap between children and parents will moderate the impact of the family environment on academic achievement.

On the other hand, according to the analysis of the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) data, children grow up under the emotional education of their parents and have a better experience of happiness, making friends with active companions, less likely to fight, smoke, or take drugs ( Chan and Koo, 2011 ). In the study of 497 Dutch adolescents (13 years) from exposure to negative peers to crime, parents’ excessive restrictions on their children’s friends hinders their ability to develop autonomously and increases the risk of having bad peers ( Keijsers et al., 2012 ). Parents with higher SES have a higher expectation for their children, which accordingly enlarges the negative effects of problem peers. This process reflects that parents’ expectations, or parenting styles moderate the impact of family socioeconomic status on deviant peers ( Forgatch et al., 2016 ; Valdivia and Castello, 2020 ). Reviewing the research on the differences between children’s self-education expectation and perceived parents’ educational expectation, parents’ educational expectation is not always consistent with that of their offspring; both have different perceptions of future educational goals, which is universal ( Rutherford, 2015 ). When there is a large gap between parents’ educational expectation and self-educational expectation, the educational expectation gap affects the quality, scale, and structure of children’s peer relationship. Based on this, this study introduces the concept of the “educational expectation gap,” speculating that the intergenerational educational expectation gap plays a moderating role between the family environment, peer interaction quality, and academic achievement.

Present study and hypotheses

Previous studies reported the relationship between the family environment and academic achievement ( Benner et al., 2016 ; Boonk et al., 2018 ; Veas et al., 2019 ; Mudrak et al., 2020 ) and introduced the factors of parental education expectation, self-education expectation, and peer interaction ( Phillipson and Phillipson, 2012 ; Sebanc et al., 2016 ; Lessard and Juvonen, 2018 ; Qiu and Chai, 2022 ). Among them, most studies regard parental education expectation and self-education expectation as separate variables to examine the effect of the family environment on academic achievement ( Marcenaro and Lopez, 2017 ; Lv et al., 2018 ), and some scholars also studied the influence of the peer network structure, friendship quality, and personality orientation on adolescents’ academic achievement ( Berthelon et al., 2019 ; Golsteyn et al., 2021 ). Parents supervise their children’s home time, places to go out, friend interactions, and homework completion, which would increase children’s exposure to peers with positive learning behaviors, which may have a positive impact on children’s academic achievement ( Deutsch et al., 2012 ; DeAnna, 2016 ). However, few studies have emphasized the impact of the family environment and peer interaction quality on adolescents’ academic achievement and the role of the gap between parents’ and children’s educational expectations in this process, in particular the study of adolescents who are in the middle school stage and have high expectations for parental education and more contacts with peers. Therefore, according to the ecosystem theory ( Bronfenbrenner, 1986 ), the environment in which human beings live consists of four systems: microsystem, mesosystem, external system, and macrosystem, among which the microsystem refers to the way of activity, role patterns, and interpersonal relationship patterns of individuals in a particular environment; the way of behavior that promotes or inhibits individuals in that environment; and the interaction between individuals and that environment, which directly affects human cognitive ability, social development, and academic achievement; that is, the family environment and peer interactions are important microsystems of the individuals’ lives. This study constructs an analytical framework of significant others embedded in the family environment and then combines the peer group effect ( Winkler, 1975 ) and the identity control theory ( Peter, 1991 ), which emphasize the differences from significant others, self, and other identity criteria, to explore the role of the quality of peer interactions and educational expectation gap of adolescents in the microsystem in the impact of the family environment on academic achievement. Based on available research results, this study proposed the following hypotheses and a moderated mediation model (see Figure 1 ).

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Moderated mediation model.

Hypothesis 1 (H1) : Family environment will have a direct effect on adolescents’ academic achievement.

Hypothesis 2 (H2) : Peer interaction quality will have a direct effect on adolescents’ academic achievement.

Hypothesis 3 (H3) : Peer interaction quality will play a mediating role between family environment and adolescents’ academic achievement.

Hypothesis 4a (H4a) : Educational expectation gap will moderate the effect of family environment on adolescents’ academic achievement.

Hypothesis 4b (H4b) : Educational expectation gap will moderate the effect of family environment and adolescents’ peer interaction quality.

Materials and methods

Research data.

The data for this study are from the nationally representative “China Education Panel Study” (CEPS) implemented by the China Survey and Data Center of the Renmin University of China. The survey involves students, schools, and districts of multilevel characteristic variables, using a stratified multistage, probability, and scale proportional (PPS) sampling method. A total of 438 classes were randomly selected from 112 schools of 28 county-level units, and all the students in the selected class were investigated, in the baseline survey in 2015. A total of 10,279 junior middle school seventh-grade students were present after data merging and missing values filling, and 9,449 eighth-grade students successfully tracked in the 2016 follow-up survey are used as effective samples.

Variables and measurements

Academic achievement.

Combining the narrow and broad definitions of academic achievement ( Sacco, 1997 ), it refers to students’ academic performance and course acceptance at school, as well as knowledge, skills, and cognitive abilities acquired through certain teaching and training. The academic achievement of this study is measured by three indicators: students’ cognitive ability, test scores, and the acceptance ability of the main courses (Chinese, Math, and English). The project team designed a cognitive ability scale, which includes 22 items in three dimensions of language, graphics, and computing and logic, to measure students’ logical thinking and problem-solving ability. Each student’s score is used to measure cognitive ability. Referring to the academic achievement index ( Li et al., 2022 ), test scores are the total scores of students’ Chinese, math, and English midterm examinations. The ability to accept the main course is measured by asking students whether “is it hard to learn at present?” in the three courses of Chinese, math, and English, and each question corresponds to four options, with 1 representing “special effort” and 4 representing “no effort.” The scores of the three question items were summed to generate a continuous variable with a value range of 3–12. The higher the score, the easier the learning process experience. Based on the fact that academic achievement in this study includes three dimensions of cognition, objectivity, and subjectivity; the common factors of these three dimensions are extracted through exploratory factor analysis (EFA). The first factor is 1.63, and the second factor is 0.75 (1.63/0.75 = 2.17, 2.17 < 3), indicating that the constructed academic achievement is multidimensional. At the same time, considering that in the item response theory (IRT) model, the respondents’ response to the project (the probability of right answer) and their potential (psychological traits) have a certain connection and need to meet the measurement is a one-dimensional premise assumption ( Lord and Wingersky, 1984 ; Reise et al., 1993 ). Therefore, the method of dimension reduction of academic achievement by the EFA test is better. The results show that the cumulative variance contribution rate is 80.2%, the Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin (KMO) value is 0.714, and the Bartlett sphericity test is significant ( p < 0.05), and the constructed academic achievement index has less information loss and strong representativeness.

Family environment

Based on the Family Environment Scale ( Oliver et al., 1988 ), Family Environment Scale-Chinese Version is revised ( Ni et al., 2021 ), including intimacy, emotional expression, contradiction, independence, success, culture, entertainment, morality, organization, and control; Cronbach’s alpha coefficients of each dimension is between 0.68 and 0.87. Combining with the Effective Pre-school and Primary Education project (EPPE), the scale includes parents’ attitudes and interaction with parents ( Eisenstadt, 2010 ). In this study, 29 items of the family atmosphere (seven items), parent–child interaction (eleven items), and family rules (eleven items) in CEPS were selected to evaluate adolescents’ family environment, using a three-point Likert scale; the higher the total score, the better the family environment, and Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of the questionnaire is 0.84.

Peer interaction quality

Using the Reference Friendship Quality Scale (FQS) ( Bukowski et al., 1994 ) and peer relationship measurement ( Martina et al., 2020 ), according to the items included in CEPS, positive peer interaction among students “friends with good grades, hard work, and want to go to college” (three items), and negative peer interaction “absence of class, violation of school discipline, fighting, smoking and drinking, Internet cafes or game hall, early love, dropout” negative peer interaction (seven items) were investigated. All were scored by a three-point Likert scale. Comparing the score of positive peer interaction with the total score of positive and negative peer interaction, the value is a continuous variable; the larger the value, the more positive the peer interaction and the higher the peer quality. We conduct confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) on 10 items; the average variance extracted (AVE) of each second-order factor is between 0.570 and 0.594, which is greater than 0.50, and the composite reliability (CR) is between 0.798 and 0.910, which is greater than 0.70, indicating that the aggregation validity is high. The results of the model showed that Chisq = 1206.813, df = 34, Chisq/df = 35.494, RMSEA = 0.060, RMR = 0.006, GFI = 0.974, CFI = 0.976, TLI = 0.968, indicating that the results of CFA had good fitting indicators, and the resulting peer interaction quality had good stability and fitting degree.

Educational expectation gap

Based on the measurement of educational expectation ( Rutherford, 2015 ; Marcenaro and Lopez, 2017 ), since the general educational expectation of Chinese parents for their children is whether or not they can get into college, in this study, parental education expectation was measured by the parental question “what degree do you want your child to read?”; similarly, students’ self-education expectation was measured by the student question “what degree do you want yourself to read?.” Among the operationalized variables, parental education expectation was divided into two groups: parents want their children to go to college and not to have to go to college. Similarly, students’ self-education expectations were divided into two groups: students who wanted and did not want to get themselves into college. The difference between the former and the latter is used to generate the “educational expectation gap” variable; that is, parental education expectation below or equal to students’ self-expectation is labeled “low educational expectation,” and parental education expectation above students’ self-expectation is labeled “high educational expectation.” The educational expectation gap was converted into a dichotomous variable with a value of 0 or 1.

Analytical strategy

Considering the heterogeneity between different schools and relatively high homogeneity among students in the same school, we established a multilevel linear model to explore the relationship between adolescents’ academic achievement at the individual and school levels. We used Stata 15.1 software to transform the academic achievement (time 1 and time 2) into the range of 0∼100 by range normalization ( Hoffman, 2015 ; Maslowsky et al., 2015 ), that is, X’ = (X–X min )/(X max –X min ) × 100; eliminate the influence of variation dimension and variation range; and ensure that the estimated results can be compared under the same dimension: (1) Descriptive statistical results were presented, and 4,481 female students (47.4%) and 4,968 male students (52.6%) were included in the follow-up survey. The age ranged from 12 to 18 years old, M age = 13.55 years, SD = 0.70. There were 4,214 singleton students (44.6%) and 5,235 non-singleton students (55.4%). Table 1 . (2) The differences in the academic achievement of students with different family backgrounds and the correlation test of core variables were analyzed. (3) The influence of family environment and peer interaction quality in the base period survey (time 1) on the academic achievement tracked (time 2), and the role of educational expectation gap in it were also analyzed; if p < 0.05, regression is considered to be important. Academic achievement is measured by a lag phase of data, which can solve the endogenous problem and predict current academic achievement from the past environment or other factors. It has a clearer causal logic relationship ( Hoffman, 2015 ). The main study steps are as follows: First, a null model M0 with a random intercept but no explanatory variable is estimated to explore the total difference in academic achievement, which is decomposed into the difference between students and schools, and establish a school fixed effect model ( Bryk and Raudenbush, 1987 ). Second, model M1 tests the effect of the family environment. Third, model M2 tests explain differences in the peer interaction quality on academic achievement. Fourth, model M3 also adds the effects of the family environment and peer interaction quality prediction on academic achievement. Model M4 takes the sum of base period data and tracking data (academic achievement) as the dependent variable to test the robustness of the model. Finally, models M5, M6, and M7 are constructed to test whether peer interaction quality plays a mediating role between the family environment and academic achievement. The mediating effect test usually includes the Sobel (1982) test and stepwise method ( Baron and Kenny, 1986 ); these two methods require the assumption that the product term variables formed by the two methods have normal distribution, resulting in low test power on the test coefficient items in turn. In smaller samples, the bias-corrected bootstrap often reduces the error more than other methods ( Hayes and Scharkow, 2013 ). This study explores the effect of the family environment on academic achievement through mediating variables and uses KHB method to test the effect and size of mediation ( Kohler et al., 2011 ); the method can be any of Regress, Logit, Ologit, Probit, Oprobit, Cloglog, Slogit, Scobit, Rologit, Clogit, Mlogit, Xtlogit, or Xtprobit, and it can be extended to other models. At the same time, we also used the bootstrap repeated test results to further verify that peer interaction quality does play a mediating role. The models M5^ and M6^ are used to verify the moderating effect of the educational expectation gap; if the product of predictor (family environment) and moderator (educational expectation gap) has a significant effect on outcome variables (academic achievement and peer interaction quality) ( Baron and Kenny, 1986 ), it proves that the moderating variable plays a moderating role.

Variables of descriptive statistical results.

Brackets as the reference group. Academic achievement standardized to 0∼100.

Class differences, correlation, and fixed effect test of adolescents’ academic achievement

Analyzing the differences in adolescent academic achievement across family backgrounds (see Figure 2 ). Adolescents with high education-level parents, party membership, and household registration in urban areas have good academic achievements. In addition, in order to reveal the factors affecting adolescents’ academic achievement accurately, we tested the correlation of core variables. Academic achievement was positively correlated with the family environment ( r = 0.31, p < 0.05) and peer interaction quality ( r = 0.39, p < 0.05), and the family environment was positively correlated with peer interaction quality ( r = 0.28, p < 0.05). The educational expectation gap was negatively correlated with academic achievement ( r = −0.15, p < 0.05), family environment ( r = −0.07, p < 0.05), and peer interaction quality ( r = −0.13, p < 0.05). At the same time, we selected 20 schools as a small sample, aiming at determining the main effect of each school’s adolescents’ family environment on academic achievement, and measured the different intercepts and slopes in different schools, which confirmed the need to build a fixed effect model (see Figure 3 ).

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Differences in adolescents’ academic achievement in different households.

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Fixed effect test of different school academic achievements.

Multilevel regression estimation of adolescents’ academic achievement

As given in Table 2 , adolescent academic achievement was considered as the dependent variable and M0 as a null model, and the overall differences in academic achievement are broken down into differences between students and schools. The ICC between groups was 0.319, which shows that it is very suitable to use a multilevel regression model to control for heterogeneity factors between schools and to better estimate the net effect of family and peer-level factors on academic achievement. After M1 controls variables at the individual and school levels, the family environment has a positive impact on academic achievement (β = 0.26, p < 0.001); hence, H1 is verified. Similarly, in M2, peer interaction quality has a positive effect on academic achievement (β = 0.47, p < 0.001), that is, for every one-unit increase in the quality of peer interaction, adolescents’ academic achievement significantly increases by 47.0%; hence, H2 is verified. In M3, the family environment and peer interaction quality are added to confirm that the coefficients of the multilevel nested model have good stability, and it was found that the coefficient of family environment variables decreased from 26.0% to 19.0% after joining peer interaction quality, and it was still significant. It is necessary to further test the internal mechanism of the family environment and peer interaction quality affecting academic achievement. In M4, the mean value of the dependent variable (academic achievement) of the baseline survey and the follow-up survey is calculated. We built a full model, and the results are consistent with the influence coefficients in M3, showing that the whole research has good robustness.

Multilevel regression estimation results of adolescents’ academic achievement.

+ p < 0.1, * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001.

Family environment, peer interaction quality, and academic achievement: Moderated mediation model test

Table 3 , in M5, academic achievement as the dependent variable, the total effect of the family environment on academic achievement is 26.0%. In M6, with peer interaction quality as the dependent variable, the effect of family environment on peer interaction quality is 17.0%. In M7, with academic achievement as the dependent variable, the direct effect of adolescents’ family environment on academic achievement is 22.0%, which was 4.0% lower than the total effect (0.26–0.22 = 0.04), and the peer interaction quality has a significant impact on academic achievement (β = 0.42, p < 0.001). It shows that peer interaction quality transmits the influence of the family environment on adolescents’ academic achievement, especially the KHB test shows that peer interaction quality plays a partial mediating role in the process of the family environment affecting academic achievement, and the mediating ratio is 27.5%; hence, H3 is verified. Meanwhile, in M5^, the interaction between the family environment and educational expectation gap has a negative significant effect on academic achievement (β = −0.24, p < 0.001), and peer interaction quality moderates the effect of the family environment on adolescents’ academic achievement; hence, H4a is verified. In M6^, the interaction between the family environment and educational expectation gap had a negative effect on peer interaction quality (β = −0.07, p < 0.01), and peer interaction quality moderates the effect of family environment on peer interaction quality of adolescents; hence, H4b is verified. It shows that in the case of different educational expectations, the influence of the family environment on adolescents’ academic achievement and peer interaction quality is different; compared with the high-education expectation group, the influence of the family environment on adolescents’ academic achievement (β = −0.24, p < 0.001) and peer interaction quality (β = −0.07, p < 0.01) was weaker than that of the low-education expectation group.

Peer interaction quality and educational expectation gap: Moderated mediation effect test.

+ p < 0.1, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001.

According to the estimation results of the models in Tables 2 , ,3, 3 , we further draw the path diagram of the moderated mediation model. Figure 4 shows that the family environment and peer interaction quality have a significant positive effect on adolescents’ academic achievement of 0.26 and 0.47, respectively, which clearly verifies H1 and H2. Figure 5 shows the coefficients of the three paths of family environment → peer interaction quality, peer interaction quality → academic achievement, and family environment → academic achievement are 0.17, 0.42, and 0.22; it is measured that peer interaction quality transmits the effect of the family environment on adolescents’ academic achievement by 27.5% [(0.17 × 0.42)/0.26 = 0.275]. At the same time, bootstrap was used for the mediating test ( Hayes and Scharkow, 2013 ), and the mediating effect of peer interaction quality was tested by repeated sampling for 1000 times using the bootstrap method; the 95% confidence interval (CI) was [0.163, 0.196], which again verified that peer interaction quality plays a mediating role before family environment and academic achievement; hence, it supports H3. Figure 6 shows that the effect of interaction between the family environment and peer interaction quality on academic achievement is −0.24, and the effect of interaction between the family environment and educational expectation gap on peer interaction quality is −0.07, both of which indicate that the higher educational expectation gap will put adolescents’ academic achievement and peer interaction quality at a disadvantage, thus verifying H4a and H4b.

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Moderated mediation model (H1 + H2). *** p < 0.001.

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Moderated mediation model (H3). *** p < 0.001.

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Moderated mediation model (H4a + H4b). ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001.

Students in the junior middle school stage are in puberty where their physical and mental development are not yet mature and are easily affected by important others and external environmental factors. Therefore, this study explores the relationship among the family environment, peer interaction quality, educational expectation gap, and adolescents’ academic achievement and further promotes the development of relevant theories. It also has important practical significance to improve adolescents’ academic achievement. On the one hand, this study is based on the ecosystem theory ( Bronfenbrenner, 1986 ), peer group effect theory ( Winkler, 1975 ), and identity control theory ( Peter, 1991 ). Placing adolescents’ academic achievement in a system influenced by the interaction of individual and environment, interactions between peer groups convey social norms and values, as well as parental education expectation is regarded as a reflective evaluation of important others, and there are differences between it and self-education expectation as the standard of individual’s current role orientation. Practical combined with theory, an analytical framework was constructed to study the academic achievement of adolescents, and it was verified that family environment and peer interaction quality play a positive role in academic achievement, which is basically consistent with previous research results ( Carman and Zhang, 2012 ; Boonk et al., 2018 ; Berthelon et al., 2019 ; Zhang et al., 2020 ), greatly expanded the Ecosystem Theory embedded in micro theory (Peer Group Effect, Identity Control) to study the academic achievement of adolescents.

On the other hand, this study also has important practical significance. It makes us understand the mediating role of peer interaction quality (from the influence of important others) between the family environment and academic achievement and enriches the research on the influence of the family environment and important others on academic achievement. It is necessary to pay attention to the influence of the family environment on children’s academic achievement in multiple ways, to create an active family atmosphere, frequent parent–child interaction, and strict family rules and to dynamically understand the quality of children’s peers. At the same time, the influence of peer interaction quality on academic achievement is a double-edged sword. When parents’ education expectation is higher than self-education expectation, it will not only negatively affect adolescents’ academic achievement but also lead to more negative peers; however, the gap between parents’ education expectation and self-education expectation is moderate, which plays a positive role in adolescents’ academic achievement ( Zhang et al., 2011 ; Marcenaro and Lopez, 2017 ). Therefore, we call on all sectors of society to pay attention to the moderate expectations of parents in the family for their children’s future roles or achievements and avoid pressure caused by too high or too low expectations. This plays an important role in children making positive peers and friends and achieving good academic achievements.

The mediating effect of peer interaction quality between family environment and academic achievement

The family environment is the external support resource to ensure adolescents’ academic success and the premise of various related factors in the teaching process. It is the initial field of children’s socialization and the carrier of shaping good academic achievements. Through the mediating effect test, the peer interaction quality of adolescents conveys the partial effect of the family environment on academic achievement. The empirical study dialogs with Harris’ group socialization theory and further verifies that peer interaction quality is the link between the family environment and children’s academic achievement ( Fukuoka and Hashimoto, 1997 ). The family environment directly affects the individual’s academic achievement, which is consistent with the results of studies indicating that family socioeconomic status, parents’ attention, support, and investment in children’s education affect their academic performance ( Poon, 2020 ; Zhang et al., 2020 ). At the same time, the family function also affects group selection and friend composition in individual peer interaction. Interaction with peers exerts a subtle influence on children’s academic achievement and personality shaping, which is consistent with previous studies ( Deutsch et al., 2012 ; DeAnna, 2016 ). In short, the present study introduced the mediating variable of peer interaction quality, which distinguished it from previous studies that commonly used learning anxiety, learning engagement, sense of autonomy, and parental involvement as mediating variables to build multiple or chained mediation models ( Li et al., 2022 ; Qiu and Chai, 2022 ), greatly enriches the research on academic achievement, putting children’s academic achievement in the symbolic social living space where the family field and peer network are nested, to form a dynamic field to assist children’s social development and renewal, through peer interaction quality (important others) indirectly affect individual academic achievement, this provides clues and support for further exploring the influence of peer groups on students’ academic achievement.

The moderating effect of educational expectation gap between family environment, academic achievement, and peer interaction quality

We propose a moderated mediation model based on relevant theories, by examining the role of the educational expectation gap within the family. Parents’ high educational expectations have a negative moderating effect on children’s academic achievement. That is, the model of ‘mother’s actual education wish >self-education wish’ negatively predicts academic performance, while the model of “mother’s actual education wish <self-education wish” positively predicts academic performance ( Wang and Benner, 2014 ). Differences in educational expectations similar to those between parents and children will hinder children’s reading, mathematics, language, and grade point average (GPA) ( Rutherford, 2015 ; Marcenaro and Lopez, 2017 ). The difference in educational expectations between parents and children is the product of the normal development process of an individual, and it is related to the pressure within the family (family function disintegration, poor family interaction, and poor family cohesion) that can make family members inconsistent ( Minuchin, 1985 ). It may also be the reason for the correlation between the intrinsic motivation of adolescents (including enthusiasm, pleasure, interest, enjoyment, and curiosity) and self-expectation ( Moe, 2016 ). This provides empirical support for the self-discrepancy theory, which points out that there are differences in real self, ideal self, and ought-to self, resulting in an unsatisfactory state, which may lead to depression and affect individual academic development ( Higgins, 1987 ). At the same time, the educational expectation gap moderates the effect of family environment on peer interaction quality, and it is consistent with previous studies which show that parents with low behavior control or high psychological supervision increase children’s chances of contacting poor peers. Peer transmission affects adolescents’ behavior development ( Forgatch et al., 2016 ; Valdivia and Castello, 2020 ). Based on this, for adolescents with a better family environment, a moderate educational expectation of parents and children can protect peer interaction quality and academic achievement, while excessive educational expectation gap between parents and children will increase the psychological burden of adolescents and have a negative impact on academic achievement. It expands the research of the educational expectation difference between parents and children in the field of individual academic achievement, taking into account the objective environmental factors of the family. We should also include the potential role of important others (parental expectations and peer interaction) in a diversified environment.

Limitations and future research directions

This study has some limitations and needs to be improved in future research: First, based on the theoretical basis, this work longitudinally studies the influence mechanism of the family environment on academic achievement, which provides empirical support for relevant theoretical viewpoints. However, the self-report in the tracking data may be biased, and experimental research will be used in the next step to obtain more reliable conclusions. Second, the data used are not designed to investigate students’ academic achievements. Future research will design a special questionnaire to collect data to ensure more accurate data information so as to monitor students’ academic development.

In conclusion, this study preliminarily verifies that peer interaction quality plays an intermediary role between the family environment and academic achievement. The educational expectation gap between parents and self within the family moderated the pathways of family environment → peer interaction quality (the first half path), and family environment → academic achievement (the direct path). Using the national-level survey data, rather than limited to a specific area of a small sample survey, a multi-country comparative study is planned for the next step. And further follow-up the factors of achievement motivation, emotional engagement and enthusiasm level of adolescents’ individual learning, the Structural Equation Model (SEM) or Chain Multi-mediary Model will be established to better capture adolescents’ academic achievement jointly from two dimensions: family microsystem and important others (peer interaction quality), enrich and extend the views of relevant theories, to provide practical enlightenment for a more scientific grasp of adolescents’ academic achievement.

This study uses longitudinal data from a survey of Chinese adolescents. So far, two waves of data have been collected. The research objects were 9,449 eighth-grade students who were successfully tracked, to explore the relationship between adolescents’ family environment (baseline survey) and academic achievement (follow-up survey), and pay special attention to the mediating effect of peer interaction quality between them, and the moderating effect of the gap between self- and parental educational expectations in this process. The results showed that first, the family environment and peer interaction quality can positively predict students’ academic achievement. Second, peer communication quality of adolescents plays a partial mediating role in the process of the family environment positively affecting academic achievement, with a mediating ratio of 27.5%. Third, the educational expectation gap not only moderates the path of the family environment directly influencing academic achievement but also moderates the first half path of the family environment influencing academic achievement through peer interaction quality; that is, the existence of a high educational expectation gap within the family will inhibit the positive effect of the family environment on adolescents’ academic achievement and peer interaction quality.

Data availability statement

Ethics statement.

The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by the Renmin University of China. Written informed consent to participate in this study was provided by the participants’ legal guardian/next of kin.

Author contributions

LZ: conceptualization, methodology, validation, formal analysis, data curation, writing—original draft, writing—review and editing, visualization, funding acquisition, and guidance—original draft. WZ: writing advice. Both authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.

Acknowledgments

We thank the National Survey and Data Center at the Renmin University of China for providing the data from CEPS-2016, and we thank the students and teachers who devoted time and support to this study.

This study was funded by the Guizhou Province Research Fund (No. KYJJ2017014) and Innovation Fund Project for Graduate Students (No. YAN2018005).

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher’s note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Supplementary material

The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.911959/full#supplementary-material

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Study uses artificial intelligence to show how personality influences the expression of our genes

Research uses ai techniques to reveal the interaction between mind and body in maintaining health.

An international study led by the UGR using artificial intelligence has shown that our personalities alter the expression of our genes. The findings shed new light on the long-standing mystery of how the mind and body interact.

The study, published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry (Nature), examines how an individual's personality and underlying outlook on life regulate their gene expression, and thus affect their health and well-being. It is the first study to measure the transcription of the entire genome in relation to human personality.

The multi- and interdisciplinary study was led by researchers from the Andalusian Interuniversity Research Institute in Data Science and Computational Intelligence (DaSCI), the UGR's Department of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence, and the Biohealth Research Institute in Granada (ibs.GRANADA). It was carried out in collaboration with Professor Robert Cloninger (Washington University in St. Louis), researchers from Baylor College of Medicine (Texas, USA) and the Young Finns Study (Finland).

The international research team (made up of specialists in genetics, medicine, psychology and computer science) used data from the Young Finns Study, an extensive study conducted in the general population of Finland over four decades during which relevant information was collected on participants' health, physical condition and lifestyle. In addition, participants were subjected to extensive personality assessments that addressed both temperament (habits and emotional reactivity) and character (conscious goals and values). The results showed that certain outlooks on life are conducive to a healthy, fulfilling and long life, while others lead to a stressful, unhealthy and short life.

The study analysed the regulation of gene expression in these individuals, taking into account three levels of self-awareness that were measured through their combined temperament and character profiles. These levels were designated "unregulated" -- individuals dominated by irrational emotions and habits associated with their traditions and obedience to authority, "organised" -- self-sufficient individuals capable of intentionally regulating their habits and cooperating with others for mutual benefit, and lastly, "creative" -- self-transcendent individuals who adapt their habits to live in harmony with others, with nature or with the universe, even if this requires occasional personal sacrifices.

Two key findings

As UGR researcher and co-lead author of the study Coral del Val explains: "In our research we made two key discoveries about the expression and organisation of genes according to the personality profiles of these individuals. First, we discovered a network of 4,000 genes that clustered into multiple modules that were expressed in specific regions of the brain. Some of these genes had already been linked in previous studies to the inheritance of human personality. Second, we discovered that the modules formed a functional interaction network capable of orchestrating changes in gene expression in order to adapt to varying internal and external conditions. The modules turned on and off in a flexible manner, facilitating adaptation to the everyday challenges we all face, and choreographing our development."

The researchers showed that the changes in the patterns of interaction between these modules were orchestrated by two sub-networks. One network regulated emotional reactivity (anxiety, fear, etc.), while the other regulated what a person perceives as meaningful (e.g. production of concepts and language). "What's most remarkable is the fact that the networks for emotion and meaning are coordinated by a control centre made up of six genes," notes Elisa Díaz de la Guardia-Bolívar, the other co-lead author of the study. "It is particularly interesting that we found that the six genes of the control hub are highly preserved throughout evolution, from single-celled organisms to modern humans. This finding confirms their beneficial role in regulating the functioning of all forms of life on Earth," she adds.

Identifying these gene networks and the control hub regulating gene expression in humans has practical value because it shows how people can improve the quality of their health, happiness and overall quality of daily life, despite the challenges and stresses we all face.

The UGR's Igor Zwir explains: "In previous research, we found significant differences in well-being between people in the three personality groups, depending on their level of self-awareness. Specifically, those with greater self-awareness (the creative group) reported greater well-being compared to the organised and unregulated groups. We have now shown that these levels of self-awareness are also strongly associated with the regulation of gene expression in the same order (creative > organised > unregulated). This suggests that a person can improve their health and well-being by cultivating a more self-transcendent and creative outlook on life."

However, he cautions that it remains to be confirmed whether the regulation of gene expression through interventions that enhance self-awareness is the mediating factor in the association between self-awareness and well-being. Nevertheless, treatments that promote greater self-transcendence and mindfulness have also been shown to contribute to improvements in all aspects of health, including physical, mental, social and spiritual well-being. It is therefore plausible that the regulation of gene expression is the real mediator in this association.

As the researchers predicted, certain types of genes, such as transcription factors, microRNAs and long non-coding RNAs, showed extensive enrichment in the 4000-gene integrated molecular network. However, the most significant enrichment was observed in a group of RNAs that are thought to have played a crucial role in the origin of cellular life. These RNAs have the ability to form membraneless compartments and carry out chemical reactions, allowing them to adapt rapidly to stress. This process, known as liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS), creates a comprehensive bioreactor in which the chemicals that are essential for life can be synthesised.

"We are delighted to discover the important roles of different types of genes in health and personality. It is amazing to see that evolution has preserved genes that are thought to have been important in the origin of life, allowing for the increasing plasticity, complexity and consciousness that we observe in humans. The innovative computational methods used in this project enable us to study complex biological systems in humans in an ethical, non-intrusive and beneficial way, with the aim of understanding how to live healthily," says Professor Cloninger. He adds: "These findings clearly demonstrate that a person's mind and body are deeply interconnected. Each influences the other, so they are not separate. It is important to recognise that our future well-being is not entirely determined by our past or present conditions; rather, we can cultivate our own well-being in a creative process full of open-ended possibilities."

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Materials provided by University of Granada . Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Journal Reference :

Coral del Val, Elisa Díaz de la Guardia-Bolívar, Igor Zwir, Pashupati P. Mishra, Alberto Mesa, Ramiro Salas, Guillermo F. Poblete, Gabriel de Erausquin, Emma Raitoharju, Mika Kähönen, Olli Raitakari, Liisa Keltikangas-Järvinen, Terho Lehtimäki, Claude Robert Cloninger. Gene expression networks regulated by human personality . Molecular Psychiatry , 2024; DOI: 10.1038/s41380-024-02484-x

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Hubert Butler Essay Prize announced

Books newsletter: borris and west cork festival line-ups; banagher brontë festival; open mic for gaza; write by the sea; john mcgahern exhibition; commonwealth and jhalak prizes.

Hubert Butler: This year’s Butler essay prize theme is ‘With narratives of conflict currently distorted by misinformation and the substitution of memory for history, what are the chances of reconciliation?’. Photograph: Matt Kavanagh

In The Irish Times this Saturday, Salman Rushdie talks to Keith Duggan about Knife, his memoir about surviving a vicious attempt on his life; Ingrid Persaud tells John Self about her new novel, The Lost Love Songs of Boysie Singh; Nuala O’Connor tells Niamh Donnelly about her latest novel, Seaborne. Peter Murtagh rode his motorbike through North and South America for his travel book, From Tip to Top, and never felt in need of a gun, but writes about how in Texas and Arizona he found intense pressure around the issue. Director Pat Collins discusses his award-winning adaptation of John McGahern’s final novel with Donald Clarke; and there is a Q&A with Leeanne O’Donnell, author of Sparks of Bright Matter.

Reviews are Paul Gillespie on Circle of Stars, A History of the EU and the People Who Made It by Dermot Hodson and Nationalism in Internationalism: Ireland’s Relationship with the EU by by Michael Holmes and Kathryn Simpson; Houman Barekat on Knife: Meditations after an Attempted Murder by Salman Rushdie; Neil Hegarty on Paul Carlucci’s The Voyageur; Declan Burke on the best new crime fiction; Mia Levitin on Choice by Neel Mukherjee; Jessica Traynor on Weathering by Ruth Allen; Chris Cusack on The Axeman’s Cardinal by Catherine Chidgey; Gráinne Lyons on From Tip to Top: The Journey of a Lifetime, From Chile to Alaska by Peter Murtagh; Nadine O’Regan on The Amendments by Niamh Mulvey; Pat Carty on Nuclear War by Annie Jacobsen; Niamh Donnelly on Maggie Armstrong’s Old Romantics; and Sarah Gilmartin on You Are Here by David Nicholls.

This week’s Irish Times Eason offer is Someone Else’s Shoes by Jojo Moyes. You can buy it with your newspaper for just €5.99, a €5 saving.

Eason offer

The Hubert Butler Essay Prize is in its seventh year. Over a period ominously racked by global crisis and conflict, the prize has focussed attention on themes and issues which are central both to Butler’s work, and the world today - such as frontiers, identity, the abuse of political power, coping with the pandemic, and the tension between individual and community values.

This year’s theme is ‘With narratives of conflict currently distorted by misinformation and the substitution of memory for history, what are the chances of reconciliation?’

We wanted to encourage examination of the uses and abuses of history, at a time when deep-rooted antagonisms all round us have taken a particularly toxic form, and also to consider the implications of the tendency to discount ‘history’ in favour of ‘memory’. Butler’s commitment to clarity of thought and his determination to face up to uncomfortable truths has never been more acutely needed, and the essay form - as he showed so consummately - remains uniquely suited for projecting this essential endeavour.

First prize is €1,500 and there are two second prizes of €500. The judges are Roy Foster (chair), Barbara Schwepcke, Catriona Crowe and Nicky Grene. Closing date is June 29th. The winner will be announced on 13th August at a prize giving in Kilkenny, presented by Olivia O’Leary. Entry details here: hubertbutleressayprize.com

The Borris House Festival of Writing & Ideas, which takes place from June 7th to 9th, has launched its schedule. Final tickets are on sale for Friday and Sunday, while Saturday and Weekend tickets have already sold out. festivalofwritingandideas.com

Borris, Co Carlow is home to this annual gathering of writers from all over the world - approximately 80 in total - and the event now features performances of theatre and music as well as its unique and bespoke curated encounters between writers.

Among this year’s big names are Margaret Atwood, Elizabeth Strout, Minnie Driver, Ocean Vuong, Adam Clayton, Jon Ronson, Nick Broomfield, Cerys Matthews, Ruby Wax, Sebastian Barry, Kevin Barry, Lemn Sissay, Peter Francopan, Deborah Levy, Fintan O’Toole, Ciarán Hinds, Neil Jordan, Sinead Gleeson, Emma Dabiri, Anne Enright, Orla Guerin, Fergal Keane, Annie Mac, David O’Doherty, OIivia O’Leary, Anthony Horowitz, Liz Nugent, Roy Foster, Colm Toibin, Misha Glenny, Louise Kennedy, Dylan Moran, Claire Kilroy, Mikel Murfi and Ye Vagabonds.

In a new departure this year, there will be an event on Sunday, June 9th in Dublin, at the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre: Margaret Atwood with special guests musician Laurie Anderson, climate activist and Chair of the Elders Mary Robinson, hosted by broadcaster and writer John Kelly. bordgaisenergytheatre.ie

The West Cork Literary Festival, an eight-day celebration of writing and reading, takes place in and around Bantry from July 12th to 19th. There are master classes, readings, and workshops, as well as interviews with authors, book launches and other events.

Writers taking part this year include Anne Enright, Colm Tóibín, Adania Shibli, David Nicholls, Dolly Alderton, Paul Lynch, Rónán Hession, Eimear Ryan, Theo Dorgan, Andrea Mara, Irvine Welsh, Miriam Margoyles, Elizabeth Day, Caleb Azumah Nelson and Jason Allen-Paisant.

“We have just announced this year’s line-up and we’re delighted by the response so far and by the excitement generated,” said festival director Eimear O’Herlihy. “It feels like West Cork Literary Festival is becoming a destination festival because what could be better than a week in Bantry in the summer with friends, writers and exciting and inspiring conversations happening on stages and in cafes all over town?” Booking for all events is now open on westcorkmusic.ie/LFprogramme or 027 527 88.

The Inaugural Banagher Brontë Festival will be held from this Friday to Sunday, April 19th-21st.

The weekend will open on Friday at 7pm with a premiere of An Evening with Charlotte Brontë devised specifically for the Banagher Brontë Group by Michael and Christine O’Dowd.

All events on Saturday will be held in Crank House starting at 11am with Joanne Wilcock’s talk, Falling in Love with Arthur. Joanne will explore the different opinions and feelings people have had about Charlotte Brontë's husband, Arthur Bell Nicholls.

At midday, Brontë scholar, Pauline Clooney (author of Charlotte & Arthur) will present Currer Bell’s Silent Years 1852-1855, an examination of Charlotte Brontë's paths to publication and her attitude to a writing life, and how, consequently, this attitude illuminates her creative silence from 1852 until her death in 1855.

At 2.30 p.m. Dr. Maebh O’Regan will present The Art of Branwell Brontë. From their earliest years the Brontës were passionate about art and were particularly inspired by the wood engravings of Thomas Bewick.

Further enquiries to James Scully on 085 710 7569 or banagherbrontegroup.com

Open Mic for Gaza

Open Mic for Gaza will be held again on Global Pay It Forward Day, Sunday, April 28th. The online fundraiser will run on Zoom from 7pm-9 pm, featuring a wonderful line-up of special guests including |Michelle Gallen, Catherine Dunne and Juliana Adelman along with 15 open mic readers/performers. All funds raised will go to the Ghassan Abu Sittah Children’s Fund . You can register, donate, and express interest in an open mic slot here .

Write By The Sea, a boutique literary festival held annually in Kilmore Quay, Co Wexford, has secured a publishing partnership with Waterford-based literary journal, The Waxed Lemon.

The four category winners of the 2024 Write By The Sea writing competition will have their work published in the Winter 2024 edition of The Waxed Lemon. Each winner will also receive a prize of €500, plus a free weekend ticket to Write By The Sea festival. Second-place winners in each of the four categories will receive a cash prize of €300 and third-place winners will receive €200. Writers can submit their work now until June 21st via writebythesea.ie/writing-competition/

Joanne McCarthy of The Waxed Lemon said: “Nothing beats seeing your work in print. Write by the Sea is one of Ireland’s most respected literary festivals and we’re really delighted to be joining the judging panel and to be printing the winning entries.”

A Deep Well of Want

A Deep Well of Want: Photographs and Archives of McGahern Country, a new exhibition of photographs by Paul Butler, documents the landscape and passing rural life of Co. Leitrim and surrounding areas – the hinterland of writer John McGahern. It opens as part of Cúirt Festival on April 24th at 4pm-5pm in Room G10, Hardiman Building, University of Galway, with a Q&A discussion with the curators, moderated by Prof Tom Inglis (McGahern Barracks Museum).

Accompanied by archives and literary manuscripts from the John McGahern Archive, held at University of Galway Library, curated by Dr. Barry Houlihan, this exhibition presents a visual and documentary journey through McGahern Country – to the sites, places, words, and ideas that formed a wellspring for the literary imagination of John McGahern.

Opening as part of Cúirt Festival of Literature, the exhibition represents the largest display of manuscripts and materials from the McGahern archive. Combined with the beautifully captured and evocative photographs by Paul Butler, the exhibition is a unique opportunity to explore the visual and the written landscapes of McGahern and of Co. Leitrim.

Twenty-three writers from 13 countries have been shortlisted for the world’s most global literature prize – the Commonwealth Short Story Prize. Writers from three Commonwealth countries – Mauritius, Rwanda and St Kitts and Nevis – have been shortlisted for the first time. The prize is viewed worldwide as a bellwether of new talent and many nominated writers go on to find publishers, agents and other opportunities. Previous regional and overall winners include Sharma Taylor, Kevin Jared Hosein (both from the Caribbean) and Fijian writer Mary Rokonadravu – and this year’s themes are also interesting. One features a young person contemplating gender transition, a quarter are meditations on motherhood, and there are many speculative fiction stories. Five regional winners (for the five regions of the commonwealth) will be announced on 29 May and the overall winner on 26 June.

The Jhalak Prize and Jhalak Children’s & Young Adult Prize 2024 shortlists have been announced. The Jhalak Prize shortlist features exhilarating fiction, a raw snapshot of contemporary multicultural London, beguiling non-fiction about landscape and the natural world, an audacious true crime tale and an award-winning poet.

The Jhalak Children’s and Young Adult Prize shortlist features thought-provoking young fiction, vividly illustrated picture books, a YA thriller and an assured debut for middle grade readers. As with previous years, the shortlists demonstrate the exceptional quality and breadth of work produced by writers of colour, from the UK and Ireland today.

Prize director Sunny Singh said: “Every year, the Jhalak Prize shortlists exemplify literary excellence in contemporary Britain and mark them as future classics. I am in awe of the courage required to tackle difficult themes and ideas coupled with the command of the chosen genre and form demonstrated by our shortlistees. These are books about belonging and its price, about confronting injustice with hope, and about the audacity of trying even in the face of impossible odds. Most of all, these are books about moral courage, which makes the books on our 2024 shortlists necessary, urgent and timeless.”

The shortlist for the Jhalak Prize is: A Flat Place, Noreen Masud; Anansi’s Gold: The Man Who Swindled The World, Yepoka Yeebo; Boundary Road, Ami Rao; Fire Rush, Jacqueline Crooks; Self-Portrait As Othello, Jason Allen-Paisant; Twelve Words For Moss, Elizabeth-Jane Burnett. The 2024 shortlist for the Jhalak Children’s & Young Adult Prize is: Geoffrey Gets the Jitters, Nadia Shireen; How to Die Famous, Benjamin Dean; Safiyyah’s War, Hiba Noor Khan; Steady for This, Nathanael Lessore; To The Other Side, Erika Meza; and Wild Song, Candy Gourlay.

The two winners will be announced at the British Library on May 30th. Each winner will be awarded £1,000 and a specially created work of art as part of the ongoing Jhalak Art Residency.

IN THIS SECTION

Knife by salman rushdie review: living to tell the tale of being saved by love, impossible city: paris in the twenty-first century – a place like no other, cork world book fest turns 20, hagstone by sinéad gleeson: there is a lyricism to this magical and otherworldly debut novel, university changes gender identity policy that said refusal to use pronouns was ‘unlawful’, woman living ‘exotic’ lifestyle given four months to vacate home bought with crime proceeds, us comedy giant conan o’brien declares ireland ‘quite the ride... for a ginger’, man convicted of operating ‘dodgy box’ service remanded in custody, friends, colleagues and family bid farewell to the late, great larry masterson.

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Impacts of family environment on adolescents’ academic achievement: The role of peer interaction quality and educational expectation gap

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