Parental warmth and guilt induction: Associations with prosocial behaviors and the mediating role of values in Chinese adolescents

Abstract

Parental guilt induction is thought to promote empathy and social attunement in Chinese cultures, whereas parental warmth is thought to facilitate prosocial development across diverse cultures. However, research on the relative roles of guilt induction and warmth and how they are associated with prosocial behaviors in Chinese communities has been limited. Additionally, the roles of paternal parenting and potential motivational mediators in non‐Western contexts remain largely unexplored. The present study considered both culturally prevalent (guilt induction) and universal (warmth) parenting practices and their associations with other‐ versus self‐oriented prosocial behaviors, as well as the mediating role of adolescents’ values (i.e., self‐transcendence vs. self‐transcendence). Gender and age differences were also examined. Participants were 439 Grades 7–11 adolescents (242 girls) from Hong Kong. Path analyses indicated that self‐transcendence values mediated the link between parental (maternal and paternal) warmth and both forms of prosocial behaviors. Self‐enhancement values mediated the link between maternal guilt induction and self‐oriented prosocial behaviors. Multigroup analyses revealed no significant gender and age differences. Current findings suggest that parental warmth is likely to facilitate prosocial behaviors through the cultivation of self‐transcendence values whereas guilt induction may facilitate values and prosocial behaviors that are more self‐oriented in Chinese contexts.