Abstract
While there has been a sufficient amount of research documenting the relationship between parenting styles and child outcomes, there are fewer studies that analyze how the impact of parenting may manifest differently in offspring during childhood as opposed to young adulthood. In order to study the two cross-sectional samples, two experiments were conducted. In Experiment I, Montessori school children at the Montessori School of Wooster (N=29) were interviewed to assess their coping self-efficacy and emotional regulation abilities. The parents of the child interviewees also filled out an online survey aiming to measure their parenting style and the coping self-efficacy, emotional regulation skills, and risk-taking behavior of their children. In Experiment II, undergraduate students at The College of Wooster (N=67) completed an online survey prompting them to reflect on their parents’ parenting styles and their own coping self-efficacy, emotional regulation skills, and risk-taking behavior. I hypothesized that authoritative parenting and permissive parenting would positively correlate with coping self-efficacy and negatively correlate with difficulties in emotional regulation, that authoritarian parenting would negatively correlate with coping self-efficacy and positively correlate with difficulties in emotional regulation, and that authoritarian and permissive parenting would positively correlate with risk-taking behavior, while authoritative parenting would negatively correlate with risk-taking behavior. The results showed that in the children, authoritarian parenting positively correlated with coping-self efficacy scores calculated through interview coding and that in college students, authoritative and permissive parenting positively correlated with coping self-efficacy and that there were no significant relationships between parenting style and the other two behavioral measures. The lack of significant relationships found in this study signify that alternative study methods may be needed in future research to explore these topics.
Advisor
Thompson, Claudia
Department
Psychology
Recommended Citation
Swinford, Brianna, "The Impact of Parenting Styles Across Cultures on the Coping Self-Efficacy, Emotional Regulation, and Risk-Taking Behavior of Children and Young Adults" (2025). Senior Independent Study Theses. Paper 11565.
https://openworks.wooster.edu/independentstudy/11565
Publication Date
2025
Degree Granted
Bachelor of Arts
Document Type
Senior Independent Study Thesis
© Copyright 2025 Brianna Swinford