Gender differences in recalled parental childrearing behaviors and adult self-esteem.
A retrospective questionnaire study investigated gender differences in the relations between the self-reported self-esteem of 155 psychiatric adult outpatients and their recalled experience of their parents' behavior toward them as children. There were no significant sex differences in degree of self-esteem. However, it had a higher correlation to parenting variables for the men than for the women, with maternal predictor variables accounting for 36% and paternal predictors accounting for 32% of the variance in the men's self-esteem. Neither combined maternal nor combined paternal variables were significant predictors for women. For men, parental acceptance/ autonomy was significantly and positively related and inconsistency negatively related to self-esteem. Paternal rejection but not maternal rejection was significantly associated with low self-esteem only for the women. The greater amount of variance explained by childrearing variables in the men's self-esteem scores was attributed to the earlier ego development and consequent increased individuation in women.
Conte
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HR
Department of Psychiatry, Albert Einstein College of Medicine/Montefiore Medical Center, Bronx, NY, USA.
Plutchik
R
R
Picard
S
S
Buck
L
L
Karasu
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TB
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D002668:Child Rearing; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D005783:Gender Identity; D006801:Humans; D007207:Individuation; D007389:Internal-External Control; D008297:Male; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000523:psychology; D011939:Mental Recall; D008875:Middle Aged; D009034:Mother-Child Relations; D016487:Parenting / Q000523:psychology*; D010552:Personality Assessment; D010553:Personality Development; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012649:Self Concept