Parental Optimism and Children's Perceived Societal Fairness: Role of Effortful and Effortless Action

Objective To examine how parental optimism trajectories relate to children's perceived societal fairness, and the mediating roles of Confucian effortful action and Taoist effortless action. Background Children's perceptions of societal fairness are shaped by family influences and cultural attitudes toward effort. In contemporary China, phenomena such as “lying flat culture” highlight the need to understand how parental optimism may influence children's fairness beliefs through culturally specific pathways. Methods Longitudinal data from the Chinese Family Panel Studies (CFPS) were analyzed ( N = 2506 children; mean age = 13.58). Parental optimism (T1–T4), children's effortful/effortless action (T4), and perceived societal fairness (T5) were examined using latent growth modeling and structural equation modeling. Results Both paternal and maternal optimism showed increasing trajectories but did not directly predict children's fairness perceptions. Maternal optimism (T1) positively predicted children's effortful action (T4), which in turn predicted perceived fairness (T5), yielding a significant indirect effect. Paternal optimism showed a marginal negative association with effortless action, but the indirect effect was not significant. Conclusion Maternal optimism is indirectly associated with children's perceived societal fairness through Confucian effortful action. The paternal pathway via effortless action did not reach significance and remains exploratory. Implications Interventions may benefit from targeting maternal optimism and the transmission of effortful action values. Future research should improve measurement tools, distinguish classical wu‐wei from modern passive disengagement, and examine bidirectional parental influences.