Journal of Child and Family Studies (2018) 27:2999–3007

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-018-1130-4

ORIGINAL PAPER

Family Socio-Economic Status and Parent-Child Relationships Are

Associated with the Social Creativity of Elementary School Children:
The Mediating Role of Personality Traits
Dongjing Zhang1 Zongkui Zhou1,2 Chuanhua Gu1 Yuju Lei2 Cuiying Fan1
● ● ● ●

Published online: 19 June 2018

© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2018

Abstract
Based on a sample of 955 elementary school children in central China, the present study examined family socio-economic
status and parent-child relationships in relation to children’s social creativity, as well as the mediating role of personality
traits in these associations. Family environment (socio-economic status and parent-child relationships) and personality traits
were significantly correlated with social creativity; children openness, conscientiousness, agreeableness and extraversion
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partly mediated the relationship between family environment and social creativity when controlling for age and sex. These
results are important for explaining the roles of the family environment and individual factors in shaping children’s social
creativity.
Keywords Social creativity Family socio-economic status Parent-child relationship Personality trait Elementary school
● ● ● ●

children

Introduction Chesnokova and Subbotsky 2014; Gu et al. 2003, 2015,

Creativity, as a complex and diverse concept, not only
reflects the individual act of producing novel solutions
(Kaufman et al. 2011; McCrae 1987; Runco and Acar 2010;
Sternberg and Lubart 1996; Torrance 1962), but also shapes
the exchange of ideas in science, art and other areas of
social life (Feist 1999; Furnham et al. 2006; Silvia et al.
2009; Velázquez et al. 2014). As a kind of creativity, social
creativity refers to is creative ability in the social domain.
This type of creativity can be found in every aspect of daily
life, which plays a key role in social and cultural change,
and has been the focus of recent research (Becker 2012;
* Zongkui Zhou
zhouzk@mail.ccnu.edu.cn
* Chuanhua Gu
guchuanhua@mail.ccnu.edu.cn
1 socio-economic status (SES) is one “objective” family
Key Laboratory of Adolescent Cyber Psychology and Behavior
(CCNU), Ministry of Education; School of Psychology, Central
China Normal University, 430079 Wuhan, China
2
Collaborative and Innovative Center for Educational Technology,
Central China Normal University, 430079 Wuhan, China
2016; Mouchiroud and Bernoussi 2008; Mouchiroud and
Lubart 2002; Song et al. 2013).
Social creativity, as an umbrella term for a number of
different forms of creativity applied in interactive situations
(Mouchiroud and Lubart 2002; Mouchiroud and Bernoussi
2008), refers to an ability to solve social problems or
enhance social activities in a novel, unique, appropriate and
effective way (Gu et al. 2003; Gu et al. 2016). It is well
established that the development of social creativity is a
very important element of good interpersonal relationships
and of adaptation to the changing society (Becker 2012;
Chesnokova and Subbotsky 2014; Gu et al. 2008b, 2009b,
2012). According to the Ecology of Human Creativity
Theory, creativity was influenced by both individual and
environmental factors (Harrington 1990).
Children’s social environments contribute to their cog-
nitive, social and emotional development, and interactions
with the social environment may promote or hinder social
creativity (Fearon et al. 2013; Soroa et al. 2015). Family
factor that may influence social creativity (Dai and Shen
2008; Gu et al. 2003, 2012; Niu 2007). According to Family
Investment Theory, families’ socio-economic status is a
comprehensive reflection of their overall economic, labor,
3000
and social capital. The family stress model (Conger et al.
2000; Conger et al. 2002) suggests that the presence or
absence of financial resources may affect developmental
outcomes for children and families, as low finance level
may lead to more family conflicts, resulting in children’s
unstable emotionality and more pressures in their daily life.
Therefore, socio-economic status has a direct bearing on
children’s physical well-being, their ideas and attitudes as
well as their psychological growth (Currie et al. 1997;
Evans and Kim 2007; Matthews and Gallo 2011).
Empirical studies have found that parents with high
socio-economic status were more likely to provide a posi-
tive learning environment (Carvalho 2016; Su et al. 2015)
and a more diversified recreational environment (e.g., social
activities, interpersonal resources) for their children, to
consciously cultivate children’s creative ability (Gu et al.
2012). By contrast, children from families with low socio-
economic status would be more likely to face more pres-
sures and difficulties(Conger et al. 2000; Conger et al. 2002;
Conger et al. 2010) because of the lack of good education
resources, accompanied by more depression, anxiety and
other negative emotions, factors that might be harmful for
the development of social creativity (Amabile et al. 2005;
Dai and Shen 2008; Su et al. 2015; Taylor et al. 2014).
Research has shown a close connection between family’s
socio-economic status and creativity (Dai and Shen 2008; Dai
et al. 2012). However, the role of socioeconomic status in
relation to social creativity has been less studied. This ques-
tion is particularly interesting in a country such as China,
where there are remarkable SES differences between rural
families and urban families. Research in china has shown that
social creativity of rural students was significantly lower than
that of urban students (Gu et al. 2009b; Song et al. 2013). It
should be clarified whether social creativity is related to other
markers of socio-economic status in current China.
In addition to family social-economic, many studies
suggest that parent-child relationships, as an important
family factor, also have important influences on children’s
general creativity (Dasgruptas and Sonthallas 2011; Fearon
et al. 2013; Mouchiroud and Bernoussi 2008). According to
the ecological model of authoritative parenting and ado-
lescent adjustment (Steinberg et al. 1995), family relation-
ship influences children’s adjustment by parenting styles
(Fearon et al. 2013; Guo and Wu 2011). Specifically,
authoritative parenting was positively associated with chil-
dren’s competence and maladaptation. Children with good
parent-child relationship is thought to perceive more social
support from their parents, which increases their adjustment
skills by overcoming social problems and the accompany-
ing frustrations and negative moods (Suldo and Huebner
2004). The increased adjustment skills can further promote
the development of their emotional regulation skills
(Lewallen and Neece 2015; Morris et al. 2011). These skills
Journal of Child and Family Studies (2018) 27:2999–3007
may in turn, enhance children’s social problem solving
ability. Much less research has focused on parent-child
relationships in relation to children’s social creativity. Gu
et al. (2012) found a significant association between
parent–child relationships and social creativity, namely,
father’s over-protection and mother’s refusal and denial
were associated with lower social creativity, and mother’s
emotional warmth was associated with higher social crea-
tivity in elementary school children.
According to Family Stress Model, high socio-economic
status may release some family pressure, which can help
children avoid parent-child conflict and bring more oppor-
tunities for children to explore. Thus, it is important to
determine whether family’s socio-economic status and
parent-child relationships are correlated in our sample and
then how they are associated together and separately with
children’s social creativity.
Researchers have long been interested in the association
between individual factors and children’s psychological
growth (Miller et al. 2000). One of these individual factors
is the creative personality. Some researchers have found that
individuals with a highly creative personality tended to have
more creative performance than those with low levels of
creative personality (Feist 1999; Runco and Charles 1997).
Creative personality has also been shown to play a partially
mediating role between family environment and creative
ability (Tang et al. 2014). One problem with this line of
research is that creativity ability is likely part of the defi-
nition of the creative personality; this circularity makes it
difficult to interpret results in this area. Moreover, several
Big Five traits have been shown to be associated with
creativity. For example, it is well established that openness
is positively correlated with individual creativity in several
creative domains such as creative thinking, artistic and
scientific creativity (Feist 1999; Silvia et al. 2008, 2009).
Conscientiousness also has been shown to be positively
correlated with scientific and general creativity (Feist 1999;
Furnham et al. 2006), whereas neuroticism is negatively
correlated with social creativity (Gu et al. 2008b).
Although a great many studies indicate that personality
traits are generally stable, they are relatively changeable or
variable rather than absolutely stable (Roberts and Del-
Vecchio 2000; Wängqvist et al. 2015). Lots of research
have also revealed that personality traits were moderately
stable(Carvalho 2016; Ilies and Judge 2003; Karmakar et al.
2017) and they were often influenced by environment fac-
tors such as gender, parenting styles and attachment styles
(Carvalho 2016; Guo and Wu 2011; Miller et al. 2000;
Münch et al. 2016). This is especially true for young indi-
viduals who are in a constant process of growth and
development (Karmakar et al. 2017; Roberts and DelVec-
chio 2000). Sun et al. (2014) further found personality
played a mediating role between adolescents’ creative
Journal of Child and Family Studies (2018) 27:2999–3007
thinking and their effects on creative behavior, and con-
scientiousness especially, mediated the relationship between
family factors and adolescents’ social development (Andres
et al. 2014; Guo and Wu 2011). According to the ecological
system theory, family environment shapes many aspects of
children’s development, perhaps including the expression of
personality (Csikszentmihalyi 2006; Dai et al. 2012). Per-
sonality, in turn, would be expected to predict creativity.
It is important to take into account children’s age and
gender when examining the relations among family envir-
onment (SES and parent-child relationships), children per-
sonality, and social creativity. Several studies suggest
significant change in children’s social creativity over the
course of the elementary school years. Mouchiroud et al.
(2002; 2008) found a significant grade difference in fluency
and originality in elementary school children’s social crea-
tivity. Other research on social creativity in real inter-
personal conflicts found that age was positively correlated
with social creativity, defined in terms of fluency, versati-
lity, curiosity, complexity, and risk-taking. Gender is also
found to be correlated with children’s creativity (Dasgruptas
and Sonthallas 2011).
Based on the above theoretical analyses and existing
literature, we put forward the following hypotheses: First,
we hypothesized that higher family SES, and positive
parent-child relationships would be positively associated
with a high level of social creativity. Second, we hypothe-
sized that children’s personality traits would be associated
with children’s social creativity. Third, we hypothesized
that children’s personality traits would mediate the rela-
tionship between family factors (SES, parent-child rela-
tionships) and social creativity. The proposed integrated
model is illustrated in Fig. 1.
Method
Participants
The research was conducted in central China. We recruited
participants from two representative normal elementary
Fig. 1 The mediating effect of personality on the relationship between
family environment (socio-economic status (SES), parent-child rela-
tionships) and social creativity
3001
schools during the autumn semester. We sampled four to
seven classes each from grade 4 to grade 6. Participants
were asked to complete online questionnaires consisting of
the study measures listed below. A total of 1018 students
completed the questionnaire. After excluding 63 students
with invalid data, data from 955 children (531 boys and 424
girls) were analyzed. Their ages ranged from 8 to 13 years
old (mean age = 10.26 years, SD = 0.94 years).
Procedure
In order to standardize the data collection process, all
examinations needed to go through a unified training ses-
sion priority. Oral consent was obtained from school
administrators and participants before data collection. We
administered the questionnaire by class; that is, we took
classes one by one to the computer room of the school. All
children participated in the survey voluntarily, and they
could withdraw at any time. Participants answered all
questionnaires on the school’s online psychological eva-
luation system.
Measures
Family socio-economic status
The Family Affluence Scale (FAS; Currie et al. 1997) was
used to assess socio-economic status (SES). This scale
avoids too many missing values on the traditional measures
of SES such as family income or parental education. The
FAS was developed as a measure of family SES (Van and
Vedder 2011) for the Health Behavior in School-Aged
Children (HBSC) surveys. The FAS includes four items:
Does your family own a car, van, or truck? (Yes, two or
more = 2; Yes, one = 1; No = 0); During the past
12 months, how many times did you travel away on holiday
with your family? (More than twice = 3; Twice = 2; Once
= 1; Not at all = 0); How many computers does your family
own? (More than two = 3; Two = 2; One = 1; None = 0);
and Do you have your own bedroom for yourself? (Yes = 1;
No = 0). Scores on these items were summed to a total
score, with higher scores indicating higher family SES. This
scale has demonstrated good reliability and validity among
Chinese students (Liu et al. 2012; Chen et al. 2016).
Cronbach’s α of the scale was 0.54.
Parent-child relationship
The Parent-Child Relationship Scale was used to assess
parent-child relationships (Buchnan et al. 1991). This scale
includes nine items that evaluate mother-child and father-
child relationship separately such as “how often does your
mother express the feeling of how much she loves you?”
3002
and “how openly do you talk to your mother?” Participants
responded on a 5-point scale (1 = strongly disagree, 5 =
strongly agree). The mean scores were calculated for each
participant, with higher values indicating a stronger parent-
child relationship. Cronbach’s α of the Parent-Child Rela-
tionship for the present sample was 0.91(father-child) and
0.90 (mother-child).
Children’s personality
Children’s personality was measured by the Chinese Five
Personality Inventory for Children (Zhou et al. 2000). It
consists of 50 items assessing five personality dimensions:
extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, openness,
and neuroticism. Openness refers to imagination or intel-
lectual curiosity (e.g., “I have a lot of imagination”); Con-
scientiousness refers to attention, willingness to work hard,
or order (e.g., “I am very diligent and always try to study
and work”); Extraversion refers to activity or facility with
other people (e.g., “I like to play with my classmates”);
Agreeableness refers to friendliness, empathy, or kindness
(e.g., “I can understand and appreciate others”); and Neu-
roticism assesses anxiety, anger, or negative mood (e.g., “I
feel dejected after a small failure”). Children rated each item
on a 5-point scale (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly
agree). An average score for each dimension was calculated,
with higher scores indicating a higher level of a specific
personality trait. This measure has demonstrated good
reliability and validity among Chinese elementary school
children (An et al. 2013; Zhang et al. 2006). In the current
study, Cronbach’s α for the five subscales were 0.83, 0.85,
0.88, 0.82, and 0.77, respectively.
Children’s social creativity
The Social Creativity Questionnaire for Elementary School
Children was used to assess social creativity (Gu et al.
2008a). This questionnaire consists of 24 items and six
dimensions: peer influence (five items, e.g., “I am very
popular with my classmates”), problem solving ability (five
items, e.g., “I take the initiative to solve the interpersonal
conflict”), eminence (four items, e.g., “I am good at
expressing myself”), strong persistence and drive (four
items, e.g., “I’m not easy to give up”), communicative skills
(three items, e.g., “I feel easy to interact with my class-
mates”), and initiative (three items, e.g., “I am well
responsible for various activities in school life”). Children
answered these items on a 3-point scale (1 = no, 2 =
sometimes, 3 = yes). The participants’ responses on each
item were averaged to form a scale score, with higher scores
indicating higher levels of social creativity. This measure
has demonstrated good reliability and validity among Chi-
nese elementary school children (Gu et al. 2008b; Song
Journal of Child and Family Studies (2018) 27:2999–3007
et al. 2013; Zhang et al. 2013). In the current study,
Cronbach’s α for the six dimensions were 0.83, 0.78, 0.77,
0.70, 0.60, and 0.70, respectively.
Data Analyses
First, we conducted descriptive statistics for children’s
social creativity, and the correlation analysis of the asso-
ciations of children’s social creativity with family envir-
onment (SES and parents-child relationships) and
personality. Second, we followed the path analysis to
establish the mediation effect of personality, which requires
(a) a significant association between the independent vari-
able (i.e., SES and parents-child relationships) and the
mediator variable (i.e., personality); and (b) a significant
association between the mediator variable (i.e., personality)
and the dependent variable (i.e., social creativity) after
controlling for the independent variable (i.e., SES and
parents-child relationships). To further illustrate the med-
iation paths between family environment (i.e., SES and
parents-child relationships) and children’s social creativity,
we followed the bootstrapping procedure proposed by
Hayes (2013) in SPSS20.0.
Results
As shown in Table 1, the social creativity of Chinese ele-
mentary school children was in the mid to upper level (M =
2.21, between 1 point and 3 points), and the means of the
six dimensions could be listed from high to low as follows:
communicative skills, initiative, problem solving ability,
strong persistence and drive, eminence and peer influence.
There were significant grade differences in total social
creativity score (F = 4.73, p < 0.01), initiative (F = 1.13, p
< 0.05), problem solving ability (F = 1.18, p < 0.05),
determination aggressive (F = 1.00, p < 0.05), and emi-
nence (F = 1.61, p < 0.01). Further post-hoc tests showed:
the total social creativity of fifth-graders was significantly
higher than that of the fourth- graders(t = 0.08, p < 0.05)and
sixth-graders(t = 0.10, p < 0.01); the Initiative of fifth-
graders was significantly higher than that of the sixth-
graders(t = 0.14, p < 0.01); the Strong persistence and drive
of fifth-grade was significantly higher than that of the sixth-
graders(t = 0.12, p < 0.01); the problem solving ability of
fifth-graders was significantly higher than that of the fourth-
graders(t = 0.08, p < 0.05); the eminence of sixth-graders
were significantly lower than that of the fourth- graders(t =
−0.10, p < 0.05) and fifth graders(t = −0.16, p < 0.01).
The descriptive statistics and correlations for all variables
are shown in Table 2. Social creativity was significantly
correlated with family socio-economic status, parent-child
relationship, and each personality trait.
Journal of Child and Family Studies (2018) 27:2999–3007 3003

Table 1 Descriptive statistics

Variables Grade M ± SD F
and ANOVA (N = 955)
4 5 6

Communicative skills 2.35 ± 0.51 2.42 ± 0.48 2.39 ± 0.46 2.38 ± 0.49 2.73
Initiative 2.29 ± 0.54 2.35 ± 0.50 2.22 ± 0.54 2.30 ± 0.53 4.05*
Problem solving ability 2.24 ± 0.51 2.33 ± 0.48 2.21 ± 0.50 2.27 ± 0.50 4.73**
Strong persistence and drive 2.19 ± 0.51 2.25 ± 0.49 2.13 ± 0.50 2.20 ± 0.50 3.97*
Eminence 2.15 ± 0.54 2.22 ± 0.55 2.06 ± 0.55 2.15 ± 0.55 5.35**
Peer influence 2.00 ± 0.54 2.09 ± 0.53 2.04 ± 0.54 2.04 ± 0.54 2.38
Social creativity 2.19 ± 0.42 2.26 ± 0.42 2.16 ± 0.43 2.21 ± 0.42 4.73**
Note: *p < 0.05, **
p < 0.01

Table 2 Descriptive statistics

M ± SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
and correlations among
variables SC 2.21 ± 0.42 1
SES 5.06 ± 2.10 0.27*** 1
PCR 3.44 ± 0.86 0.38*** 0.20*** 1
Extraversion 3.66 ± 0.80 0.53*** 0.26*** 0.31*** 1
*** *** ***
Agreeableness 3.87 ± 0.76 0.52 0.23 0.34 0.70*** 1
*** *** ***
Conscientiousness 3.67 ± 0.82 0.57 0.23 0.35 0.66*** 0.81*** 1
*** *** *** ***
Openness 3.60 ± 0.81 0.54 0.32 0.34 0.73 0.70*** 0.73*** 1
Neuroticism 2.95 ± 0.85 −0.13*** 0.01 −0.06* 0.10** 0.06 0.04 0.16** 1
Note: N = 995; *p < 0.05,**p < 0.01, ***
p < 0.001
SC social creativity, SES family socio-economic status, PCR parent-child relationship

To examine the relationships among family SES, parent-
child relationship, and social creativity reflected in the
model above, we first conducted a path analysis in Amos
17.0. Multiple fit indices were used to assess model fit,
including chi-square with its degrees of freedom, com-
parative fit index (CFI), goodness of fit index (GFI), non-
normed fit index (NNFI), standardized root mean square
residual (SRMR), and root mean square error of approx-
imation (RMSEA; Hu and Bentler 1999). Our model
demonstrated sufficient fit to the data, χ2/df = 2.76,
RMSEA = 0.04, GFI = 0.98, NNFI = 0.98, CFI = 0.99,
SRMR = 0.01. The direct effect of family socio-economic
status on social creativity (β = 0.11, p < 0.01) and the direct
effect of parent-child relationship on social creativity (β =
0.46, p < 0.01) were both significant.
To examine whether personality mediated the relation-
ship between family SES, parent-child relationships, and
social creativity, we conducted a path analysis in Amos
17.0. The mediated association model demonstrated suffi-
cient fit to the data, χ2/df = 5.77, RMSEA = 0.07, GFI =
0.94, NNFI = 0.94, CFI = 0.95, SRMR = 0.04. Indirect
effect path analyses are shown in Fig. 2. The direct effect of
parent-child relationship on personality was significant (β
= 0.25, p < 0.01), the effect of personality on social crea-
tivity was significant (β = 0.55, p < 0.01), and the path
coefficient of parent-child relationship’s effect on social
creativity decreased significantly once personality traits
were included as mediators (β = 0.21, p < 0.01); the direct
effect of family SES on personality was significant (β =
0.19, p < 0.01), the effect of personality on social creativity
was significant (β = 0.55, p < 0.01), and the path coefficient
of family SES’s effect on social creativity decreased sig-
nificantly once personality traits were included as mediators
(β = 0.01, p < 0.01). Thus, personality might mediate the
relationships between family SES, parent-child relation-
ships, and social creativity.
The bootstrapping procedure in SPSS was used to test
the mediating effect of personality (Hayes 2013). This
method produced 95% bias-corrected confidence intervals
of these effects from 1000 resamples of the data. Con-
fidence intervals that do not contain zero indicate
effects are significant at α = 0.05. The results are shown in
Table 3. Extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and con-
scientiousness significantly mediated the relationship
between family SES and social creativity, and the ratio of
indirect effect of these personality traits to total effect was
60.14, 77.83, 58.30, and 51.53%, respectively. Extraver-
sion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness also
significantly mediated the relationship between parent-
child relationships and social creativity, and the ratio of
indirect effect to total effect was 37.12, 42.24, 45.54, and
39.65%, respectively.
3004 Journal of Child and Family Studies (2018) 27:2999–3007

Fig. 2 The structural equation

model of family SES, parent-
child relationships, and
personality traits as predictors of
social creativity. Standardized
coefficients are presented. All
parameter estimates in this figure
were significant (p < 0.05).
Children’s gender and age were
included in the equations as
statistical controls but are not
presented for reasons of
simplicity. Note: The brackets
represent the path coefficient
before the mediator of
personality was added; *p <
0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001

Table 3 Mediating effect of personality 2013). As the results indicated, children from a high SES
Models Indirect Boot SE Boot Boot Ratio of family could enjoy more educational and developmental
effect LLCI ULCI indirect to resources from their parents (Currie et al. 1997; Matthews
total and Gallo 2011; Li et al. 2014); whereas, children from a
SES-E-SC 0.06 0.08 0.04 0.07 60.14% low SES family might suffer more conflicts and problems
SES-O-SC 0.07 0.01 0.05 0.08 77.83% during their growth (Ackerman et al. 2004; Conger et al.
SES-C-SC 0.05 0.08 0.04 0.07 56.30% 2000; Conger et al. 2002; Evans and Kim 2007; Taylor
SES-A-SC 0.05 0.01 0.03 0.06 51.53%
et al. 2014). Our results suggest that by improving “objec-
PCR-E-SC 0.06 0.01 0.05 0.07 37.12%
tive” family environment (family income, parents’ occu-
pation, education level, and so on), children from low SES
PCR-O-SC 0.07 0.01 0.05 0.08 42.24%
families can be helped to improve their social creativity and
PCR-C-SC 0.07 0.01 0.06 0.09 45.54%
form better interpersonal relationships.
PCR-A-SC 0.07 0.07 0.05 0.08 39.65%
In addition, parent-child relationships were related to
E extraversion, A agreeableness, C conscientiousness, O openness, N children’s social creativity. According to the ecological
neuroticism
model of authoritative parenting and adolescent adjustment
(Steinberg et al. 1995), problems in the parent-child rela-
Discussion tionship may make the child feel less supported and cared in
family life, perhaps resulting in more negative emotions
Social creativity is an important characteristic that allows (Suldo and Huebner 2004). Consistent with other related
children to solve interpersonal problems in novel ways. In studies (Fan and Zhang 2014; Fearon et al. 2013; Gu et al.
the current study, we examined the family environment and 2012) showing that positive parenting, especially parental
children’s personality traits as possible influences on social acceptance, warmth and authoritative parenting, are con-
creativity. As hypothesized, we found that family SES and ducive to children’s social creativity(Conger et al. 2010; Su
parent-child relationships were related to children’s social et al. 2015; Taylor et al. 2014). By contrast, negative par-
creativity; the results also showed that these associations enting, especially parental refusal and denial, may aggravate
were partially mediated by the personality traits of extra- the parent-child relationship and decrease children’s social
version, openness, agreeableness and conscientiousness. creativity (Gu 2009b; Song et al. 2013). Our results suggest
First, we tested the effects of family environment that good parent-child relationships might also help foster
(“objective” family SES and “subjective” or perceived social creativity.
parent-child relationships) on children’s social creativity. Second, this study found that the effects of family SES
Our results indicated that the children’s family SES and and parent-child relationship on social creativity were par-
parent-child relationships together were significant statis- tially mediated by children’s openness, conscientiousness,
tical predictors of children’s social creativity. The result can agreeableness, and extraversion. The results suggest that
be explained by the family investment theory and family high family SES and harmonious parent-child relationships
stress model. contribute to children’s personality traits development in a
The role of SES in relation to social creativity was healthy way, and these in turn affect children’s social
similar as that found for general creativity (Zhang et al. creativity. Harrington (1990) proposed the theory of the
Journal of Child and Family Studies (2018) 27:2999–3007
Ecology of Human Creativity, and argued that the external
environment (family SES and parents-child relationships)
primarily acted on creative development by influencing
personality traits (Feist 1999; Silvia et al. 2008, 2009). As
studies indicated, developmental trends of personality may
be different depending on individual and environment fac-
tors (Roberts and DelVecchio 2000; Wängqvist et al. 2015),
and personality traits mediate the relationship between
family factors and children’s creative behavior(Sun et al.
2014). Personality traits are very important for children’s
social creativity.
Furthermore, we not only found that the personality trait
of openness was positively associated with social creativity,
as documented in previous studies of creative thinking
(Feist 1999; Silvia et al. 2008, 2009), but also found the
mediation roles of conscientiousness, agreeableness, and
extraversion in the association between family factors
(family SES, parent-child relationships) and social creativ-
ity. Empirical research shows children from a better func-
tioning family get more care and inclusiveness from their
parents. Parents’ emotional response, timely encouragement
and tolerance contribute to children’s personality openness,
conscientiousness, agreeableness, and extraversion devel-
opment (Wängqvist et al. 2015). Compared with other
children, children from positive family environments (e.g.,
with high family SES and harmonious parent-child rela-
tionships) were more likely to communicate with others, to
be responsible and outgoing, and to show higher social
creativity at home and school. In other words, family
environments affect children’s social creativity through
children’s personality traits.
Although not the focus of our research, our descriptive
data showed that the fourth grade was one important period
for the development of children’s social creativity, which
was consistent with previous studies on creative thinking
(Gu 2009a; Torrance 1962). Torrance found the “fourth
grade slump” phenomenon in creative thinking, and the
current study found the same phenomenon in social crea-
tivity. The fourth grade is the key stage for children to learn
and master social rules (Runco and Charles 1997), and so it
might also be the key stage in which to develop social
creativity.
Limitations and Future Research Directions
The findings in this study have several limitations that
require further research. Firstly, we used a cross-sectional
design, but some studies have shown that the impacts of
family on children’s development and social adaptation
were long-term effects, and childhood personality may
develop in an unstable state (Roberts and DelVecchio
2000). Moreover, although family factors such as parental-
child relationships would exert important impacts on child
3005
personality, we acknowledge that some personality traits
(especially temperament factors) may in turn have effects on
parental-child relationships. The casual relationship
between these variables can not be determined by the cross-
sectional design we used. Therefore, it is necessary to use a
longitudinal design to examine the developmental changes
and dynamic links between family socio-economic status,
parent-child relationships and social creativity in future
research. Secondly, research has identified two sides of
social creativity (i.e., creative trait and creative state) using
behavioral and neuroscience methods (Gu. et al. 2015). In
this study, we only examined the creative trait of social
creativity (i.e., social creativity that has been stable in daily
life, rather than social creativity presented in short-term
specific tasks). Therefore, future studies should consider
both traits and states of social creativity. Third, family
environment has a wild content. It includes not only SES
and parents-child relationships. Parent’s pressure, education
level, parenting styles, and personality may also moderate
the effects of family factors on children’s creativity. Further
study should consider more possible models examining the
impact of family economic resources.
The present study found that family SES and parent-child
relationships were significantly correlated with children’s
social creativity, and personality traits played a mediation
role in these associations. The findings have important
implications for Chinese rural children, especially for those
children who are left-behind at home because their parents
migrate to urban areas for work. These children are suf-
fering from poor family economic situations and have to
live separately from their parents, which may hinder their
social and personality development and make it difficult for
them to deal with interpersonal problems. Therefore, it is
important to improve their parents’ abilities of coping and
managing stress, building close parent-child relationship in
the context of lower resources, which contributes to
developing children’s personality and social creativity. The
findings from this study may also be useful for school
psychologists to help children with interpersonal conflicts.
Acknowledgements This work was supported by a Major Program of
the National Social Science Foundation of P.R. China [11&ZD151],
self-determined research Funds of Central China Normal University
from the colleges’ determined research operation of MOE
(CCNU16JCZX11 & CCNU15A02056), State Scholarship Fund
organized by China Scholarship Council (201706775076), and the
Research Program Funds of the Collaborative Innovation Center of
Assessment toward Basic Education Quality at Beijing Normal Uni-
versity(2016-04-003-BZK01). We also acknowledge the support of
Katherine Kitzmann in preparing the manuscript.
Author Contributions: D.Z.: designed and executed the study, assisted
with the data analyses, and wrote the paper. Z.Z.: collaborated in the
writing and editing of the final manuscript. C.G.: assisted with the data
analyses, collaborated in the writing and editing of the final manu-
script. Y.L. and C.F.: analyzed the data and wrote part of the results.
3006
Compliance with Ethical Standards
Conflict of Interest The authors declare that they have no conflict of
intersts.
Ethical Approval All procedures performed in studies involving
human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of
the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964
Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical
standards. Central China Normal University had provided IRB
approval for the study.
Informed Consent Informed consent was obtained from all individual
participants included in the study.
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