Parenting style and obsessive‐compulsive symptoms and personality traits in a student sample

Abstract

There is widespread acceptance of the idea that aspects of parenting such as overprotectiveness and perfectionism contribute to the pathogenesis of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Less resolved is whether the important dimensions of parenting are overprotectiveness, lack of acceptance, authoritarian style, discouragement of risk-taking, and/or induction of guilt. It is also unclear whether different parenting characteristics are associated with the development of symptoms of OCD, compared to the traits of obsessive-compulsive personality disorder (OCPD). OCD symptoms and OC personality traits were measured in a non-clinical, student sample and correlated with students' report of parents' acceptance, disciplinary firmness, and psychological control (a construct which included psychological manipulation and guilt-induction). Following the literature on both clinical and subclinical OCD and OCPD, we predicted that all three scales would correlate with OCD symptoms and OCPD traits.Stepwise regression analysis revealed that psychological control was the unique predictor, controlling for depressive symptoms. Unexpectedly, a controlling parenting style was not selectively associated with classical OC symptoms or OC personality traits. Rather, psychological control was associated with a broad-spectrum of anxiety and depressive symptoms which cut across diagnostic boundaries. Findings are generally compatible with a single underlying vulnerability to both OCD and OCPD, as well as generalized/social anxiety and depressive symptoms, which can be shaped by cultural and familial factors to a specific clinical presentation.

Anxiety disorders and control related beliefs: the exemplar of Obsessive–Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

“…Similarly, it has been suggested that individuals with OCD may be disturbed by their low sense of control over events that are important to them (Bolton, 1996;Franzblau, Kanadanian, & Rettig, 1995;Frost et al, 1993) or the perceived loss of control over their own behavior (Carr, 1974). Thus, objectively-irrational compulsive behaviors may help to restore feelings of control in threatening situations, when individuals feel that no other avenue for Control-Related Beliefs and OCD 15 control exists (Aycicegi, Harris, & Dinn, 2002;Bolton, 1996;Frost et al, 1993;McFall & Wollersheim, 1979). Consistent with this proposition, empirical research has consistently linked superstitious and magical beliefs to OC symptoms; the strongest relationships demonstrated with compulsive checking (Bolton et al, 2002;Emmelkamp & Aardema, 1999;Frost et al, 1993;Rosen & Tallis, 1995;Roth & Baribeau, 2000;cf.…”

Links Between Israeli College Students’ Self-Regulated Learning and Their Recollections of Their Parents’ Parenting Styles

“…It may be that once the subjects take some affective distance from the influence of their authoritarian parents, they can consolidate the tendency to criticism that they experienced and internalized with their parents into a useful critical-thinking skill. This possible interpretation can be reinforced by the link found in general between authoritarian parenting and compulsive or perfectionist personality in children (Aycicegi et al, 2002), since both conditions are based on close analytic abilities.…”

Association Between Obsessive-Compulsive Symptom Dimensions in Mothers and Psychopathology in Their Children

“…Similarly, Coppola et al (11) described that the presence of OCS in mothers from a community sample was associated with higher levels of parental stress and the presence of OCS in children. Other studies have shown that dysfunctional parenting, including overprotection and controlling, authoritarian and negative behaviors are more frequent in parents with OCS (12)(13)(14) and that they increase the risk for children to have higher levels of over responsibility, obsessional beliefs related to responsibility and threat estimation, as well as higher rates of psychiatric symptoms, including OCS (15).…”