The Role of Parental Acceptance–Rejection in Emotional Instability During Adolescence

Abstract

The present study focuses on analyzing the relationship between the parental acceptance–rejection perceived by adolescents and emotional instability from the early stages of adolescence. Special attention will be paid to potential differences between mothers and fathers. A total of 1181 students, aged 11–17, took part in the study. We used the factor of emotional instability in the Big Five Questionnaire (BFQ-NA) and an affect scale (EA-H) to measure parental acceptance–rejection. The analyses performed show a clear association between emotional instability with maternal/paternal criticism and rejection. Specifically, maternal criticism and rejection in early adolescence and paternal criticism and rejection in middle adolescence were associated with emotional instability, confirming the association between children’s and adolescents’ emotional adjustment and family dynamics. This study makes interesting contributions to understanding paternal and maternal rejection during the different stages of adolescence. These differences should be incorporated into the research on parental influence and its role in the development of personality among adolescents.

Parental Socialization Styles: The Contribution of Paternal and Maternal Affect/Communication and Strictness to Family Socialization Style

“…Indeed, previous research has found that adolescent children tend to award higher scores to their mother than to their father in all dimensions, both positive and negative (affect, communication, control, discipline, etc.) [2,37,55,56,57].…”

“…In this sense, considering jointly the dimensions of both parents in the form of socialization family style could contribute to clarify these complex relationships. In regards to the developmental phase or age for example, mothers have been found to have more influence during childhood and early adolescence [80], while fathers seem to become more prominent figures in their children’s lives towards the end of this period [2] and during young adulthood [36]. Besides, traditionally it has been considered that with increasing age, parents adapt their parental behaviors to their children’s changing needs, which translates into a child’s perception of less control [82], support, and affection [44], especially in the case of older adolescents.…”

“…From childhood onwards, the family is the foremost context for socialization and individual development, and parents represent one of the most powerful influences in their children’s lives [1,2]. Far from being restricted to childhood, however, this influence continues throughout individuals’ entire lives [3,4], becoming particularly relevant in moments of change, such as adolescence, which is now considered the most complex period of the life cycle due to the multiple simultaneous challenges faced by young people during the teenage years [5].…”

“…In the few studies which mention a "family style", participants are asked about their parents’ practices in a general, non-specific manner, with no distinction being made between mothers and fathers [3,47,48]. Alternatively, the score of a single parent is used [2,4] or family style is established on the basis of a mean score, simply combining the scores obtained by the father and the mother for each specific dimension [49].…”

“…Studies which report dimension measures for both mothers and fathers have found that they tend to coincide and correlate positively with each other, although mothers are usually perceived as more affectionate, as well as exercising greater control and discipline than fathers [2,37,55,56,57]. This may be due to the fact that, despite social advances and the increase in parental co-responsibility, gender construction and social stereotypes still result in women continuing to be more involved than men in the care and upbringing of their children [37].…”