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Interactive effects of parental psychological control and autonomy support on emerging adults’ emotion regulation and self-esteem

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Abstract

Emerging adulthood is a life period characterized with instabilities and identity explorations (Arnett, 2000). The current study explored how parental psychological control and autonomy support predicted 386 emerging adults’ emotion regulation and self-esteem (80.8% females, 89.1% Caucasians). As expected, psychological control predicted low levels, whereas autonomy support predicted high levels of emotion regulation and self-esteem among emerging adults. Moreover, interaction effects between autonomy support and psychological control were identified. Autonomy support was predictive of high levels of emotion regulation only when parents used low parental psychological control, but not when parents engaged in high psychologically controlling behaviors. Autonomy support also had more significant positive effects on self-esteem for those who reported low psychological control. Implications of the findings were discussed.

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Data Availability Statement

The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Correspondence to Xiaopeng Gong.

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All procedures performed in the study involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee.

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Informed consent was obtained from all participants included in the study.

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Gong, X., Wang, C. Interactive effects of parental psychological control and autonomy support on emerging adults’ emotion regulation and self-esteem. Curr Psychol 42, 16111–16120 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-021-01483-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-021-01483-3

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