Family environment and personality: perceived parenting and the role of personality

Repeated investigations have demonstrated the occurrence of a significant correlation between perceptions of parental rearing and various personality characteristics. Several options exist for interpreting the relationship between perceived parenting and personality: (1) that parental rearing behaviour is largely determined by the parents' personality; (2) that parental rearing behaviour is reactively evoked by the personality characteristics of the child, and (3) that answers to self-report questionnaires for assessing parental rearing are influenced by the inherited characteristics of the respondent. A possible answer to these questions has been researched in this study. Experiences of hparenting as assessed by the EMBU and temperamental characteristics as assessed by the TCI have been assessed in a random community sample of 734 subjects. Results of multiple regression analyses do not support the view that the offspring's temperamental characteristics influence to any large extent their perceptions of parental rearing. Perceptions of parental emotional warmth seem to be related exclusively to maternal characteristics, especially reward dependence. The results also suggest that responses to the self-report used, may be influenced by the temperamental characteristics of the respondent. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.