December 24, 2003Journal of Personality
The Emotional Costs of Parents' Conditional Regard: A Self‐Determination Theory Analysis
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Discussion
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Implication
Observational study reveals parental conditional regard promotes behavioral enactment alongside internal compulsion and resentment in offspring, highlighting substantial emotional costs.
Key Points
- To examine whether parental conditional regard predicts children's introjected internalization, psychological ill-being, and resentment toward parents, and to assess its intergenerational transmission across behavioral domains.
- Evaluated a three-generational cohort assessing maternal reports of their parents' conditional regard in academics, current maternal well-being, and college-aged daughters' perceptions (Study 1).
- Surveyed male and female college students regarding maternal and paternal conditional regard across four domains (emotion control, prosocial behavior, academics, and athletics) to test mediating mechanisms (Study 2).
- Mothers exposed to parental conditional regard displayed poorer well-being, adopted controlling parenting attitudes, and transmitted conditional regard practices to their college-aged daughters.
- Perceived maternal and paternal conditional regard in students positively associated with introjected internalization, behavioral enactment, self-esteem fluctuations, parental disapproval, and resentment.
- Mediation analyses demonstrated that introjected internalization mediated the relationship between parental conditional regard and offspring behavioral enactment.
Cite This Study
Assor et al. (2003) studied this question.