Faculty Advisor

Dr. William Volante

Keywords

altruism, parenting, relationship, parenting style, parent, college students, survey, Qualtrics, research, correlation, helping, family, community, statistic, psychology, research methods, social, interpersonal, developmental, behavior, control, responsiveness, negligent, permissive, authoritarian, authoritative

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to evaluate the correlation, if any, between perceived parenting styles and altruism scores among students at the University of Central Florida (UCF). The quasi–independent variable, perceived parenting styles, refers to how an individual personally believes their relationship with their parent to be. The four types of parenting styles include negligent, permissive, authoritarian, and authoritative. The classification of one’s perceived parenting style was based on their scores for parental control (i.e. how overbearing they believed their parent to be) and parental responsiveness (i.e. how warm and engaged they felt their parent was). The quasi-dependent variable was altruism scores, with altruism operationally defined as the frequency one performs behaviors to help others. We hypothesized that the authoritative parenting group would have the highest levels of altruism. Our methodology utilized an online Qualtrics survey featuring the Perception of Parents Scale: The College-Student Scale and the Self-Report Altruism Scale. We had 15 eligible participants fully complete the survey, and their scores were analyzed using a Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficient and a One-Way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) through Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). Our results include no statistically significant difference among parenting groups regarding altruism scores, but there was a significant positive correlation between parental control and higher altruism scores. This implies that those whose parents were more overbearing and dictating were associated with performing increased frequency of helping behaviors. Implications from these results include improving the parent-child relationship through family therapy practices and ultimately fostering a more helping and supportive community.

College

College of Sciences

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