Parenting Behaviors Related to Young Adult Depressive Symptomology

arental stress, hostility, warmth, acceptance, amount of control, and overall security of parent-child attachment appears to influence childhood and adult adjustment. Several relationships have been found between parenting style and the emotional and psychological well being of children and adolescents (e.g., Baumrind, 1967, 1971; Parker, 1979a, 1979b; Ge, Conger, Lorenz, & Simons, 1994; Ge, Best, Conger, & Simons, 1996). The present study examined the effects of perceived parenting styles on young adults' reported psychological distress and depressive symptomology. Participants viewed both mothers and fathers as equally attentive, supportive, and controlling, while viewing mothers as slightly more caring. However, participants' perceptions of their mothers' parenting practices showed strong relationships to respondents' reported depressive symptomology and stress levels while their perceptions of their fathers showed weak relationships to stress and depressive symptomology. Parenting style was assessed using the Parental Bonding Instrument (Parker, Tupling, & Brown, 1979) and the Children's Report of Parenting Behavior Inventory (Schaefer, 1965). Psychological distress and level of depressive symptomology were measured with the Symptom-Checklist-90-Revised (Derogatis, 1983) and the Center for Epidemiologic Studies-Depression-Scale (Radloff; 1977).