Examining Parenting Styles and Dimensions as Predictors for Adolescents’ Perceived Life Satisfaction as Adults

Literature supports the idea that parenting practices have a lasting impact on an individual's life and development. The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine parental parenting styles, parental parenting dimensions, and independent adult child life satisfaction to determine what aspects of parental parenting styles are more likely to increase the chances of greater life satisfaction among males and female adults A sample of 94 adult participants were surveyed through Prolific to gather information on their perceived parental parenting styles, parental parenting dimensions experienced in childhood by their mother and their current level of perceived life satisfaction. Results indicated that participants reported greater life satisfaction when they had mothers who had an authoritative parenting style and higher levels of demandingness. Results also showed that participants reported lower levels of life satisfaction when mothers presented with higher levels of responsiveness. Additionally, results indicated that gender moderates the relationship between permissive parenting and life satisfaction in independent adult children, where women reported higher levels of life satisfaction when their mothers had higher scores of permissive parenting.