More Similar to My Father, Better Academic Performance I Will Have: The Role of Caring Parenting Style
Parent-child facial resemblance, as an important cue of paternal uncertainty, may impact fathers’ parenting behaviors and further affect children’s academic performance. However, mothers are almost 100% confident of the blood relationship with their child and care less about the facial resemblance cues.Methods: To test these hypotheses, the present study recruited 122 junior high school students and measured the perceived facial resemblance with their parents, the parents’ parenting style, academic performance, and demographic variables.Results: The results showed that the perceived father-child facial resemblance rather than the mother-child facial resemblance significantly influenced adolescents’ academic performance. Further, fathers’ caring parenting style mediated the relationship between the perceived father-child facial resemblance and academic performance.Conclusion: These findings not only supported the paternal uncertainty hypothesis but also extended the parental investment theory.Keywords: perceived father-child facial resemblance, academic performance, caring parenting, paternal uncertainty
