Abstract
Optimism and neuroticism have strong public health significance; however, their developmental precursors have rarely been identified. This study examined adolescents’ self-competence and their parents’ parenting practices as developmental origins of optimism and neuroticism in a moderated mediation model. Data were collected when European American adolescents (N = 290, 47% girls) were 14, 18, and 23 years old. Multiple-group path analyses with the nested data revealed that 14-year psychological control and lax behavioral control of both parents predicted lower levels of 18-year adolescence self-competence, which in turn predicted decreased 23-year optimism and increased neuroticism. However, the positive effects of warmth on 18-year optimism were stronger in the context of high maternal and paternal authoritativeness, and the positive effects of warmth on adolescent self-competence was attenuated by maternal authoritarianism. This study identified nuanced effects of parenting on adolescents’ competence and personality, which point to important intervention targets to promote positive youth development.
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Authors’ Contributions
JY conceived of the study, participated in its design and coordination, performed the statistical analysis, and drafted the manuscript; DP, CH, and MB conceived of the study, participated in its design and coordination, and revised the manuscript critically for important intellectual content. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
Funding
This research was supported by the Intramural Research Program of the NICHD, NIH, USA and an International Research Fellowship in collaboration with the Centre for the Evaluation of Development Policies (EDePo) at the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), London, UK, funded by the European Research Council (ERC) under the Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 695300-HKADeC-ERC-2015-AdG).
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The datasets generated and/or analyzed during the current study are not publicly available but are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
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All procedures in this study were in accordance with the American Psychological Association’s ethical principles underlying human research participant protections.
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Ethical approval for the study [88-CH-0032] was obtained from the Institutional Review Board of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.
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Written consent forms were collected at the 14-year data collection and online consent forms were collected through a secure, password-protected website at the 18- and 23-year data collection.
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Yu, J., Putnick, D.L., Hendricks, C. et al. Long-Term Effects of Parenting and Adolescent Self-Competence for the Development of Optimism and Neuroticism. J Youth Adolescence 48, 1544–1554 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-018-0980-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-018-0980-9