Influence of Parenting Behavior on Psychosocial Adjustment in Early Adolescence: Mediated by Anger Regulation and Moderated by Gender

Abstract

Emotion regulation (ER)-one of the most important developmental tasks in early adolescence-has been proposed to mediate the relation between parenting and adolescents' psychosocial adjustment. The aim of this study was to examine the influence of parental psychological control and autonomy support on adolescents' problem and prosocial behavior (Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire), as well as to examine the mediating role of adolescents' anger regulation and the moderating effect of gender. We collected three-year longitudinal questionnaire data from N 5 923 parents and their (at first assessment) 9-to 13-year-old children. Pathanalysis results mainly support the mediating role of adolescents' adaptive and maladaptive anger regulation and suggest parental autonomy support to be beneficial for regulatory abilities and psychosocial adjustment, whereas the opposite was found for psychological control. Gender differences were found for parent report data, but not for adolescent report data. Practical and theoretical implications are discussed.

Relationship between Parental Socialization, Emotional Symptoms, and Academic Performance during Adolescence: The Influence of Parents’ and Teenagers’ Gender

“…One of the aspects that requires special attention is the family micro-system. Despite the growing filial autonomy that occurs during adolescence [5], theory and empirical research have shown for decades a broad consensus regarding the crucial importance of parent–child relationships in children’s and adolescents’ development and adjustment [6,7,8,9], with effects that persist into adult life [10]. Beyond the conceptualization of parental interactions, which seem to depend on the context and the culture in which they are evaluated, the “domain-specific” models appear to be more flexible and situational because they provide more specificity in understanding parenting effects [11,12].…”

Impulsivity mediates the association between parenting styles and self-harm in Chinese adolescents

“…Therefore, with respect to adolescents who reported experiences of a harsh maternal parenting style, it is reasonable to suggest that intervention measures aimed at reducing impulsivity may achieve a better effect in the area of SH prevention and control. Another reasonable explanation concerns the way in which strict and harsh parenting, such as over-protection and rejection, may hinder the development of proper impulse controls in adolescents: Longitudinal evidence found higher levels of reported impulsivity among young people who experienced parental coercion [ 33 ].…”

Self‐Construals and Social Adjustment in Immigrant and Nonimmigrant Early Adolescents: The Moderating Role of Executive Functioning

“…In this sense, prosocial behaviors are likely to rely less on “cold” cognitive processes such as the ones involved in executive functioning and more on “hot” processes of emotion regulation (Rueth, Otterpohl, & Wild, ). Thus, prosocial tendencies may be better explained by other variables involving emotionally salient aspects and abilities in terms of emotion regulation and empathy that were not the focus of the present study (e.g., Padilla‐Walker & Christensen, ; Rueth et al., ). Nonetheless, these results indicate that a more nuanced picture of the effects of self‐construals can be obtained by including multiple measures of social functioning.…”