Stability and change in configuration patterns of various career-related parental behaviors and their associations with adolescent career adaptability: A longitudinal person-centered analysis

Abstract

Parents play essential roles in shaping adolescents' career development by engaging in a series of career-related parental behaviors. Based on three-wave longitudinal data collected with one-year interval between waves and using a person-centered approach, this study seeks to examine the stability and change in the configuration patterns of career-related parental behaviors, and their potential associations with adolescents' career adaptability among 1410 Chinese adolescents (M age = 15.26, SD = 0.51, 52.4 % female). Four profiles of career-related parental behaviors were consistently identified across waves: Unsupportive but not Permissive, Supportive but not Intrusive, Rejecting and Neglecting, Ambivalent and Controlling. Further, results of Latent Transition Analyses indicated that there was a coexistence of stability and changes over time in the group memberships of career-related parental behaviors configuration patterns across high school years. Last, adolescent raised by parents who consistently endorsed supportive but not intrusive practices across high school years or at least at child 12th Grade displayed higher levels of career adaptability than adolescents whose parents adopted negative parental behaviors consistently across waves. Findings of this study highlighted the importance of systematically examining the heterogeneity and dynamics inherent within the configuration profiles of career-related parental behaviors and their unique implications for adolescent career development over time.