Does Locus of Control Influence Parentification and Anxiety in Father–Daughter Relationships?

Abstract

Parentification is a role-reversal phenomenon in which boundary violations occur such as children being their parents’ physical or emotional caretakers. Researchers have shown that childhood parentification can produce anxiety, but locus of control (LOC) moderates this relationship. We sought to examine the influence of LOC on the parentification-anxiety relationship in father–daughter dyads, as this dyad is under-represented in the parentification literature. One hundred and eighty-one undergraduate women completed an anxiety measure, parentification questionnaire, and an LOC inventory. Higher levels of parentification and lower levels of internal LOC were associated with higher reports of anxiety, but internal LOC did not appear to moderate the anxiety-parentification relationship. For individuals residing at home, parentification predicted anxiety, whereas internal LOC predicted anxiety among those not residing at home. These results further the paternal parentification literature, as well as show the relationship between childhood parentification and women’s anxiety for those currently living at home.

Locus of Control as a Mediator of the Relationships Between Motivational Systems and Trait Anxiety

“…Moreover, the LOC partially mediated the relationship between anxious attachment and all three psychopathology symptom clusters (social anxiety, OCD, and depression) at various levels. More specifically, the relationship between LOC and anxiety has been the subject of interest in the literature since the 1960s (e.g., Butterfield, 1964;Cohen et al, 2008;Hovenkamp-Hermelink et al, 2019;Jolley & Spielberger, 1973;Mays & Krueger, 2021;Molinari & Khanna, 1981;Rubin, 1993;Shoychet et al, 2022;Watson, 1967). Furthermore, the growing body of literature review has shown a positive relationship between belief in external LOC and psychopathology (Atilola et al, 2021;Dag, 1999;Moreira et al, 2020;Sullivan et al, 2017Sullivan et al, , 2021.…”