The mediating role of short video viewing and other types of screen activities between parenting styles and children's personality traits

Abstract

This study uses survey data from 4019 rural elementary school students and employs structural equation modeling to analyze the impact of parenting styles on children's personality traits and the mediating role of different types of screen activities, including learning-related activity (LS), traditional non-learning activity (TS), and short video viewing (SV). The findings indicate that more positive parenting styles are associated with higher levels of extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, openness, grit, and internal locus of control in children. LS is positively associated with agreeableness, conscientiousness, openness, grit, and internal control tendencies. TS and SV are negatively associated with positive parenting styles and positive personality traits including agreeableness, conscientiousness, grit, and positively associated with negative personality traits including neuroticism and external control tendencies. Bootstrap tests indicate that TS and SV partially mediate the relationship between parenting styles and personality traits. Furthermore, we find that SV is more harmful than TS to personality traits, and less likely to be affected by positive parenting style.

Keywords

• Parenting styles
• Personality traits
• Screen activities
• Short videos