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

Repeated investigations have demonstrated the occurrence of a significant c orrelation between perceptions of parental rearing and various personality characteristics. Several options exist for interpreting the relationship be tween perceived parenting and personality: (1) that parental rearing behavi our is largely determined by the parents' personality; (2) that parental re aring 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 re spondent. A possible answer to these questions has been researched in this study. Experiences of parenting as assessed by the EMBU and temperamental c haracteristics as assessed by the TCI have been assessed in a random commun ity sample of 734 subjects. Results of multiple regression analyses do not support the view that the offspring's temperamental characteristics influen ce to any large extent their perceptions of parental rearing. Perceptions o f parental emotional warmth seem to be related exclusively to maternal char acteristics, especially reward dependence. The results also suggest that re sponses to the self-report used, may be influenced by the temperamental cha racteristics of the respondent. Copyright (C) 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.