A Tri-Directional Examination of Parental Personality, Parenting Behaviors, and Contextual Factors in Influencing Adolescent Behavioral Outcomes

Abstract

Links between parental personality, parenting, and adolescent behavior have been well established. However, extant research is limited by the sole focus on parental Big Five personality, and not taking home and family context into account. These gaps were addressed in two studies. In study 1, context, parental personality, and their interactions were examined as predictors of parenting in separate mother and father models (parents only). In study 2, context, parental personality, and parenting were examined as predictors of adolescent behavioral outcomes (parent–adolescent dyads). Parents (N = 283, 45.6% mothers, Mage = 45.51 years) completed assessments of socioeconomic status (SES), adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), personality (Big Five, Dark Triad), and parenting. Adolescents (N = 257, 51.4% female, Mage = 13.65 years) completed an assessment of behavior. Parent Dark Triad domains explained more variance in parental warmth and hostility than the Big Five, but equivalent variance in adolescent behavior. SES interacted with maternal personality, whereas ACEs interacted with paternal personality, to predict parenting behavior. The results showcase the importance of assessing a wider spectrum of parental personality, and examining contextual factors, in affecting adolescent development.

Parent personality traits and problem behavior in adolescence: The mediating role of adolescent personality

“…This finding builds on previous research that identified neuroticism as a key trait among fathers contributing to parenting styles (Prinzie et al, 2012). However, findings do not perfectly align with previous work that identified agreeableness and conscientiousness as key personality dimensions of fathers predicting offspring externalizing problems (Truhan et al, 2022). This difference in research findings could reflect differences in populations (Australian vs. European samples) where parent personality might have a greater or lesser role in child behavior, or could reflect the small effect sizes for some dimensions that are difficult to detect in research.…”

“…The finding that adolescents with mothers who scored higher on neuroticism, and lower on extraversion, openness, agreeableness and conscientiousness, were more likely to show some problem behavior is consistent with a body of research exploring parental traits and adolescent externalizing and internalizing problems (Franken et al, 2017;Gromatsky et al, 2017;Truhan et al, 2022). That mothers' neuroticism and conscientiousness were most consistently associated with adolescent behavior problems is also consistent with past research (Truhan et al, 2021).…”

“…The tridirectional model further predicts that offspring traits interact with parental traits to feed back into parenting styles (see e.g., Vrolijk et al, 2022), with both age and sex (of parents and offspring) predicted as potential moderators (Truhan et al, 2021). Support for this model has been demonstrated through research showing that parents scoring higher on neuroticism and lower on conscientiousness have more negative parenting styles such as overreacting, and lower levels of parental warmth, support, and responsiveness (Clark et al, 2018; de Haan et al, 2012; Kochanska et al, 2012; Prinzie et al, 2009; Truhan et al, 2022). Parent extraversion, openness and agreeableness have differing effects on parenting depending on context (Truhan et al, 2021).…”

“…A systematic review of 8 and 14 studies respectively, found that parent personality traits consistently predicted offspring internalizing and externalizing problems (Truhan et al, 2021). In terms of effects for the big five personality traits during adolescence, higher levels of parental neuroticism, and lower levels of parental agreeableness and conscientiousness, have been found to predict a greater likelihood of internalizing and externalizing problems (Franken et al, 2017; Gromatsky et al, 2017; Truhan et al, 2022). There is also some evidence that parent personality traits (higher levels of openness) relate to adolescent drug and alcohol use (Gabel et al, 1997), and that parent scores on openness, extraversion and conscientiousness relate to adolescent sexual activity involvement and sexual risk taking (Allen & Laborde, 2022).…”

“…There is now good evidence that adolescent personality traits relate to their involvement in problem behavior (Mann et al, 2020), that parent personality traits relate to offspring behavior problems (Truhan et al, 2022), and that parent personality traits relate to offspring personality traits (Vrolijk et al, 2022). However, only a handful of studies have explored potential mediating effects in adolescent samples, with fewer still exploring the mediating role of adolescent personality using the five‐factor model framework.…”