Exploring College Students’ Reports of Parental Involvement, Academic Entitlement, and Contingent Self-Worth

Abstract

While parent involvement has been linked to many positive young adult outcomes (e.g., academic achievement, wellbeing), recent research has highlighted potential negative outcomes (e.g., anxiety) of excessive levels of parent involvement. Overparenting (sometimes referred to as ‘helicopter parenting’) is the term used to refer to excessive levels of parent involvement, and more specifically, overparenting refers to developmentally inappropriate levels of parent involvement. Overparenting can entail persistent monitoring of adolescents’ activities, premature interference in adolescents’ minor problems, or intentional removal of any potential obstacle an adolescent may encounter. Consequently, adolescents who are overparented may be shielded from important opportunities to develop autonomy and adaptive coping mechanisms. Two concepts that may be related to parent involvement are academic entitlement and contingent self‐worth. Academic entitlement refers to the tendency to expect academic success without taking personal responsibility for achieving that success. Contingent self‐worth refers to self‐worth that is based on the approval of others or on social comparisons. The purpose of this study was to explore the relationships among parental involvement, academic entitlement, and contingent self-worth.