The Role of Adolescents’ and Their Parents’ Temperament Types in Adolescents’ Academic Emotions : A Goodness-of-Fit Approach

Abstract

Background Academic emotions (e.g., enjoyment of learning or anxiety) play a significant role in academic performance and educational choices. An important factor explaining academic emotions can be students’ temperament and the goodness-of-fit between their temperament and their social environment, including parents.

Objective This study investigated the unique and interactive effects of early adolescents’ and their parents’ temperament types on adolescents’ academic emotions in literacy and mathematics.

Method The participants in the study consisted of 690 adolescent–parent dyads. Parents rated their own and their adolescents’ temperaments, and adolescents reported their positive and negative emotions in literacy and mathematics.

Results The results showed that adolescents’ temperament type was significantly related to their negative emotions in both school subjects. Adolescents with an undercontrolled temperament reported more anger compared to adolescents with a resilient or overcontrolled temperament, and more anxiety, shame, and hopelessness compared to resilient adolescents. In addition, undercontrolled adolescents reported more boredom in mathematics than resilient or overcontrolled adolescents. The parents’ temperament type was related to positive emotions. Adolescents of resilient parents reported greater pride in mathematics than adolescents of undercontrolled or overcontrolled parents and higher hope in mathematics than adolescents of overcontrolled parents. Finally, overcontrolled adolescents with a resilient or overcontrolled parent reported higher enjoyment of mathematics and literacy in comparison to overcontrolled adolescents with an undercontrolled parent.

Conclusions The findings of the study provide new knowledge about the role of temperament in the school context by showing that differences in temperamental reactivity and regulation relate to adolescents’ academic emotions.