ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Educational Psychology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1617863
Status and influence of parental rearing style and social psychology process on social adaptability of medical students: Using college students in Jilin Province, China, as an example
Provisionally accepted
- Jilin Medical University, Jilin, China
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Background: Although social adaptability is crucial for medical students, the combined influence of parental rearing styles and social psychology process on this competency is not well-explored, particularly in the context of China. This study examines their status and relationships among Chinese medical students . Methods: An online questionnaire survey based on the web-based survey platform "Questionnaire Star" was performed with medical college students in Jilin Province, China. The questionnaire content comprised the status of the participants' parental rearing style, social avoidance and distress, and social adaptability by employing specific survey scales, and mediation effect analysis was conducted to examine the mediating role of social psychology process in the relationship between parental rearing styles and social adaptability. Results: 2066 medical college students were subjected to statistical analysis. Parental rearing styles and social avoidance and distress show differences among sociodemographic factors of gender, household registration, whether is one-child,and parental education. Students from urban households, with one-child identities and those whose parents had high educational levels obtained high social adaptability scores (p < 0.05). The multivariate analysis results are as follows: social distress (β = −0.399, p < 0.001), social avoidance (β = −0.304, p < 0.001), mother's rearing style of "emotional warmth and understanding" (β = 0.135, p < 0.001), and father's rearing style of "overprotection" (β = −0.087, p < 0.001) are the independent factors influencing medical college students' social adaptability. Mediation effect analysis further reveal that parental rearing styles of "emotional warmth and understanding" and "overprotective" can directly or indirectly affect students' social avoidance and distress to influence their social adaptability. Conclusion: Reducing students' social avoidance and distress, strengthening "emotional warmth and understanding," and preventing "overprotective" parental rearing styles are effective ways to improve medical college students' social adaptability.
Keywords: Parental rearing styles, Social Adaptability, Social avoidance, Social distress, Medical college students
Received: 25 Apr 2025; Accepted: 25 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Du, Ge, Nie, Feng and Shao. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Bing Shao, happy0689@126.com
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