In plain language
Does the way parents raise their children shape how hopeful and confident those children feel as teenagers? This study followed 884 Australian high school students across four years, from Grade 7 to Grade 10, measuring their trait hope (the belief that they can achieve important goals) and self-esteem each year. Students also reported on their parents’ styles: authoritative (demanding but warm and responsive), authoritarian (strict and punitive), or permissive.
Overall, both hope and self-esteem tended to decline as adolescents moved through high school, and the decline was steeper for girls. Strikingly, girls started out with higher hope than boys in Grade 7 but ended up with lower hope by Grade 10, and girls reported lower self-esteem than boys in Grades 8 through 10. Parenting mattered: teenagers who saw their parents as authoritative maintained higher hope across all four years, while those who saw their parents as authoritarian reported lower self-esteem.
This was the first study to document how recalled parental styles affect the developmental trajectories of hope and self-esteem. The findings suggest that warm-but-firm parenting supports adolescents’ optimism, and they raise important questions about why girls in particular lose hope and self-worth during the teenage years — possibly because of contradictory cultural messages about gender roles.
Key findings
- Across four years (Grades 7–10), 884 adolescents showed a general decline in both trait hope and self-esteem.
- Girls declined more rapidly than boys: girls had higher hope than boys in Grade 7 but lower hope by Grade 10.
- Girls reported lower self-esteem than boys in Grades 8–10, with the gender gap widening between Grades 7 and 10.
- Perceived parental authoritativeness (demanding but warm and responsive) in Grade 7 predicted higher hope across all four years.
- Perceived parental authoritarianism (strict, punitive parenting) was related to lower self-esteem over time.
- Adolescents who started with higher hope and self-esteem tended to show less decline over time.
How to cite
APA
Heaven, P., & Ciarrochi, J. (2008). Parental styles, gender and the development of hope and self-esteem. European Journal of Personality, 22, 707–724. https://doi.org/10.1002/per.699
BibTeX
@article{heaven2008parental,
author = {Heaven, Patrick and Ciarrochi, Joseph},
title = {Parental Styles, Gender and the Development of Hope and Self-Esteem},
journal = {European Journal of Personality},
year = {2008},
volume = {22},
pages = {707--724},
doi = {10.1002/per.699}
}
Related work
- All publications by Joseph Ciarrochi (searchable, with free PDFs)
- Process-Based Therapy & Idionomic Analysis
Author: Joseph Ciarrochi (ORCID 0000-0003-0471-8100). Free copy hosted with permission for scholarly use. Please cite the published version via the DOI above.