Regulatory focus mediates the association between parenting behaviors and creativity among Chinese adolescents

Based on the close association between parenting behaviors, regulatory focus, and creativity demonstrated by previous literature, we posited that regulatory focus plays a mediating role between parenting behaviors and creativity. This study explored the relationship between parenting behaviors and creativity, with specific attention paid to the mediating role of regulatory focus. A total of 680 middle school students completed the questionnaires on parental autonomy support, parental psychological control, and regulatory focus and a verbal task from the Torrance tests of creative thinking. The correlation analysis revealed that parental autonomy support and promotion focus positively correlated with all creativity indexes (i.e., fluency, flexibility, originality, and total score), while parental psychological control and prevention focus negatively correlated with all creativity indexes. Further, the path model analysis suggested that promotion focus positively predicted creativity, while prevention focus negatively predicted creativity. In addition, parental autonomy support positively predicted creativity through the mediation of both promotion focus and prevention focus, while parental psychological control negatively predicted creativity through prevention focus. The mediation effect analysis revealed that all the mediation effects were significant. In general, regulatory focus plays a mediating effect in the relationship between parenting behaviors and creativity. Our findings supplement previous research by revealing the mediating effect of regulatory focus in the parenting behaviors-creativity link, and highlight the importance of environmental variables, such as family support, on the development of adolescents’ creativity.