Authoritative Parenting Style and Grit in Medical Students: The Mediating Role of Hope

Medical education demands perseverance and resilience, making grit, a psychological trait that involves perseverance and passion for long-term goals, a crucial factor for academic and professional success. This study explores the mediating role of hope in the relationship between authoritative parenting and grit among medical students. Authoritative parenting, characterized by high responsiveness and structured demands, is hypothesized to influence grit through developing hope. This cross-sectional study, involving 160 Indonesian medical students who had completed at least one semester, has yielded significant findings. The data, collected via online questionnaires, including demographics and three instruments measuring grit, authoritative parenting, and hope, have been rigorously analyzed. The reliability and validity of the instruments were confirmed, with Cronbach's alpha coefficients ranging from 0.769 to 0.926. The statistical analyses, including mediation analysis, have revealed significant positive correlations between authoritative parenting style and grit and between authoritative parenting and hope. Moreover, hope significantly mediated the relationship between authoritative parenting and grit. Complete mediation was observed, indicating that authoritative parenting impacts grit primarily through hope. These findings not only confirm the importance of authoritative parenting in fostering grit but also highlight the critical role of hope as a mediator. This study underscores the importance of parental support in fostering grit among medical students and paves the way for future research to explore longitudinal designs and extend these findings to diverse educational settings, inspiring further investigation in the field.