Perceived Parental Authority And Self-Esteem Among Young Adults

Parenting styles play vital role in development of adult self-esteem, and influence of both mother and father is crucial in this regard. Individual and Cultural differences impede the universal consensus on best parenting style for psychological well-being in later life. Collectivist cultures are believed to practice more authority and less flexibility that negatively affect the self-esteem. Current study followed the correlational survey design to investigate the perception regarding father and mother’s parenting styleand self-esteem of young adults.Parental Authority Questionnaire based on Baumrind’s parenting typology (Authoritative, Permissive, and Authoritarian) and Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale was administered on 234 participants that were randomly selected from different universities. The sample consists of 86 male and 148 female adults of age 18 to 27 years. Results revealed that participant’s perception of parenting style was not affected by participants’ gender. Mother’s parenting style had no relationship with self-esteem whereas father’s parenting style had significant influence on self-esteem development. Authoritarian and authoritative parenting style has positive and negative relationship respectively with the self-esteem in later life.The authoritative parenting style does not cater high level of self-esteem in collectivist culture indicating that the relationship between these variables is not concrete and subject to vary in context of different ethnicities. Authoritarian fathers found to facilitate the development of high self-esteem during adult age while authoritative fathers deter this.