Mom, Dad, and Me: Personality Moderates the Relationships Between Parenting Traits, Shame, and Morality

The current study explores the complex interactions between an individual’s personality, perception of parenting styles, and morality including moral identity and responses to guilt and shame. Specifically, the study investigated the effects of the individual’s perception of warm and cold parenting traits for both mothers and fathers on guilt, shame proneness, and moral identity and whether personality moderates any of these relationships. The study contained ninety-nine participants from a Midwestern university in the United States that were primarily white and female with an average age of 19.7 years. Participants completed two parenting questionnaires about their mother/mother figure and father/father figure. In addition, participants completed personality and guilt and shame proneness scales about themselves. Results found that the perception of the mother having a warm parenting style was related to the individual’s shame and guilt and was moderated by the individual’s agreeableness and neuroticism. The perception of the father having a cold parenting style was related to the individual’s moral integrity and was moderated by the individual’s neuroticism. This study provides insight into the distinct roles and impacts that mothers and fathers have on their children and the complex process of shame and moral identity.