The need for social approval in university students: The role of perception towards parenting styles and self construct

The aim of this study was to examine the predictive role of self-construal and perception towards parenting styles in the need for social approval among university students. The participants consisted of a total of 417 university students, 276 female and 141 male. In this correlational study, "Need for Social Approval Scale", "Six Part Self-Compassion Scale" and the "Parenting Styles Questionnaire" were used as data collection instruments. In data analysis, Independent Sample t Test was utilized to compare the need for social approval according to gender, family cohabitation, working in an out-of-school job and engaging in art/sports activities, and Hierarchical Regression" analysis was applied to examine the predictive variables of social approval. According to the results of the analyses, the need for social approval did not differ significantly according to gender, living with family or not, working/not working in an out-of-school job. However, the need for social approval differed significantly for students who engaged in art/sports activity; those who did not engage in art/sports activity had higher social approval needs than those who engaged in art/sports activity. In addition, as a result of the predictors of the need for social approval, all the sub-dimensions of the self-construal(relational-vertical, relational-horizontal, collective-horizontal, collective-vertical, humanity, personal self) and the sub-dimensions of perception towards parenting styles maternal strict supervision/control and paternal strict supervision/control dimensions-were observed to be significant predictors of the need for social approval. On the other hand, maternal acceptance/involvementand paternal acceptance/involvementsub-dimensions of perception towards parenting styles were not significant predictors of the need for social approval.