Parents are an object of human relationship made firstly after children are born, so parental rearing behaviors have an very important influence on children's lifelong psychological growth and mental health. Subjective awareness for parents' rearing ...
Parents are an object of human relationship made firstly after children are born, so parental rearing behaviors have an very important influence on children's lifelong psychological growth and mental health. Subjective awareness for parents' rearing behaviors can be divided into positive level (care) and negative level (overprotection) and it is considered to show relationship with emotional kinds (positive/negative) experienced by children and youth. Especially, the strength of the experience of negative emotion is known to be different by kinds (positive/negative) of emotion regulation strategy for it. This research intended to examine if perceived parental rearing behaviors makes an effect on negative emotion such as depression and anxiety during the youth, and if the degree of influence can be changed by individual strategy of emotion regulation.
For the purpose, 277 undergraduate students(98 males/ 179 females) completed the perceived Parental Rearing Behaviors Inventory(PBI), the Emotion Regulation Strategy Questionnaire(ERSQ), the CESD for depression, and the STAI for anxiety. In research 1, the relationships between perceived parental rearing behaviors and negative emotion, emotion regulation strategy and negative emotion, perceived parental rearing behaviors and emotion regulation strategy were respectively analyzed. As expected, the participants reported as follows; (1) The more individuals perceived parental rearing behaviors as 'care', less experienced negative emotion. (2) The more perceived as 'overprotection', the more experienced negative emotion. (3) The participants with the negative emotion regulation strategy reported more negative experiences than the subjects used the positive strategy. (4) It was found the significant relationships between perceived parental rearing behaviors, and emotion regulation strategies at levels of awareness and behavior.
The research 2 investigated if the effects on depression and anxiety by sub-strategy form of the emotion regulation strategy according to the gender. Among the participants used negative regulation strategy, both men and women who used the sub-strategy of 'negative thinking' many times reported more depression and anxiety. The relationship between 'binge eating' strategy and depression was observed in only females. And the sub-strategy of 'criticizing others' showed negative relationship with depression in male participants only, although it's negative regulation.
In the research 3, participant divided into 4 groups based on their perceived parental rearing behavior scores and emotion regulation strategy scores; 'positive' vs. 'negative' rearing groups(the highest 30% vs. the lowest 30% on the parents rearing scale score), and the 'positive' vs. 'negative' strategy groups (the highest 30% vs. the lowest 30% on the emotion regulation strategy scale score). Effects of perceived parental rearing behaviors and emotion regulation strategy on the degree of reducing negative emotion after watching video about a temporary terrible car accident were compared between the 4 groups(n=24, respectively). As a results, it was not confirmed the reducing effects on the state negative emotion in all 4 groups. However, if comparing the gender differences for negative emotional changes, only females' anxiety significantly increased after watching the car accident.
In conclusion, the present findings suggest that the effect of perception of own's parental rearing behaviors on psychological experiences continue until adult period beyond the youth, and the importance of emotion regulation strategy in mental health. Finally, limitations and suggestions of this research were discussed.