PARENTAL EDUCATIONAL STYLES AS PREDICTORS OF PERFECTIONISM AND QUALITY OF SIBLING RELATIONSHIPS AMONG STUDENTS

"The main objective of this study was to examine the relationship between parental educational styles, perfectionism in children, and the quality of adult sibling relationships. Additionally, the goal is to determine whether parental educational styles represent a significant predictor of perfectionism and quality of relationship between adults. The research was conducted on a sample of 200 respondents, students of the Faculty of Philosophy, the Faculty of Economics and the Faculty of Sciences and Mathematics in Niš. EMBU questionnaires were used to examine the parental educational styles, the Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale (MPS), and the KOBS Questionnaire on the quality of relationships with siblings in adulthood. The starting hypotheses have been partially confirmed and new questions have been raised about these constructs and their relationship. Statistically significant predictors of different aspects of perfectionism that were measured were a) significant predictors for the aspect of Parental Expectations were the following parental educational styles Overprotective mother (?=0.375, p=0.003) and Father’s Favoritism (?=-0.186, p=0.035), b) a significant predictor for the aspect of Organization was the following educational style Mother’s Emotional Warmth (?=0.335, p=0.031); c) significant predictors for Parental Criticism were the following educational styles Father’s Rejection (?=0.254, p=0.009) and Mother’s Emotional Warmth (?= -0.437, p=0.000), d) the significant predictor of Personal Standards was Overprotective mother (?= 0.307; p=0.042), e) significant predictors for Concern over Mistakes, were the following educational styles Parental Inconsistency (?=0.160; p=0.048) and Mother’s Emotional Warmth (?= -0.308, p=0.027), f) significant predictors of Doubts about Actions were the following educational styles, Parental Inconsistency (?=0.235, p=0.007), Overprotective mother (?= 0.304, p=0.035) and Mother’s Favoritism (?=0.222, p=0.028). When it comes to the quality of relationship between brothers and sisters, parental educational styles are also significant predictors of various aspects of those relationships. We are pointing out the most important results. Statistically significant predictors of the subscale Competition between siblings were the educational styles Father’s Rejection (?=0.469, p=0.000), Mother’s Favoritism (?=0.475, p=0.000), Father’s Favoritism (?=-0.196, p=0.029), and Mother’s Emotional Warmth (?=-0.313, p=0.019). Statistically significant predictors for the subscale Closeness or Warmth between siblings were the following educational styles Mother’s Rejection (?=-0.456, p=0.006) and Father’s Emotional Warmth (?=0.391, p=0.002). Statistically significant predictors for subscale the Conflict between siblings were the following educational styles Father’s Rejection (?=0.355, p=0.003) and Mother’s Favoritism (?=0.337, p=0.000). These results show that both rejection and favoritism by the parents contribute to the development of less desired relationships between siblings. Overprotective parents, inconsistency and favoritism of a child contribute to less desired aspects of perfectionism. Additional analysis of connection between perfectionism and relationship between siblings revealed that the less desired aspects of perfectionism are connected with bad relationships between siblings. The only exception is the aspect of Organization as it is connected with emotional and instrumental support, familiarity, closeness and admiration between siblings."

The role of parenting and parental criticism on the body image and alexithymia during adulthood and emerging adulthood

Literature underline that the perception of parents as strongly critical can influence the tendency to self-criticize and, as a consequence, to be more vulnerable in manifesting problems in the developmental and adulthood age, such as the risk of dropouts and relapses in the eating disorders, negative results in the worsening of anxiety disorders, the possible presence of alexithymia or obsessive compulsive disorder. The purposes of the present study was to investigate the possible influence of parenting style and parental criticism on both the body image construct (body care, body protection, and comfort in touch) and the possible presence of alexithymia in a group of Italian adolescents and adults. The present study was conducted on a group of 140 subjects, aged between 19 and 36 (M = 24.71; SD = 5.11), of which 59 men (42.1%) and 81 women (57.9%). The participants were assigned to complete the following questionnaires: Parental Bonding Instrument, Twenty-Item Toronto Alexithymia Scale, Perceived Criticism Inventory, and Body Checking Questionnaire. The results of this study support the research hypothesis that low age, a high level of paternal control and parental criticism can predict a high level of difficulty in communicating feelings. Furthermore, the importance attributed to appearance can be predicted by multiple variables, such as gender, age, mother care, father control and parental hypercriticism.

Perfectionism and Writing Performance of Chinese EFL College Learners

In the second language acquisition domain, researchers have devoted tremendous efforts to studying the relationship between L2 learning and some socio-affective factors, such as anxiety, motivation, etc. However, little research has been done to examine whether and how perfectionism, a psychological trait, affects L2 learning and L2 performance. The present study aims to fill this gap and investigate the relationship between the level of perfectionism and L2 performance among Chinese EFL college learners. Two specific questions are raised: (1) What is the relationship between perfectionism and L2 writing performance in terms of linguistic complexity, accuracy, and fluency? (2) What is the relationship between the six dimensions of perfectionism (Concern over Mistakes, Personal Standards, Parental Expectations, Parental Criticism, Doubts about Actions, Organization) and L2 writing performance in terms of linguistic complexity, accuracy, and fluency? To answer these questions, forty second-year students from Guangdong University of Foreign Studies majoring in English participated in the present study. The participants were required to compose a piece of English argumentative writing on the online system and then complete a 35-item Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale online immediately. The collected data were then processed and analyzed through SPSS (v. 17). The results of the analysis revealed that: (1) one of the measures of syntactic complexity has a significant negative relationship with perfectionism; (2) Personal Standards, one of the six dimensions of perfectionism, has a significant negative relationship with the participants’ L2 writing performance; (3) both Parental Expectations and Parental Criticism are found negatively correlated with the fluency aspect of the writing performance and the relationships have a significant effect. The implications of the findings are suggested for pedagogy and L2 learning.

Multiple domains of risk factors for first onset of depression in adolescent girls

Background: First onsets of depression are especially common in adolescent females and often develop into chronic/recurrent illness. Surprisingly few studies have comprehensively evaluated multiple domains of etiologically-informative risk factors for first onset in adolescents from the community. We investigated whether clinical, cognitive, personality, interpersonal, and biological risk factors are prospectively associated with first onset of DD, and of DD with a chronic/recurrent course, in a community sample of adolescent girls.Methods: 479 girls (13.5-15.5 years) with no history of DD completed baseline assessments of risk factors and five diagnostic assessments over 3 years. Baseline measures were analyzed separately and jointly to prospectively predict first-onset DD and first-onset chronic/recurrent DD.Results: Most risk factors predicted first-onset DD (n=93), including depressive symptoms, anxiety disorders, rumination, personality traits, blunted neural response to emotional pictures, peer victimization, parental criticism, and parental mood disorder. Among these, depressive symptoms, rumination, parental mood disorder, and parental criticism were independently associated with first onsets. Nearly all measures, including a blunted neural response to rewards (RewP), also predicted first-onset chronic/recurrent DD (n=52), with depressive symptoms, low extraversion, poor peer relationships, and blunted RewP emerging as independent risk factors. Conclusions: Multiple domains of risk factors in early adolescence are prospectively associated with first-onset DD and chronic/recurrent DD. A smaller subset of risk factors uniquely contributing to first onsets may represent core vulnerabilities for adolescent-onset depression and promising targets for multi-component prevention strategies.

Parental criticism and adolescent internalising symptoms: Associations remain after accounting for shared genetic effects

ObjectiveParental criticism is associated with internalising symptoms in adolescent offspring. It is unclear whether these behaviours cause one another, and/or whether they are influenced by shared genes in related parent-offspring pairs. We use an Extended Children of Twins design to assess whether parent-reported criticism and offspring internalising symptoms remain associated after controlling for shared genes. To aid interpretation of our results and those of previous Children of Twins studies, we examine statistical power for the detection of genetic effects and explore the direction of psychosocial influences between generations.MethodData were drawn from two Swedish twin samples, comprising 876 adult twin pairs with adolescent offspring and 1030 adolescent twin pairs with parents. Parents reported on criticism towards their offspring, concurrently with parent and offspring reports of adolescent internalising symptoms. Extended Children of Twins structural equation models were used to examine intergenerational social and genetic mechanisms.ResultsParental criticism was associated with adolescent internalising symptoms after controlling for genetic relatedness. No significant role was found for shared genes influencing phenotypes in both generations. Power analyses confirmed that any undetected genetic effects were small. Models could not distinguish the causal direction of possible psychosocial effects between generations.ConclusionThe association between parent-reported criticism and adolescent internalising symptoms is not attributable to genetic confounding in this sample. As such, parental criticism may be involved in psychosocial family processes in the context of adolescent internalising. Future studies should seek to identify these processes and provide clarity on the direction of potential causal effects.