Parenting Styles as Predictors of Emotion Regulation Among Adolescents

Received 30 Sep, 2011

Accepted 18 Feb, 2013

Published 30 Jun, 2013

The present study was sought to examine the role of maternal and paternal parenting styles on the prediction of emotional regulation among adolescents. Parental Authority Questionnaire (Babree, 1997) and Early Adolescents Temperament Questionnaire (Ellis & Rothbart, 2001) were used to collect the information from the participants. Sample of the current research consisted of adolescents (N = 194) belonging to 7th, 8th, and 9th classes. Multiple Regression analysis was applied to test the hypotheses. The results indicated that maternal authoritative parenting style had significant positive effect on emotion regulation. Maternal permissive parenting style had significant negative effect on emotion regulation. Similarly authoritative paternal parenting style had significant positive effect on emotional regulation whereas paternal permissive parenting style had significant negative effect on emotion regulation. However, results on the maternal and paternal authoritarian parenting style were non-significant. Current study is pretty insightful in understanding the role of parenting styles in emotion regulation.

Parents play a crucial role in the social and emotional development of children. Indeed, both indirect and direct processes of emotional socialization may shape the child’s experience of emotion (Guerrero & Andersen, 1998). While examining parental socialization, parenting style should be considered which reflects the constellation of attitudes that are communicated to the child and create an emotional climate in which parent’s behavior are expressed’’ (Darling & Steinberg, 1993, p. 493). In order to understand parents’ influences on their children, researchers have attempted to conceptualize and operationalize parenting styles into meaningful categories or dimensions such as authoritative, authoritarian, and permissive parenting styles (Baumrind, 1967; Maccoby & Martin, 1983).

Authoritative parenting reflects high control and high responsiveness. This style of parenting has been associated with higher levels of effortful control (Zhou, Eisenberg, Wang, & Reiser, 2004) and self-regulation (Baumrind & Black, 1967). In contrast authoritarian parenting reflects high control with lower levels of warmth. They are demanding and unresponsive to emotional needs of child. Permissive parents exhibit high levels of warmth and low levels of control. Adolescents of permissive parents tend to lack verbal and behavioral control. Children’s ability to regulate their emotions also effects on their emotion regulation (Bornstein, 2002; Rothbart & Bates as cited in Eisenberg et al., 2005).

Emotion regulation is defined “as the process of initiating, avoiding inhibiting maintaining, or modulating the occurrence, form, intensity, or duration of internal feeling states, emotion related physiological, attentional processes, motivational states, and/or behavioral concomitants of emotion in the service of accomplishing affect-related biological or social adaptation or achieving individual goals” (Eisenberg & Spinard, 2004, p. 338). These researchers highlighted the fact that children’s effortful control, children's emotion regulation is common in developmental research. Effortful control has been found to be a measurable key component of emotion regulation (Eisenberg & Morris as cited in Balter & Tamis, 2006).

Rothbart and Bates (as cited in Eisenberg et al., 2005) defined effortful control, in terms of temperament as the efficiency of executive attention, including the ability to inhibit a dominant response and/or to activate a subdominant response, to plan, and to detect errors, and plays a fundamental role in the emotion regulations (Eisenberg, Fabes, Guthrie, & Reiser, 2000). It includes such abilities in which an individual shift attention and focus and Effortful control includes the abilities to voluntarily focus and shift attention and to initiate or inhibit behavior by using overt emotional expression and emotion-related experiences.

Parents regulate children skills and shape children’s acquisition of emotion regulation through parent-child interactions and relationship (Parke, Cassidy, Burks, Carson, & Boyum as cited in Chang, Schwartz, Dodge, & Mcbridge, 2003). According to Morris et al. (2007) the emotion regulation is socialized through processes including parental practices, emotional climate of the family and modeling and these can be affected by parenting styles, attachment relationships and marital relationship in a family.

Research with adolescents also showed that parental affection, love and positive expression is related with low levels of externalizing behavioral problems in children and children’s effortful control which in turn results in secure attachment and emotion regulation (Contreras, Kerns, Weimer, Gentzler, & Tomich, 2000; Eisenberg et al., 2005), because children has greater strengths and resources for dealing and facing negative events and emotions (Cummings & Davies, 1996).

Parenting styles and children emotional regulation capacities are clearly related with each other in many researches. Parental harsh attitude and bad parenting effects children’s capacity to regulate and results in emotion dysregulation (Eisenberg et al., 1999). Learned negative emotions of children due to harsh and bad parenting is related with children emotional dysregulation (Gottman et al. as cited in Chang, et al., 2003), which results in academic and social problems of children (Fabes, Eisenberg, & Miller, 1990). Similarly, Morris et al., (2007) found that child emotional regulation was negatively associated with maternal hostility as effortful control.

There is paucity of research examining the effect of parenting styles on emotion regulation among adolescents (Morris et al., 2007) so the focus of the present study was to examine the influence of maternal and paternal parenting style on emotion regulation among adolescents. Although adolescence is a time period marked by increased conflict (Steinberg & Morris, 2001) therefore parental support is particularly important during this time due to adolescents’ negative emotion regulation (Larson, Richards, Moneta, Holmbeck, & Duckett, 1996). Hair, Moore, Garrett, Ling, and Cleveland (2008) found that mother adolescents, father adolescents because these contributes to adolescents emotional development. In the past research work some researches suggests that parenting style of single parenting and some studies focused on the parenting styles of both parents are important (Baumrind as cited in Simons & Conger, 2007) but average inferences can be drawn by seeing previous research work that both parents are more important (Lamborn, Mounts, Steinberg, & Dornbusch, 1991; Steinberg, Elmen, & Mounts, 1989). In the current study both the fathers and mothers influences on emotion regulation were investigated separately.

Hypotheses regarding the association between maternal and paternal parenting style with emotion regulation can be gleamed from previous research. The authoritative parenting with high parental warmth and love make negative thoughts less threatening and provide sense of security in children and results in emotional development (Davies & Cummings, 1994). That’s why it was anticipated authoritative parenting style i.e. maternal and paternal parenting would be positively related with emotion regulation. In contrast maternal and paternal authoritarian style would be negatively related with emotion regulation. Cheng et al. (2003) found that harsh parenting was negatively associated with emotion regulation of children. Moreover it was hypothesized that maternal and paternal permissive style would be negatively related with emotion regulation. This parenting style has been linked to aggressive behavior in those children who have low achievements and self control. These children do not have emotional control and they often faced difficulties in learning (Baumrind, 1967).

Numerous studies suggest that parenting is also associated with the adjustment of children and mothers and fathers adopt different parenting styles for their daughters and sons (Mckinney & Renk, 2008). Fathers mostly used authoritarian parenting style whereas mothers mostly used authoritative parenting style (Russell et al., 1998). Son perceived fathers to use authoritarian parenting style and perceive mother to use permissive parenting style whereas daughter perceive father to use authoritative parenting style (Conrade & Ho, 2001).

Beside the main hypotheses on the effect of parenting styles on the prediction of emotional regulation, the other hypotheses were formulated on the basis of previous research (Conrade & Ho, 2001; Russell et al., 1998) indicating that girls will perceive their mother to be more authoritative and authoritarian as compared to boys. Boys will perceive their mother to be more permissive as compared to girls. Girls will perceive their father to be more authoritative and permissive as compared to boys whereas boys will perceive their father to be more authoritarian as compared to girls.

Child’s gender is also likely to affect in terms of parenting styles and children’s emotion regulation as it effects on socialization and levels of emotion regulation. It has been shown in many researches that due to reactivity level differences female better regulated their emotions than male (Morris et al., 2002), and parent sex and child sex can impact on socialization process of emotional regulation (Zeman & Shipman, 1997).

Hypotheses

1.	Maternal Authoritative Parenting Style is positive predictor of Emotion Regulation among Adolescents
2.	Maternal Authoritarian Parenting Style is negative predictor of Emotion Regulation among Adolescents
3.	Maternal Permissive Parenting Style is negative predictor of Emotion Regulation among Adolescents
4.	Paternal Authoritative Parenting style is positive predictor of Emotion Regulation among Adolescents
5.	Paternal Authoritarian Parenting Style is negative predictor of Emotion Regulation among Adolescents
6.	Permissive Parenting Style is negative predictor of Emotion Regulation among Adolescents

METHOD

Participants
Sample of interest in this study were adolescents (N = 194) with age ranges of 12-15 years (M = 14.00, SD = 3.25). Purposive sampling technique was used for the selection of 7^th class (n = 45, 23.2%), 8^th class (n = 75, 38.7%) and 9^th class students (n = 74, 38.1%) from private sector secondary schools. Both girls (n = 99, 51%) and boys (n = 95, 49%) were included in the sample. It is a general observation that majority of students in these schools were from middle class families i.e. people rating themselves among the people having moderate income instead of the people having low or high income. The criteria for the inclusion of the adolescent students was based on the predefined age range and the data of those students who were giving incomplete information or having single parent were excluded from the analysis. A total of 250 questionnaires were distributed out of which 194 were selected for the study, thereby indicating 77.6% hit rate. The questionnaires were excluded either due to incomplete or missing information or due to outliers.

Measures
Parental Authority Questionnaire (PAQ). The parenting styles were measured by using Urdu version (Babree, 1997) of Parental Authority Questionnaire originally developed by Buri (1991). The scale comprised of 60 items and two parts. Both parts comprise of 30 items and three subscales measuring paternal and maternal authoritarian, authoritative, and permissive parenting style respectively. Thus Part-I measures perceived attitude of mothers towards child whereas Part-II measures perceived attitude of fathers towards. There were no cut off scores therefore the scores are interpreted in terms of high and low scores on a subscale. The scale was based on 5-point Likert type scale ranging from 1 (almost always untrue) to 5 (almost always true). The scores on a subscale were computed as 10 as minimum scores whereas 50 as maximum scores. Reliability coefficient for scales were .80 for mother authoritativeness, .81 for mother authoritarianism, .82 for mother permissiveness whereas it was .79 for father authoritativeness, .76 for father authoritarianism, and .80 for father permissiveness (Buri, 1991). For the present sample reliability coefficient value for the PAQ subscales were .86 for mother authoritativeness, .70 for mother authoritarianism, and .74 for mother permissiveness; whereas, it is .79 for father authoritativeness, .73 father authoritarianism, and .70 for father permissiveness. Thus the scales have satisfactory internal consistency to use in the present study.

Early Adolescents Temperament Questionnaire (EATQ-Revised). The adolescents’ emotion regulation was assessed by using EATQ-Revised originally developed by Ellis and Rothbart (2001). The scales comprised of three subscales including 26 items and three subscales including attention shifting and focusing, inhibitory control, and activation control. However in the present study, total scores were taken to measure emotional regulation among adolescents. There is no cut off scores in the scale therefore the scores are interpreted in terms of high scores indicating high emotional regulation whereas low scores indicating low emotional regulation. The scale is based on five-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (almost always untrue) to 5 (almost always true). The scores on the scales were computed as 26 as minimum scores whereas 130 as maximum scores. The reliability of the original scales was computed as .90 (Ellis & Rothbart, 2001). Reliability coefficient value for the present sample was computed as .74. Thus the scale has satisfactory internal consistency to use in the present study.

Procedure
The principals of schools were contacted for seeking the permission to conduct the study in their schools. Informed consent in written was obtained from the concerned authorities. Data of adolescents was collected in group setting. Before collecting the information in the class rooms, a short rapport building session was conducted. The students and teachers were briefed about the purpose of the research. They were assured that the information provided by them would be kept confidential and would be used only for the research purpose. Both the questionnaires were administered on the students. They were instructed to read each statement carefully and respond as honestly as possible. They were requested not to leave any statement unanswered. The students and teachers were thanked for their time and cooperation. After getting complete information from students the data was entered into data file to run future analysis and find out results.

RESULTS

Descriptive statistics for all variables were computed followed by reliability coefficient of the scales and subscales used in the study. Multiple regression analysis was conducted to determine the role of parenting styles in prediction of emotion regulation. MANOVA was applied to study the differences among boys and girls on their perception of parenting styles. Furthermore, t-test was conducted to investigate gender differences on emotion regulation.

Table 1:	Descriptive Statistics, Alpha Reliability Coefficients and Zero-Order Correlation among Study Variables
Note. Read a as Maternal Parenting Style; b as Paternal Parenting Style; ER = Emotion Regulation *p < .05. **p < .01

Table 1 shows the means, standard deviations and alpha coefficient values and zero-order correlation for the subscales of Parental Authority Questionnaire and Emotion Regulation Scale. The alpha coefficients for subscale of Parental Authority Questionnaire and Emotion Regulation Scale indicate that all the scales have adequate internal consistency for the present sample. Results of the Pearson correlation indicate that maternal authoritative parenting style has significant positive correlation with maternal permissive parenting style, paternal permissive parenting style and emotional regulation. Maternal authoritarian parenting style has significant positive correlation with paternal authoritarian parenting style. Maternal permissive parenting style has significant positive correlation with paternal authoritative parenting style and paternal permissive parenting style. Maternal permissive parenting style has significant negative correlation with emotional regulation. Paternal authoritative parenting style has significant positive correlation with paternal permissive parenting style and emotional regulation. Paternal authoritarian parenting style has significant negative correlation with paternal permissive parenting style. Paternal permissive parenting style has significant negative correlation with emotional regulation.

Table 2:	Summary of Standard Multiple Regression analysis for the Effect of Maternal and Paternal Parenting Styles on Emotion Regulation
**p < .01. ***p < .001

A simultaneous multiple regression analysis (enter method) was computed (Table 2) with parenting styles entered as the predictor variables and emotion regulation as the outcome variable. To find whether mulitcollinearity is a serious problem or not, the multicollinearity diagnostics were reviewed. Tolerance scores for maternal parenting style were moderate to high ranging from .84 to .97 for the predictor variable. All of the Variance Inflations Factor (VIF) for the predictor variable was less than two 1.02 to 1.18 indicating that multicollinearity is not a serious problem. Tolerance scores for maternal parenting style were moderate to high ranging from .84 to .97 for the predictor variable. All of the Variance Inflations Factor (VIF) for the predictor variable was less than two 1.02 to 1.18 indicating that multicollinearity is not a serious problem.

In the first analysis (Table 2), the maternal parenting styles of authoritative, authoritarian and permissive were entered simultaneously as the predictor variable and the emotion regulation of the adolescents as the outcome variable. The ∆R² of .051 indicates that 5.1% of the variance in the score for emotion regulation of the adolescents can be accounted for by the independent variables entered in the analysis with F(3, 193) = 4.48, p < .01. The findings indicate a moderate effect on emotion regulation was observed for Authoritative style of mother (β = .18, p < .01), where as significant negative effect was observed for Permissive Style (β = -.26, p < .001). The effect of authoritarian parenting style (β = .03, p = ns) on emotion regulation was non significant.

Table 3:	Mean and Standard Deviation of Perceived Parenting Styles on the Parental Authority Questionnaire
Note. PAQ = Parental Authority Questionnaire

To investigate the effect of paternal parenting style on emotion regulation regression analysis was conducted (Table 3) with the paternal parenting styles were entered as predictor variables and emotion regulation as the outcome variable. The adjusted ∆R² value of .081 indicates that 8.1% variance in the emotion regulation of adolescents can be accounted for by then predictor variables with F(3, 193) = 6.66, p < .0001). Of these variables Authoritative and Permissive styles are significant. An authoritative style (β = .28, p < .0001) has a positive slope while the Permissive paternal style (β = .24, p < .001) has a negative slope.

Thus as predicted high levels of Authoritative paternal style is associated with high emotion regulation and high Permissive style is associated with low emotion regulation among adolescents. Results in Table 3 indicate a significant multivariate main effect for girls and boys differences. Wilk’s lambda = 0.894, F(6,187) = 3.68, p < .002, partial η² = .106. Exploration of the univariate effects indicates that girls perceived their mothers to be more authoritative as compared to boys, F(1,192) =12.19, p <.001, partial η² = .060. Boys perceived their mother to be more authoritarian as compared to girls, F(1,192) = 5.647, p <.01, partial η² = .029. Boys perceived their father to be more authoritarian as compared to girls. F(1,192) = 11.38, p < .001, partial η² = .056. Significant differences between girls and boys were not found on the maternal permissive parenting style, paternal authoritative parenting style and paternal permissive parenting style.

Gender differences revealed nonsignificant differences among girls and boys in relation to emotion regulation (p > .05).

DISCUSSION

The present study was aimed at investigating the role of parenting styles (maternal and paternal) in prediction of emotion regulation among adolescents. The study also examined the mean differences among girls and boys regarding their perception of maternal and paternal parenting styles. Finally, the study examined gender differences in emotional regulation. Hair et al. (2008) had shown that the relationship between parents and their adolescent children relates to adolescent development and both the father–adolescent and the mother–adolescent relationships are important.

Effect of Maternal Parenting Styles on Emotion Regulation
The first hypothesis “Maternal Authoritative Parenting Styles is positive predictor of Emotion Regulation among adolescents” was supported by data. Authoritative parenting style positively predicted emotion regulation of adolescents. These results were in line with the past research in which Eisenberg et al. (2001) showed that mother’s responsiveness (a component of authoritative parenting style) predicted greater amount of emotion regulation (assessed as effortful control). As authoritative parenting is comprised of warmth and responsiveness so they provide children with a sense of security and make the experience of negative affect less threatening to them (Davies & Cummings, 1994) which may facilitate the development of effortful control.

The second hypothesis “Maternal Authoritarian Parenting Style IS negative predictor of Emotion Regulation among adolescents” was not supported in the present study. The findings were not consistent with the literature. As research by Hoffman (as cited in Eisenberg et al., 2004) showed that highly authoritarian parents place exclusive reliance on parental direct external control of the child’s emotion and behavior which may interfere with the development of children’s self regulatory abilities. As the above mentioned researches were from Western society which emphasizes the individualistic culture and our society has a collectivist culture. Research showed that the authoritarian style of parenting has been found to be more effective in collectivist cultures (Papps, Walker, Trimboli, & Trimboli, 1995; Szapacinik & Kurtines, 1993). A study conducted by Rudy and Grusec, (2006) with mothers and children from individualist Western European) and collectivist (Egyptian, Iranian, Indian, and Pakistani) backgrounds had shown that collectivist mothers endorsed authoritarian parenting more than did individualist mothers and their children were not lower in self-esteem. In such cultures Authoritarian parenting styles may teach the children the importance of conformity and obedience (Triandis, 1989), that’s why the authoritarian parenting style in our culture dose not leads to low emotion regulation.

The third hypothesis “Maternal Permissive Parenting Style is negative predictor of Emotion Regulation among adolescents” was supported in the present study. This finding is consistent with past literature. The finding showed that permissive parenting style of mothers had a significant negative effect on emotion regulation. According to Baumrind (1968), children of permissive parents are often left to regulate their own activities, behavior, and emotions at a young age. As a result, preschool children of permissive parents tend to experience difficulty regulating emotions, have low self-control, and be very immature (Baumrind, 1967). This parenting style had been linked to bossy, dependant, impulsive behavior in children, with low levels of self-control and achievement; these children do not learn persistence, emotional control, or limitations (Baumrind, 1967).

Effect of Paternal Parenting Styles on Emotion Regulation
Recently there has been an increasing interest in fatherhood and the role of fathers in families (Gaertner, Tracy, Spinrad, Eisenberg, & Greving, 2007). In general, fathers are quite capable and proficient caregivers (Lamb, as cited in Gaertner et al., 2007 , and their positive involvement in child rearing is associated with healthy outcomes in the social, emotional, and cognitive functioning of children from infancy onward (Lamb as cited in Gaertner et al., 2007). In work with older children and adolescents, aspects of fathers' direct involvement such as time spent with children, child-care participation, and supportive parenting behaviors have been linked with academic achievement, fewer problem behaviors, and healthy psychosocial adjustment (Amato & Rivera, 1999; Simons, Whitbeck, Beaman, & Conger, 1994), often even after controlling for maternal influences (Amato & Rivera, 1999).

In the current study the parenting style of fathers was found to predict emotion regulation of adolescents. The finding of the study showed significant influence for authoritative and permissive style but non-significant influence for authoritarian parenting style on emotion regulation. Thus the fourth hypothesis “Paternal Authoritative Parenting Style is positive predictor of Emotion Regulation among Adolescents” was supported in the present study. The findings were consistent with past research in which authoritative parenting (both mothers and fathers) have predicted effortful control (Eisenberg et al., 2004).

According to Kochanska, Murray, and Harlan (2000), children are likely to internalize parental messages and comply with commands when their parents’ are positive and supportive. In addition, parents who express high levels of positive emotion, likely develop a strong parent–child relationship that can promote adaptive interactions and regulated behaviors, perhaps because these children have resources that foster high levels of effortful control (Cummings & Davies, 1996). Nurturing parents who are secure in the standards they hold for their children provide models of caring concern as well as confident, self-controlled behavior. A child's modeling of these parents provides emotion regulation skills, emotional understanding, and social understanding.

The fifth hypothesis “Paternal Authoritarian Parenting Style is negative predictor of Emotion Regulation among Adolescents” was not supported by data as the findings were nonsignificant. The results of the present study are not in agreement with previous studies. Chang et al. (2003) showed that harsh and controlling parenting of fathers affected the children’s emotion regulation. Gottman et al. (as cited in Chang et al., 2003) found negative and non supportive interactions between parent and children undermine children’s regulatory abilities and socially appropriate behavior. Most of the researches in the past had taken together the influence of both fathers and mothers such as Parents who are rejecting, hostile or become angry model dysregulated approaches to managing emotion (Cole, Michel, & Teti as cited in Valiente, Lemery-Chalfant, & Reiser, 2007). One of the possible explanations for that effect could be that generally fathers are more likely to use an authoritarian style of parenting as compared to mothers and they are perceived more punitive in response to their children’s displays of emotions than mothers (Eisenberg, Fabes, & Murphy, 1996). That’s why the influence of father’s authoritarian style was not significant on emotion regulation.

The sixth hypothesis “Paternal Permissive Parenting Style is negative predictor of Emotion Regulation among Adolescents” was supported in the present study. This finding was in line with the previous literature which had demonstrated that adolescents of permissive parents tend to lack verbal and behavioral control, be more aggressive, and have difficulty following school rules (Dornbusch, Ritter, Leiderman, Roberts, & Fraleigh, 1987; Lamborn et al., 1991). Adolescents who refuse emotional guidance from their parents may be at risk for externalizing problems. Failure to provide structure and adequate supervision during adolescence, specifically, may affect emotion regulation such that increases in behavior problems due to lack of supervision are linked to emotion dysregulation, particularly problems in anger regulation (Frick & Morris as cited in Morris et al., 2007). Moreover, neglectful, uninvolved parenting likely puts adolescents at greatest risk for emotion regulation problems as these adolescents have the fewest boundaries and experiences the highest levels of adjustment difficulties; emotion regulation is likely one key component of such problem behavior.

The findings of the study were in line with the past literature, which revealed information about Western culture showing authoritative style associated with positive outcomes and authoritarian and permissive associated with negative outcomes. In our culture somewhat similar relationship exists for authoritative and permissive parenting style but not for authoritarian parenting style. Past researches had also shown that authoritarian parenting styles were associated with positive outcomes in collectivist culture.

Differences in Parenting Styles of Mothers and Fathers for Girls and Boys
Despite the fact that earlier research has noted sex differences in parenting and differential treatment of sons versus daughters, differences in overall parenting styles have been overlooked until recently researchers had investigated differential parenting style of mother and father for their son and daughters (Conrade & Ho, 2001; Mckinney & Renk, 2008). The findings of present study showed significant results for mother’s authoritative, authoritarian and father’s authoritarian parenting style. Mothers and fathers may adopt different parenting styles on the basis of the sex of their children and adolescents. Research has shown that mothers tend to engage in more frequent interactions with their children and are more responsive than fathers (Baumrind, 1991; Lewis & Lamb, 2003). The hypothesis that girls will perceive their mother to be more authoritative as compared to boys is consistent with previous findings, which showed that girls perceived mothers as being more likely to use an authoritative style (Conrade & Ho, 2001). The hypotheses regarding the boys and girls perception of their mother and father to be more authoritarian were consistent with previous research. Baumrind (1991) found that authoritarian style was more likely to be used when parenting boys. Research by Conrade and Ho (2001) had shown that boys perceived fathers to be more likely to use authoritarian style.

Nonsignificant gender differences were found on mother and father’s permissive parenting style, and father’s authoritative parenting style. The hypothesis that boys will perceive their mother to be more permissive as compared to girls was not consistent with previous research. Conrade and Ho (2001) found that boys viewed mothers being more likely to use permissive style. Although Russell et al. (1998) findings were contradictory suggesting fathers as compared to mothers tend to overlook misbehavior. The hypothesis that girls will perceive their father to be more authoritative as compared to boys is not supported by data. Berndt, Cheung, Lau, Hau, and Lew (1993) found that girls perceived their fathers as warmer as and less controlling than boys. However, nonsignificant gender differences were also found by other researchers on authoritative subscale (Conrade & Ho, 2001; Mckinney & Renk, 2008). Hypothesis regarding the girls’ perception of their father’s permissive parenting style was not supported by data. Some researches had also found nonsignificant gender differences on father’s permissive parenting style (Conrade & Ho, 2001; Dwairy, 2004). Shek (1998) had reported nonsignificant gender differences regarding the fathers parenting style.

Gender Differences in Emotional Regulation
: In the present study without formulating hypothesis, it was anticipated on the basis of the prior research that girls will score high on emotion regulation as compared to boys but it was not supported by data. Although researchers have found that girls score higher on emotion regulation (assessed as effortful control) than do boys (Eisenberg et al., 2003; Kochanska, Murray, & Coy, 1997; Kochanska et al., 2000). Girls are typically better regulated than boys, and this may be due to innate differences in reactivity levels (Morris et al., 2002). The result of the study is not in line with past research because it showed non significant difference on emotion regulation. However, recent studies had also shown nonsignificant gender differences on emotion regulation (Boo & Kolk, 2007; Eisenberg et al., 2007).

LIMITATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS

The findings of this study must be viewed in the context of its limitations. One limitation may be the generalizability of the findings. The sample consisted solely of early adolescents from middle class families who ranged in age from 12 to 15 years and who were residing in same locality. Hence, caution must be taken when attempting to extend these findings to children, older adolescents, and lower and upper class families. Furthermore, the data was only collected from private schools so caution must be taken to extend these findings to public schools.

Another potential limitation of this study is that it relied solely on the self-report of the adolescent. Although adolescents respond behaviorally and emotionally to their own perceptions of the parenting that they experience, thus what the late adolescent experiences and recalls may differ from what their parents would report and what is actually experienced in families. Parents’ perception of their own parenting style should also be taken. Information about emotion regulation was only obtained from children’ self-reports which would not reflect the accurate picture. The use of multiple informants (parents, peers and teacher reports) and multiple methods, for example, structured observations of adolescents interacting with their parents (Allen, McElhaney, Kuperminc, & Jodl, 2004) may enhance our understanding about emotion regulation of adolescents.

The future research on associations between emotion regulation and the family context needs to be expanded to include a broader emotional system. Influence of child characteristics (i.e. emotionality) should also be taken into account. More research on siblings, grandparents living in the home, and the family system as a whole is needed in order to fully understand how the family, and not just parents, impacts emotion regulation.

Finally, future research also must include an examination of risk factors that affect the family context and emotional development more broadly, such as dangerous neighborhoods, poverty, stress and parental education (Feldman, Eidelman, & Rotenberg, 2004; Raver, 2004). During adolescence, in particular, as an individual’s social context expands, it is important to consider access to recreational opportunities such as media and sports as well as the expanded influence of peers. Future research can also be conducted to check the cross language validity of emotion regulation scale (translated version).

IMPLICATIONS

Beside all these limitations, the broader goal of understanding the association between adolescents’ emotion regulation and the parent-adolescent relationship is to help to improve the lives of adolescents at risk for psychological problems. Difficulty in regulating negative emotion such as anger and sadness lead to emotional and behavioral problems. Parenting plays an important role in social and emotional development of children. Parents must balance an adolescent’s need for autonomy and supervision. Parental involvement and monitoring of behavior are crucial in preventing antisocial behavior. Autonomy granting is significant in that adolescents are developing a more advanced self-concept. Given these changes, it is likely that parenting in these domains has a direct impact on adolescents’ emotion regulation. Programs of parental education by training parents to provide their adolescents more responsive and supportive environment should be developed. When applying these findings to therapies or interventions, it seems likely that efforts aimed at the prevention of problem behaviors would benefit by targeting parenting styles that influence both children’s emotion regulation and more general adjustment.

CONCLUSION

The objectives of the study were threefold including examining the effect of maternal and paternal parenting styles on the prediction of emotional regulation among adolescents, identifying the differences in parenting styles of mothers and fathers for girls and boys, and investigating gender differences in emotional regulation. Most of the hypotheses were supported in the present study. Maternal and paternal authoritative parenting style positively predicted emotional regulation whereas maternal and paternal permissive parenting style negatively predicted emotional regulation among adolescents. The findings were non-significant on both maternal and paternal authoritarian parenting style. The hypotheses on the identifying the differences in parenting styles of mothers and fathers for girls and boys were partially supported in the present study however the findings on gender differences in emotional regulation were not supported in the present study. Overall, the present study is valuable in understanding the role of parenting styles in the perdition of emotional regulation in the collectivist context of Pakistan.

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