Influence of Parenting Style on Locus of Control of Adolescent Students

Abstract

Locus of control is one of the important determinants for adolescents and its initial sources are undoubtedly rooted in the family. Parents express their attitude to their children and convey their beliefs, values, and behaviours to them in various degrees throughout parenting style. The present paper attempts to study the nature of parenting style and locus of control of adolescent students and find out the relationship between them. The sample consisted of 180 male and female students of classes VII, VIII, and IX from South 24 Parganas and Midnapore districts of West Bengal. Purposive sampling technique and survey method have been adopted. The Parenting Scale developed by Bharadwaj, Sharma,and Garg, (1998) and the Locus of Control Scale designed by Hasnain, and Joshi,(1992) have been used. Results indicated that the mean parenting style and locus of control scores of the adolescent students are within the average range. There exists a significant positive correlation between parenting style and locus of control of these students. Thus, it can be concluded that adolescents receiving a better parenting style are likely to be more towards internal orientation in respect of their locus of control. The study throws light on the fact that a healthy home environment, especially parents can be a strong source of support and help children to be self-dependent and develop an internal locus of control.