Intergenerational Transmission of Parenting Style and Personality: Direct Influence or Mediation?

Abstract

In order to examine the relationships between parenting styles and personality traits over generations, a cross-sectional questionnaire study was conducted for fathers and mothers of school-age children of grades 5-9. The parenting styles measured by the Parental Bonding Instrument (PBI) and the personality traits measured by the Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI) were correlated within and between the consecutive generations (the grandparents and the parents for the PBI and the parents and the children for the TCI). A series of structural equation modeling showed that (1) while the parenting styles were transmitted directly from the grandparents to the parents, it was partly mediated by the fathers' Co-operativeness (C) but not so for the mothers, (2) while the personality traits were transmitted directly from the parents to the children, it was only the fathers' parenting styles that mediated C, and (3) the parents' parenting styles had independent effects upon the children's personality traits.

Lietuvos Tėvų, Auginančių 6–12 Metų Vaikus, Gyvenimo Stiliaus Individualiosios Psichologijos Požiūriu Sąsajos Su Vaiko Auklėjimo Stiliumi

“…The results of the present study, taken as a whole, support the empirical evidence suggesting that parental lifestyle or personality are related to parenting behaviors or styles (e.g. Huver et al, 2009;Kitamura et al, 2009;Metsapelto & Pulkinnen, 2003;Lundberg et al, 2000, etc. ).…”

“…Numerous research studies related to the connection between parents' personality and parenting have continually supported and suggested the signi cance of personality as an important variable in predicting a variety of parenting behaviors (Desjardins et al, 2008;De Haan, Prinzie & Dekovic, 2009;Huver, Otten, de Vries & Engels, 2009;Kitamura, Shikai, Uji, Hiramura, Tanaksa & Shono, 2009;Kochanska et al, 1997;Metsapelto & Pulkinnen, 2003;Latzman, Elkovitch & Clark, 2009;Lundberg, Perris & Adolfson, 2000;Oliver, Wright Guerin & Co man, 2009;Olsen, Martin & Halverson, 1999). The majority of these studies have focused on exploring the relationships of parenting behaviors and the ve-trait personality model.…”

“…And nally, Individual Psychology lifestyle and parenting styles could be enriched by including additional biopsychosocial variables in the research design. Because of that, several other factors, which could work as mediators or moderators for the interplay of lifestyle and parenting, should be taken into account in future investigations (e. g. parental gender, age, educational level, sense of competence, intergenerational transmission of parenting patterns, child's personality and behavior; De Haan et al, 2009;Kitamura et al, 2009;Latzman et al, 2009;Oliver et al, 2009).…”

Relationship of Adult Representations of Childhood Parenting and Personality Tendencies to Adult Stressors and Political Ideology

“…Although parents and children can reciprocally affect each other, most findings suggest that parenting style influences the development of children's behavior and traits, rather than children's psychological tendencies affecting parenting style (e.g., Aguilar 1998;Kitamura et al 2009;Lytton 1990;Patterson 1982). In this vein, Bornstein's (1992) review of developmental, social, and clinical studies of dependency concluded that overprotective, authoritarian parenting leads to child dependency and eventually to a variety of problems (e.g., depression, alcohol use and dependence, tobacco dependence, obesity, and eating disorders).…”

The Transmission of Parenting Behaviour Within the Family: An Empirical Study Across Three Generations

“…Such a direct mechanism of influence has been held to explain the continuity that has been observed in empirical studies (Putallaz et al, 1998). A mediational model involving interpersonal style, parenting beliefs, psychological state and social participation has also been cited as a factor explaining continuity in parenting behaviour across generations (Chen & Kaplan, 2001;Kerr et al, 2009;Kitamura et al, 2009;Putallaz et al, 1998). Very recently, epigenetic effects have been suspected to account for the transmission of parenting from one generation to the next.…”