Parental control, trait anxiety, and satisfaction with life in college students

Research on developmental psychopathology has highlighted the role of paren tal behavior in subsequent development of pathology in children and adolesc ents. Although parental psychological control has been an area of interest to researchers, the connection between psychological control and anxiety ha s not been well established. We administered measures of perceived parental control and acceptance (separate forms for mother and father), trait anxie ty, and satisfaction with life to 202 undergraduate students. Analysis indi cated that perception of parents (both mother and father) as psychologicall y controlling a as significantly positively correlated with trait anxiety a nd significantly negatively correlated with satisfaction with Life. This he ld even after the effects of psychological control by the other parent were statistically eliminated.