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Emotion Regulation in Relation to Emerging Adults’ Mental Health and Delinquency: A Multi-informant Approach

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Abstract

Relative to the merits of authoritative parenting, potential adverse outcomes are well documented for authoritarian and permissive parenting. However, conclusions are typically drawn from single informants. The ability of youths’ emotion regulation skills to mediate outcomes in emerging adults has also not been fully explored. This study investigated whether emotion regulation mediated parenting style history and potential outcomes of mental health and delinquency. Parenting style history and emerging adults’ emotion regulation ability were reported by 110 youth and their caregivers; youth reported on mental health functioning and delinquency. Emerging adults’ emotion regulation ability partially mediated the association between authoritative parenting history and mental health functioning and authoritative parenting history was indirectly related to delinquency through emotion regulation; however, based on all reporters, emotion regulation ability was not associated with authoritarian or permissive parenting style history. Results support that the merits of authoritative parenting may lie in fostering better emotion regulation skills.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, 1720 2nd Ave South, Birmingham, AL, 35294, USA

    Christina M. Rodriguez

  2. University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Greensboro, NC, USA

    Meagan C. Tucker & Kija Palmer

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  1. Christina M. Rodriguez
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  2. Meagan C. Tucker
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  3. Kija Palmer
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Correspondence to Christina M. Rodriguez.

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Rodriguez, C.M., Tucker, M.C. & Palmer, K. Emotion Regulation in Relation to Emerging Adults’ Mental Health and Delinquency: A Multi-informant Approach. J Child Fam Stud 25, 1916–1925 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-015-0349-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-015-0349-6

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