Psychological Development and Education ›› 2025, Vol. 41 ›› Issue (5): 639-651.doi: 10.16187/j.cnki.issn1001-4918.2025.05.04

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The Reciprocal Relations between Parental Warmth and Executive Function and Their Influence on Later Academic Adjustment of School-age Children

LIU Yuqing1, QIAO Xiaoguang2, ZHANG Simin3, XING Xiaopei1   

  1. 1. Beijing Key Laboratory of Learning and Cognition, School of Psychology, Capital Normal University, Beijing 100048;
    2. Jinan Licheng Baoshan School, Jinan 250132;
    3. Guangzhoushi Panyuqu Shilou Zhongxinxiaoxue, Guangzhou 511447
  • Published:2025-09-15

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Abstract: The present study used RI-CLPMs to capture the reciprocal relationship between parental warmth and children’s EF at within-person level, and then mediating models were established to examine the effects of EF and parental warmth on children’s academic adjustment. A total of 513 school-aged children (Wave 1: meanage = 10.57 years, SD = 0.93; 50.80% boys, 49.20% girls) were recruited from Guangdong Province, and three-wave longitudinal design (three months apart) was conducted. Children reported their own EF and parental warmth on Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function-2 (BRIEF-2) and Egna Minnen av Barndoms Uppfostran-Child (EMBU-C) at three time points, and reported their academic adjustment on Psychological Suzhi Measure for Pupils (PSMP) at T3. The results were as follows: at the within-person level, expect for the path from children EF at T2 to both parental warmth at T3, the cross-lagged paths between paternal or maternal warmth and children’s EF were statistically significant, that is, the fluctuations in paternal or maternal warmth could significantly predicted the fluctuations in children’s EF at later time point, and vice verse. At the between-person level, there were significantly positive relations between children’s EF and both maternal and paternal warmth, indicating that children whose fathers or mothers performed higher warmth across the three waves also performed stronger levels of EF across the three waves. Besides, increases in both maternal and paternal warmth at T1 could predict later promotion in children’s EF at T2 and T3, which in turn would predict higher academic adjustment at T3, but the indirect paths from children’s EF to academic adjustment via paternal or maternal warmth were not supported. This study reveals that at the within-person level, the improvement of parental warmth is conducive to the improvement of children’s executive function and academic adjustment level, and the improvement of children’s executive function is also conducive to the increase of parental warmth.

Key words: parental warmth, executive function, academic adjustment, between-person, within-person

CLC Number: 

  • B844
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