The Influence of Parental Autonomy Support on Creative Self-concept in the Context of Business Education

Abstract

The amount of attention given to creative beliefs has increased in recent years. We wanted to answer a call for more research on the antecedents of creative self-concept, assessing the influence of parental autonomy support in the context of business education. Participants were 272 college students from Mexico who completed a battery of questionnaires assessing parental autonomy support, creative self-concept, self-reported ideation, and a divergent thinking task. Results showed a positive relationship between business-specific parental autonomy support and creative self-concept. In addition, creative self-concept had positive relationships with selfreported creative ideation and creative potential in the form of an originality index. Our results suggested that parental support was important to help students have confidence and the motivation to value the process of generating novel and useful business ideas. The implications of the results were discussed.