Longitudinal impact of parental and adolescent personality on parenting

Longitudinal Impact of Parental and Adolescent Personality on Parenting

Amaranta D. de Haan, Maja Dekovic, and Peter PrinzieUtrecht University

This study provides a test of how personality may shape social behaviors in a long-lasting dyad: theparent–adolescent relationship. In a large Belgian community sample, it was examined which parent BigFive characteristics were related to parenting and whether adolescent Big Five characteristics elicitedcertain parenting behaviors. Further, the proposition that individual differences are amplified under stresswas examined by exploring whether parent personality was differentially related to parenting for parentsof “easy” versus “difficult” adolescents. Moreover, possible differences in associations across parentaland adolescent gender were explored. Mothers (N � 467) and fathers (N � 428) reported on theirpersonality using the Five-Factor Personality Inventory; adolescents (N � 475) assessed their personalitywith the Hierarchical Personality Inventory for Children. Two types of parenting behaviors, overreactivediscipline and warmth, were assessed 2 years later by parent self-reports, partner reports, and adolescentreports, from which multi-informant latent factors were created. Results indicate that parental personalitywas more relevant than adolescent personality for explaining overreactivity, but parent and adolescentpersonality were similarly relevant in explaining warmth. Especially parental and adolescent Agreeable-ness and adolescent Extraversion were important predictors of both types of parenting. Associationsbetween parental personality and parenting were similarly related to parents of easy versus difficultadolescents, and for mothers and fathers parenting daughters or sons. Together, results show that parentcharacteristics as well as adolescent characteristics importantly affect dysfunctional and adaptive par-enting.

Keywords: personality, parenting behaviors, gender, adolescence

Personality characteristics pervade people’s behaviors and livesin important ways. There is robust evidence that early emergingindividual differences in personality shape how people experienceand respond to a wide variety of developmental tasks. Personalityhas been related to divorce (Roberts, Kuncel, Shiner, Caspi, &Goldberg, 2007), career efficacy (Nauta, 2004), leadership effi-cacy (Hendricks & Payne, 2007), occupational status, and evenmortality rates (Roberts et al., 2007). Given the importance ofpersonality for the ways in which people live and experience theirlives, it is hardly surprising that personality has been proposed tobe related to one of the most central, challenging, and affectivelycharged tasks that many adults are faced with: namely, parenting(Belsky, 1984). The quality of all dyadic relationships is influ-enced by the individual characteristics of the relationship partnersplus their corresponding interaction history (Asendorpf, 2002).The parent–child relationship, which is a close and long-lastingdyadic relationship (Maccoby, 1992), should then also be affectedby characteristics of both members of the dyad: the parent and thechild. According to Belsky’s (1984) process model of parenting,parental functioning is determined by three sources: factors within

the child, factors within the parent, and the social context in whichthe parent–child relationship occurs. Accordingly, models of dy-adic relationships in general and child–parent relationships inparticular predict that the individual characteristics of both parentsand adolescents should affect how parents behave toward theirchildren.

A meaningful way to describe individual difference is providedby models of personality characteristics. Moreover, in the last 2decades, personality researchers have reached increasing consen-sus about the higher order structure of personality (Shiner & Caspi,2003). These structural models of personality emphasize the im-portance of a smaller number of higher order factors rather than alarge number of more specific traits. Among the best establishedmodels is the Big Five model of personality (or five-factor model;McCrae & Costa, 1999), which emphasizes five broad dimensionsthat encompass numerous, more specific dispositions. The BigFive dimensions have traditionally been numbered and labeled asfollows: (I) Extraversion (related to Surgency, Positive Emotion-ality), (II) Agreeableness (vs. Antagonism; labeled Benevolencewith regard to children), (III) Conscientiousness (Constraint De-pendability), (IV) Emotional Stability (vs. Neuroticism or Nega-tive Emotionality), and (V) Openness to Experience (Autonomy,Intellect; labeled Imagination with regard to children; Caspi, 1998;Goldberg, 1990; Hendriks, Hofstee, & De Raad, 1999a, 1999b;McCrae & Costa, 1999). Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscien-tiousness, and Emotional Stability (Neuroticism) have consistentlybeen obtained in factor analyses of ratings of adjective lists,questionnaires, and Q-Set rating (Caspi & Shiner, 2006; Shiner,1998). Specifically, adult personality characteristics measured by

This article was published Online First August 29, 2011.Amaranta D. de Haan, Maja Dekovic, and Peter Prinzie, Department of

Child and Adolescent Studies, Utrecht University, Utrecht, the Nether-lands.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to AmarantaD. de Haan, Department of Child and Adolescent Studies, Utrecht Univer-sity, PO Box 80.140, Utrecht 3508 TC, the Netherlands. E-mail:[email protected]

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology © 2011 American Psychological Association2012, Vol. 102, No. 1, 189–199 0022-3514/11/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0025254

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the Five-Factor Personality Inventory show substantive correla-tions with the NEO Personality Inventory–Revised (NEO-PI–R)personality scores, with correlations ranging between .69 forAgreeableness and �.83 for Emotional Stability–Neuroticism(Hendriks, Hofstee, & De Raad, 2002). Adolescent personalitycharacteristics measured by the Hierarchical Personality Inventoryfor Children also show substantial consistency with the NEO-PI–Rpersonality characteristics, with correlations ranging between .69for Benevolence–Agreeableness and .79 for Conscientiousness(De Fruyt, Mervielde, & Van Leeuwen, 2002). However, findingsfor the fifth trait are less consistent; for example, for Autonomy,the Five-Factor Personality Inventory correlated only little withNEO-PI–R Openness (r � .20; Hendriks et al., 2002), and forImagination, the Hierarchical Personality Inventory for Childrencorrelated only slightly with NEO-PI–R Openness (r � .49; DeFruyt et al., 2002). Consequently, the content and labeling of thisfactor differs somewhat across measures. In the current study, thefifth factor of parental personality entails (intellectual) Autonomy,which describes an individual’s capability to take independentdecisions, not be influenced by social pressures to conform, andmaintain an independent opinion on topics (Hendriks et al., 1999a,1999b, 2002; Hofstee, De Raad, & Goldberg, 1992). The fifthfactor of child personality is labeled Imagination and includespotentially important characteristics such as curiosity, creativity,and intellect (Mervielde, De Fruyt, & Jarmuz, 1998). Because inthe current study the comprehensive and encompassing Big Fiveapproach to personality is used, it is possible to examine in detailthe extent to which parental and child personality characteristicsaffect parenting, and a comparison of this study’s results withexisting research is enhanced.

A Typology of Parenting

In developmental psychology, a typology that is often used todescribe aspects of parenting behaviors and that is helpful instructuring findings on relations between personality and parent-ing, regards the typology of parental control and support (foroverviews, see Paulussen-Hoogeboom, Stams, Hermanns, &Peetsma, 2007; Smetana, Campione-Barr, & Metzger, 2006). Pa-rental control can be further divided into behavioral control (struc-ture vs. chaos) and psychological control (vs. autonomy support;Barber, 1996; Prinzie, Stams, Dekovic, Reijntjes, & Belsky, 2009).Psychological control is characterized by intrusive, overcontrollingbehaviors and may involve overtly imposing the will of the parenton the child (Barber, 1996; Prinzie et al., 2009). Behavioral controlentails the setting and enforcing of reasonable rules and standardsand the provision of clear expectations, combined with consistentand appropriate limit setting. Behavioral control is most effectivewhen consequences are applied appropriately when rules are vio-lated (Dekovic, Janssens, & Van As, 2003; Grusec & Goodnow,1994; Locke & Prinz, 2002). A type of dysfunctional behavioralcontrol that describes inadequate responses to violations of rules isoverreactive discipline, which is characterized by erratic, harsh,and overreactive responses (yelling, screaming), to child problembehaviors. Overreactive discipline has been found to affect bothexternalizing (Dishion & Patterson, 2006) and internalizing behav-iors (Wood, McLeod, Sigman, Hwang, & Chu, 2003). The seconddimension to describe parenting behaviors, support, entails theprovision of a safe, warm, and nurturing environment that facili-

tates children’s exploration of new physical, cognitive, and socialpotentials, and describes parents who are attuned, supportive, andacquiescent to the child’s needs and demands (Baumrind, 1991;Prinzie et al., 2009). Warmth is considered indispensable for theformation of secure attachments. A closer, more secure attachmentto parents promotes normative socialization opportunities and hasbeen related to a reduced chance of negative adolescent outcomes,such as externalizing (Denham et al., 2000; Rothbaum & Weisz,1994) and internalizing (Barrera et al., 2002) behaviors. Warmthhas additionally been associated with greater social competenceand better psychosocial adjustment (Allen, Moore, Kuperminc, &Bell, 1998; Dekovic et al., 2003). The inclusion of two distincttypes of parenting behaviors that encompass both control (overre-active discipline) and support (warmth), and that have been foundto affect children in different ways, allows for a nuanced andspecific examination of how personality affects adaptive and mal-adaptive social behaviors.

Parental Personality and Parenting

It seems logical to assume that Big Five personality character-istics are related to parenting behaviors. For example, people whoare high in Extraversion tend to be very social and outgoing, andexperience a high level of positive affect (Goldberg, 1990). Thus,parents high in Extraversion may be more likely to express highpositivity during interactions with their children and engage inactive, stimulating parenting (Prinzie et al., 2009). Further, agree-able people are easygoing, warm, and good-natured, and thuspeople who are high in Agreeableness would provide a kind, warmenvironment in which the child feels understood and protected(Prinzie et al., 2009). Moreover, individuals who are high inConscientiousness are generally well organized, self-disciplined,and planful (Goldberg, 1990). Conscientious parents may then bemore likely to provide a structured and consistent environment fortheir children (Prinzie et al., 2009). Emotional Stability, the in-verse of Neuroticism, may positively affect parenting by making iteasier for parents to have positive interactions with their children,and may expand parents’ abilities to respond appropriately andadequately to children’s behaviors and signals (e.g., Belsky &Jaffee, 2006; Clark, Kochanska, & Ready, 2000; Prinzie et al.,2009). A person who is high in Openness to experience or Auton-omy enjoys new experiences and is imaginative. Parents who arehigh in Openness or Autonomy are likely to provide new andstimulating experiences to children (Prinzie et al., 2009); in addi-tion, such parents may be flexible and open to novel, nontradi-tional parenting approaches and eager to learn about children’sindividual qualities (Koenig, Barry, & Kochanska, 2010).

Recently, meta-analytic evidence for the importance of the BigFive for parenting has been demonstrated (Prinzie et al., 2009).Results from this meta-analysis suggest that when consideredseparately, all Big Five traits were related to more support andbehavioral control, and Agreeableness and Emotional Stabilitywere related to less psychological control (Prinzie et al., 2009).These associations were similar for mothers and fathers, and wererobust across parenting self-report and observations. However,although the Big Five dimensions are assumed to be orthogonal(i.e., uncorrelated), the impact of some of the Big Five dimensionson parenting appears to be overlapping. The importance of some ofthe Big Five may thus become redundant in the context of the other

190 DE HAAN, DEKOVIC, AND PRINZIE

dimensions (Dunlap & Landis, 1998). Studies that examined as-sociations between Emotional Stability, Openness, and warmthseparately (Belsky, Crnic, & Woodworth, 1995; Losoya, Callor,Rowe, & Goldsmith, 1997) found both dimensions to be positivelyrelated to warmth. In contrast, studies that simultaneously tookinto account all Big Five characteristics found nonsignificant as-sociations between warmth, Emotional Stability (Smith et al.,2007), and Openness (Clark et al., 2000). Similarly, significantassociations between ineffective control, Conscientiousness, andEmotional Stability were found if these personality dimensionswere considered separately (Olsen, Martin, & Halverson, 1999),whereas these associations were nonsignificant in cross-sectionalwork that considered all Big Five dimensions simultaneously(Prinzie et al., 2004; Smith et al., 2007). These results suggest thatalthough the Big Five are theoretically distinct, some overlap intheir impact may exist.

Adolescent Personality and Parenting

Parenting behaviors, in addition to parents’ own personalitycharacteristics, may also be affected substantively by adolescentpersonality characteristics. Shiner and Caspi (2003) posited thatindividual differences between children, which are expressed inunique verbal and nonverbal behaviors, elicit different reactionsfrom the environment as people base their inferences and attribu-tions on these unique behaviors (Borkenau & Liebler, 1995; Gif-ford, 1994). Ultimately, these individual differences thus affecthow other people respond to children, a process that begins alreadyin the first few months of life (Bell & Chapman, 1986). Individualdifferences among young children are often referred to as temper-ament, which, as children grow older, becomes differentiated andhierarchically integrated into personality characteristics (Shiner,1998). Typically, it has been found that temperamentally “diffi-cult” children, who are high in negative emotional expressions,impulsivity, restlessness, and distractibility and low in frustrationtolerance and fearfulness, evoke less positive (supportive, respon-sive) and more negative behaviors (harsh, overreactive discipline;for reviews, see Putnam, Sanson, & Rothbart, 2002; Shiner &Caspi, 2003).

Given the close interrelations between personality characteris-tics and temperament, it can logically be expected that childpersonality characteristics also elicit different behaviors from theimmediate environment. Extraverted children, who are high inpositive emotionality and generally enjoy social interactions, mayelicit more supportive behaviors from their parents. However,extraverted children are also higher in social dominance, whichmay elicit more overreactive discipline from parents. Benevolentchildren, who are generally compliant and easygoing and have atendency for social harmony, may elicit more warmth and lessoverreactive discipline from parents. Conscientious children, whoare orderly, planful, and good at regulating their own behaviors,may evoke lower levels of overreactive discipline in their parents.Emotionally instable children, who are higher in negative affectand stress reactivity, may evoke higher overreactive discipline.Conversely, emotionally stable children may evoke more supportbecause they are low in negative affect, but alternatively, theself-reliance of emotionally stable children may be related to lowerparental support. Imaginative children tend to defy conventions,which may elicit higher overreactive discipline from parents, but

parents may also show more warmth toward imaginative children,who are also curious and open-minded.

In line with these theoretical contentions, there is accumulatingempirical evidence that shows that several child Big Five charac-teristics relate to parenting. Existing work shows, for example, thatchild Benevolence (Agreeableness) is related to both higher pa-rental warmth (Denissen, Van Aken, & Dubas, 2009) and lessovercontrolling, coercive (Prinzie et al., 2004), and harsh disci-pline (O’Connor & Dvorak, 2001). Conscientiousness has beenassociated with higher support, reasoning, and consistency andwith less paternal control for girls (O’Connor & Dvorak, 2001).Emotional Stability (low Neuroticism) has been found to be pos-itively correlated with maternal support for girls, although thisbivariate correlation was found in only one study (O’Connor &Dvorak, 2001, Table 1). No empirical support for associationsbetween Extraversion or Imagination (Openness to Experience)and parenting has been found. In summary, there is limited butaccumulating empirical evidence that child Benevolence (Agree-ableness), Conscientiousness, and Emotional Stability (low Neu-roticism) evoke more supportive as well as less controlling behav-iors. For a thorough examination of the impact of adolescentpersonality characteristics on parenting, it is again important toacknowledge that although the personality characteristics are the-oretically distinct, their impact on parental behaviors may be partlyoverlapping. Moreover, a thorough examination of the relativeimpact of parental personality and child personality on parentingbehavior requires a simultaneous inclusion of both members’personality characteristics, given that associations between childcharacteristics and parenting may actually reflect the impact ofparental personality on parenting, and vice versa. However, onlyone study that we know of has examined longitudinal associationsbetween parent and adolescent personality and parenting, whilecontrolling for the other member’s personality characteristics(Denissen et al., 2009). Therefore, in the current study, bothparents’ and adolescents’ personality characteristics are taken intoaccount in our examination of the impact of individual character-istics on parenting.

Moderation Effects of Child Personality, Child andParental Gender

In addition to the predictive power of parental and adolescentpersonality characteristics, an important issue regards the extent towhich parents’ and children’s personalities interact to predict par-enting. Given the theoretical assertion that individual differencesare amplified under stress (Caspi & Moffitt, 1993), and as “diffi-cult” children can be a source of considerable pervasive, long-term, and daily stress (Koenig et al., 2010; Putnam et al., 2002),parental personality characteristics of difficult children may bemore strongly related to parenting. Conversely, parental personal-ity may be less strongly related to parents of “easy” children. In theliterature, a “difficult temperament” describes children who arelow in positive emotionality, high in negative emotionality, andlow in constraint (Putnam et al., 2002; Shiner & Caspi, 2003).These biologically based higher order domains correspond withneural structures, which are postulated to underlie personality(Shiner & Caspi, 2003). Positive emotionality is related to Extra-version, negative emotionality is related to Neuroticism or lowEmotional Stability, and constraint is related to Conscientiousness.

191PARENT AND ADOLESCENT PERSONALITY AND PARENTING

In personality literature, child Benevolence (Agreeableness) hasconsistently been found to play a crucial role, directly affectingboth lower internalizing and externalizing behaviors (De Pauw &Mervielde, 2010), but also protecting children from the adverseimpact of harsh discipline (de Haan, Prinzie, & Dekovic, 2010).Empirical work has provided some evidence that suggests thatparental personality may be differentially related to parenting forparents of easy versus difficult children (Clark et al., 2000; Koeniget al., 2010). However, we know of no empirical work that hasexamined long-term longitudinal associations (more than 6months) between parent and child Big Five characteristics andparenting for parents of adolescents, using a multi-informant ap-proach to the measurement of parent and adolescent personalityand parenting. The current study examined whether associationsbetween (self-reported) parental Big Five characteristics and(multi-informant-rated) parenting behaviors 2 years later werestronger for parents of difficult versus easy adolescents (adolescentself-reports; combined high Extraversion, Benevolence, Conscien-tiousness, and Emotional Stability).

Another issue that deserves attention is the question whetherrelations between parental and adolescent personality characteris-tics and parenting are similar across parental and child gender.Mothers and fathers have been found to differ in mean levels ofparenting behaviors (e.g., Kendler & Baker, 2007; Metsapelto &Pulkkinen, 2003), but differences in mean levels do not necessarilytranslate into differences in associations. Whereas some studies(Belsky et al., 1995; Kochanska, Friesenborg, Lange, & Martel,2004) found that parental Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Open-ness were differentially related to mothers’ versus fathers’ parent-ing, other studies found that relations between personality andwarmth, nurturance, and restrictiveness were similar for mothersand fathers (Metsapelto & Pulkkinen, 2003; Prinzie et al., 2009;Verhoeven, Junger, Van Aken, Dekovic, & Van Aken, 2007).Empirical work that specifically examines possible mother–fatherdifferences in associations thus remains scarce and not entirelyconsistent. Further, it is possible that parents respond differentlytoward boys’ versus girls’ personality characteristics. According tosocial role theorists (Eagly & Johannesen-Schmidt, 2001), womenare expected to act in a nurturing, caring fashion, whereas men areexpected to take on more agentic roles. Correspondingly, a reviewof empirical studies on child temperament and parenting found thatparents seem to be somewhat more accepting of irritable, unreg-ulated behavior in boys than in girls, although some studies foundthe opposite pattern (Putnam et al., 2002). We know of only onestudy that examined gender-specific associations between adoles-cent personality and parenting (Denissen et al., 2009). In thisstudy, it was found that adolescent Conscientiousness was relatedto higher warmth for daughters, but not sons, and that adolescentOpenness was negatively (but not significantly) related to warmthfor sons, but not daughters.

Aims and Hypotheses

This study aimed to improve the knowledge base on howpersonality shapes behaviors, by examining the relative longitudi-nal impact of parental Big Five characteristics and adolescent BigFive characteristics on two types of parenting behaviors, measured2 years later. Moreover, we explored whether patterns of associ-ations between parental personality and parenting differed for

parents of difficult versus easy adolescents and according to pa-rental and adolescent gender. We expected that, overall, parentalpersonality is more relevant for the explanation of parenting thanadolescent personality (Belsky, 1984; Belsky & Barends, 2002).Regarding specific parental personality characteristics, we ex-pected that more extraverted (Clark et al., 2000) and autonomousparents (i.e., parents higher in openness; Prinzie et al., 2004)display less overreactive discipline. Further, we hypothesized thatextraverted (Clark et al., 2000), agreeable (Clark et al., 2000;Smith et al., 2007), and conscientious (Clark et al., 2000) parentsshow more warmth. Regarding adolescent personality characteris-tics, we expected that benevolent (agreeable) adolescents evokeless overreactivity (O’Connor & Dvorak, 2001; Prinzie et al.,2004) and that more benevolent (agreeable; Denissen et al., 2009)and conscientious adolescents elicit more warmth. We expectedthat emotionally stable adolescents evoke less overreactive disci-pline (O’Connor & Dvorak, 2001) and elicit either high or lowwarmth. Moreover, on the basis of theory (Caspi & Moffit, 1993)and empirical evidence (Koenig et al., 2010), we expected thatparental personality characteristics are related less strongly toparenting if adolescents have easier personalities. We formulatedno hypotheses on gender-specific patterns of associations given theinconsistent empirical evidence on this issue.

Method

Participants and Procedure

This study is part of the longitudinal Flemish Study on Parent-ing, Personality, and Development (1999–2010; see Prinzie et al.,2004). For the current study, data regarding adolescent and paren-tal personality were taken from the fifth measurement wave (Time1, 2007) and regarding parenting behaviors from the sixth mea-surement wave (Time 2, 2009). At Time 1, 475 families partici-pated (467 mothers, 428 fathers, 52% girls). The mean age of thechildren was 13 years 6 months (range: 12–15 years). Mothers’mean age was 45 years 7 months (range: 36–61 years); fathers’mean age was 47 years 6 months (range: 37–69 years). Percent-ages of mothers and fathers, respectively, with various educationallevels were, for elementary school, 0.9 and 3.0; secondary educa-tion, 41.1 and 43.3; nonuniversity higher education, 45.2 and 34.4;university, 12.8 and 19.2. At Time 2, 427 families participated(421 mothers, 393 fathers, 427 adolescents). Of 37 families onlythe mother, and of nine families only the father, filled out thequestionnaires.

Respondents with missing values at Time 2 were compared torespondents who participated at both measurement waves regard-ing personality characteristics and background characteristics (par-ent and adolescent gender, parent and adolescent age, parenteducational level). Respondents who participated at both wavesdid not differ significantly from respondents who had missingvalues at Time 2. Because our main focus was on parentingbehaviors of mothers and fathers, we excluded parents of whomthe remaining members of the families indicated they were nolonger present at Time 2 (n � 1 mother and n � 11 fathers). Thisresulted in a sample of 463 families.

192 DE HAAN, DEKOVIC, AND PRINZIE

Measures

Parental personality characteristics. Parents rated theirown personality at Time 1 (2007) using the Five-Factor Personal-ity Inventory (Hendriks et al., 1999a, 1999b). Parents rated theitems on a 5-point scale ranging from 1 � not at all applicable to5 � entirely applicable. In the normal population, the Five-FactorPersonality Inventory scale and factor scores show high internalconsistencies, substantial stabilities, and good construct validity(Hendriks et al., 1999a, 1999b, 2002). Each scale consists of 20items. Respective Cronbach’s alphas for mothers and fathers inthis study, as well as core items for each of the personalitydimensions, were, for Extraversion, .89 and .89 (“Love to chat”);Agreeableness, .83 and .83 (“Respect others’ feelings”); Consci-entiousness, .83 and .85 (“Do things according to a plan”); Emo-tional Stability (vs. Neuroticism), .91 and .87 (“Can take my mindof my problems”); and Autonomy (Openness), .85 and .83 (“Wantto form my own opinions”).

Adolescent personality characteristics. Adolescents ratedtheir own personality characteristics at Time 1 using the Hierar-chical Personality Inventory for Children (Mervielde & De Fruyt,1999, 2002). The Hierarchical Personality Inventory for Childrenis a comprehensive personality inventory that assesses individualdifferences among children in 144 items. Findings concerningreplicability and validity are reported by Mervielde and De Fruyt(1999, 2002) and Prinzie and Dekovic (2008). The items are rated ona 5-point scale ranging from 1 � almost not characteristic to 5 � verycharacteristic. Number of items, Cronbach’s alphas, and exampleitems for each dimension are, for Extraversion, 32 items, .88 (“I talkall day long”); Benevolence (Agreeableness), 40 items, .89 (“I amconsiderate of others”); Conscientiousness, 32 items, .90 (“I likehaving things in order”); Emotional Stability (vs. Neuroticism), 16items, .87 (“I have few issues”); and Imagination (Openness), 24items, .85 (“I like learning new things”).

Overreactivity. Overreactivity was rated at Time 2 (2009)with self-, partner, and adolescent reports of the Parenting Scale(Arnold, O’Leary, Wolff, & Acker, 1993; Prinzie, Onghena, &Hellinckx, 2007). Overreactivity consists of nine items and mea-sures parents’ tendency to respond with anger, frustration, mean-ness, and irritation, and impatiently and aversively to problematicbehavior of their children. Items present hypothetical disciplineencounters followed by two options that act as opposite anchorpoints for a 7-point scale where 1 indicates a high probability ofusing an effective discipline strategy (e.g., “When my child mis-behaves . . . I speak calmly to him/her”) and 7 indicates a highprobability of making a discipline mistake (“I raise my voice oryell”). The instrument has adequate test–retest reliability, distin-guishes clinical from nonclinical samples, and has been validatedagainst behavioral observations of parenting (Arnold et al., 1993;Locke & Prinz, 2002). In this study, Cronbach’s alphas for self-,partner, and adolescent reports of mothers’ overreactivity were .80,.84, and .82, respectively. Cronbach’s alphas for self-, partner, andadolescent reports of fathers’ overreactivity were .82, .86, and .84,respectively.

Interrater correlations for mothers’ overreactivity were, formother–partner, r � .39, p � .001; mother–adolescent, r � .49,p � .001; and father–adolescent, r � .49, p � .001. Interratercorrelations for fathers’ overreactivity were, for father–partner,r � .47, p � .001; father–adolescent, r � .33, p � .001; and

partner–adolescent, r � .46, p � .001. This level of agreement isnot uncommon, as each partner perceives the relationship from hisor her own perspective (e.g., Neyer & Voigt, 2004). The signifi-cant correlations however, indicate a common core of agreement.To reduce rater bias, we created latent variables using principalcomponent analysis in which the three informants’ scale scoreswere the indicators. Factor loadings were �.78 for mothers’ over-reactivity and �.75 for fathers’ overreactivity.

Warmth. Warmth was assessed at Time 2 with self-, partner,and adolescent reports of the Parenting Practices Questionnaire(Robinson, Mandleco, Olsen, & Hart, 1995). This scale comprises11 items and assesses the extent to which parents exhibit warmparenting and are involved in their children’s lives (e.g., “Ex-presses affection by hugging, kissing, and holding me”). Itemswere rated on a 5-point scale ranging from 1 � never to 5 �always. In this study, Cronbach’s alphas for mothers’ warmth ofself-, partner, and adolescent reports were .86, .91, and .89, re-spectively. For fathers’ warmth, Cronbach’s alphas of self-, part-ner, and adolescent reports were .87, .91, and .89, respectively.

Interrater correlations for mothers’ warmth were, for mother–partner, r � .38, p � .001; mother–adolescent, r � .49, p � .001;and father–adolescent, r � .33, p � .001. Interrater correlations forfathers’ overreactivity were, for father–partner, r � .49, p � .001;father–adolescent, r � .33, p � .001; and partner–adolescent, r �.46, p � .001. For warmth, too, latent variables were created withprincipal components analysis for which the three informants’scale scores were the indicators. Factor loadings were �.71 formothers’ warmth and �.76 for fathers’ warmth.

Analytic Strategy

To test the longitudinal associations between parent personality,adolescent personality, and overreactive and warm parenting si-multaneously, we conducted path analyses in Mplus 5.0 (Muthen& Muthen, 2006). To test whether groups of predictor variablesexplained a relevant (significant) amount of variance (R2) in par-enting, we included groups of predictors in a hierarchical fashion.In the baseline model, background variables (parental age, gender,and educational level and adolescent age and gender) were in-cluded. Then, parental personality characteristics and adolescentpersonality characteristics were added as predictors, which al-lowed for an examination of the relative predictive power ofparental and adolescent personality for the two parenting behav-iors. Subsequently, moderation effects were tested as follows.First, we included the interaction terms between the compositefactor score reflecting an easy adolescent personality (high Extra-version, Benevolence, Conscientiousness, Emotional Stability)and each of the parental Big Five characteristics. To examinegender-specific associations, we computed interaction terms be-tween parent or adolescent gender and each of the (mean-centered)parent and adolescent personality scores. We included interactionterms between (a) parental personality and parental gender, (b)adolescent personality and adolescent gender, (c) parental person-ality and adolescent gender, and (d) adolescent personality andparental gender. To retain the most parsimonious model, in thefinal model we included only those groups of predictors that werefound to explain a significant amount of variance in parenting.

193PARENT AND ADOLESCENT PERSONALITY AND PARENTING

Results

Descriptive Statistics

Descriptive statistics and bivariate intercorrelations between themeasures are shown in Table 1. It can be seen that lower overre-activity was associated with higher parental Extraversion, Agree-ableness, Emotional Stability (lower Neuroticism), and Autonomy(Openness) and with higher adolescent Benevolence (Agreeable-ness), Conscientiousness, Emotional Stability (lower Neuroti-cism), and Imagination (Openness). Further, warmth was associ-ated with higher parental Extraversion, Agreeableness,Conscientiousness, and Emotional Stability (lower Neuroticism)and with higher adolescent Extraversion, Benevolence (Agreeable-ness), Conscientiousness, and Imagination (Openness). Thus, thebivariate intercorrelations suggest that several parental and ado-lescent personality characteristics may be relevant for parenting. Astricter test of the comparative impact of each of the parental andadolescent personality characteristics is, however, provided bypath models, in which the impact of the other characteristics is alsotaken into account.

Predicting Parenting

A model was estimated in which overreactive and warm par-enting were included simultaneously. The inclusion of groups ofpredictors showed that parental and adolescent personality ex-plained a significant amount of variance in overreactivity (seeTable 2) and warmth (see Table 3). Additionally, parental person-ality explained substantially more variance in overreactivity thanadolescent personality (14% vs. 3%), whereas parental and ado-lescent personality explained a similar amount of variance inwarmth (both around 5%).1

Prior to conducting the second part of the analyses, we con-ducted a factor analysis in SPSS 18.0 on the four personalitycharacteristics that from a theoretical perspective were expected toreflect an easy personality. The four dimensions loaded strongly onthe underlying factor; factor loadings were, for Extraversion, .56;Benevolence, .71; Conscientiousness, .67; and Emotional Stabil-ity, .65. The four dimensions together explained 42% of thevariance in the underlying factor, which we labeled an easy ado-lescent personality. The inclusion of interaction terms betweenparental personality characteristics and an easy adolescent person-ality or between personality and gender resulted in nonsignificantincrements in explained variance, with the interaction terms ex-plaining a mere 0.2%–0.9% additional variance in parenting. Re-sults thus showed that relations between parental personality andparenting were similar for parents of difficult versus easy adoles-cents, and for mothers and fathers of daughters and sons.

The final model included only main effects of adolescent andparent personality characteristics on parenting, but none of theinteraction effects.2 The background variables and personalitycharacteristics together explained 19.4% of the variance in over-reactive discipline and 34.8% of the variance in warmth. Overre-active and warm parenting were moderately correlated (r � �.25,p � .001). Path coefficients (see Tables 2 and 3) indicated thatmore agreeable and emotionally stable parents and less conscien-tious parents showed less overreactive parenting 2 years later. Lessextraverted and more benevolent (agreeable) adolescents elicited

less overreactivity 2 years later. More agreeable and autonomous(open to experience) parents showed more warmth, and moreextraverted, benevolent (agreeable), and imaginative (open to ex-perience) adolescents, as well as less emotionally stable adoles-cents, evoked more warmth.

Discussion

In this study, the comparative longitudinal impact of parentaland adolescent personality characteristics was examined for one ofthe most central tasks many adults are faced with: parentingbehavior (overreactivity and warmth). Further, it was exploredwhether patterns of associations between parental personality andthe two types of parenting behaviors differed for parents of easyversus difficult adolescents, or for mothers and fathers parentingsons and daughters. Using the comprehensive and systematic BigFive approach to the measurement of personality allowed for adetailed picture of which personality characteristics of parents andadolescents affect parenting when personality characteristics of theother member of the dyad are also taken into account. Moreover,using the Big Five facilitates comparison of research findings(Belsky & Barends, 2002).

Overall, parents’ own personality was more relevant than ado-lescent personality for the explanation of overreactivity. In con-trast, a similar amount of variance in warmth was explained byadolescent personality as by parental personality. Further, associ-ations between parental personality and parenting were similar forparents of easy versus difficult adolescents and for mothers andfathers parenting daughters and sons. Thus, if the impact of per-sonality is taken into account, it may be personality characteristicsthemselves and not the combination of parental and adolescentpersonality characteristics that shape parenting behaviors. Thisstudy refines the hypothesis that parental characteristics are moreimportant than child characteristics (Belsky, 1984; Belsky & Bar-ends, 2002), by showing that when considering the impact ofpersonality, it depends on the type of parenting behavior.

When taking into account the impact of all Big Five personalitycharacteristics of both parents and adolescents, parental and ado-lescent Agreeableness (Benevolence) was consistently related toparenting. Further, extraverted adolescents elicited more warmth

1 In additional analyses, it was examined whether the coefficients be-tween parental personality and parenting behaviors were inflated becauseof shared method variance, that is, by the use of a parent’s self-reports ofpersonality and his or her own parenting behavior. These analyses, resultsof which can be obtained from the first author upon request, show that thecoefficients changed only very slightly in size between the models in whichthe behavioral variable included parental self-report and in which self-report was excluded from the construct. These results indicate that relationsbetween parental personality and parenting behaviors are not due to sharedmethod variance.

2 In supplementary analyses, we explored whether relations betweeneach of the parental personality characteristics were moderated by adoles-cent personality characteristics. Including interaction terms between eachof the parent personality traits and all adolescent personality traits (Extra-version Parent � Extraversion Adolescent, Extraversion Parent � Agree-ableness Adolescent, etc.) resulted in nonsignificant increments in ex-plained variance (�R2 .03 � .09). These results offer further support forour results that parental and adolescent personality characteristics haveonly main effect but no conditional (moderating) effects on parenting.

194 DE HAAN, DEKOVIC, AND PRINZIE

but also more overreactive discipline. More emotionally stableparents displayed less overreactive discipline. Parents of moreemotionally stable adolescents exhibited lower levels of warmth.More autonomous (open to experience) parents showed morewarmth, and more imaginative (open to experience) adolescentselicited more warmth. Together, these findings show how impor-tant (adolescent) Extraversion and (parental and adolescent)Agreeableness (Benevolence) are for the prediction of one of themost important developmental tasks: parenting. Within the five-factor structure of personality, both Extraversion and Agreeable-ness concern an individual’s behavioral tendencies in social inter-actions (Caspi, Roberts, & Shiner, 2005), although Extraversion

and Agreeableness do have different connotations regarding socialinteractions (Goldberg, 1990; Hendriks et al., 1999a, 1999b; Caspiet al., 2005). Whereas Extraversion reflects an individual’s capac-ity to enjoy social interactions and one’s optimism, but also one’sdominance in social relations, Agreeableness involves one’s mo-tives to maintain positive social relations and has been found torelate to one’s regulation of emotions during social interactions(Tobin, Graziano, Vanman, & Tassinary, 2000). Therefore, theimpact of these two dimensions on parenting may operate insomewhat different ways, which may be especially true for ado-lescent Extraversion, which encompasses dual aspects. On the onehand, extraverted adolescents may have, over the years, provided

Table 1Descriptive Statistics and Bivariate Intercorrelations Between the Measures

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Measure1. Overreactivity —2. Warmth �.36 —

Parent personality3. Extraversion �.13 .20 —4. Agreeableness �.27 .31 .15 —5. Conscientiousness �.05 .18 .17 .35 —6. Emotional Stability �.31 .07 .50 .19 .22 —7. Autonomy �.12 .06 .52 �.06 .12 .61 —

Adolescent personality8. Extraversion �.00 .13 .15 �.02 .03 .13 .17 —9. Benevolence �.24 .19 .14 .10 .10 .19 .10 .07 —10. Conscientiousness �.07 .11 .05 .08 .12 .07 .02 .18 .42 —11. Emotional Stability �.11 .01 .09 �.03 �.02 .14 .11 .34 .27 .11 —12. Imagination �.10 .14 .09 .04 .02 .16 .17 .41 .09 .41 .23 —

M 3.19 3.50 3.62 4.03 3.81 3.80 3.53 3.47 3.51 3.22 3.47 3.48SD 0.84 0.62 0.50 0.40 0.42 0.48 0.43 0.48 0.42 0.53 0.64 0.50

Note. Coefficients in bold are significant (p � .05). Benevolence means Agreeableness; Autonomy means Openness.

Table 2Associations of Parent Personality and Adolescent PersonalityWith Overreactive Discipline

Predictor � b SE R2

Background variable .018�

Gender parent (mother) �.04 �0.06 0.06Gender adolescent (girl) �.05 �0.09 0.06Age parent �.03 �0.01 0.01Age adolescent .01 0.01 0.03Education parent �.02 �0.01 0.02

Parent personality .143���

Extraversion .04 0.07 0.07Agreeableness �.22��� �0.46 0.08Conscientiousness .09�� 0.18 0.07Emotional Stability �.30��� �0.52 0.08Autonomy .04 0.07 0.09

Adolescent personality .033���

Extraversion .08� 0.14 0.07Benevolence �.18��� �0.36 0.08Conscientiousness .07 0.12 0.06Emotional Stability �.05 �0.07 0.05Imagination �.07 �0.12 0.06

Note. For clarity of presentation, results are presented for the two par-enting behaviors separately.� p � .05. �� p � .01. ��� p � .001.

Table 3Associations of Parent Personality and Adolescent PersonalityWith Warmth

Predictor � b SE R2

Background variable .257���

Gender parent (mother) .41��� 0.51 0.04Gender adolescent (girl) .05 0.06 0.04Age parent �.08�� �0.01 0.01Age adolescent �.02 �0.01 0.02Education parent .04 0.02 0.02

Parent personality .049���

Extraversion .06 0.07 0.05Agreeableness .16��� 0.25 0.05Conscientiousness .03 0.04 0.05Emotional Stability �.03 �0.04 0.05Autonomy .09� 0.13 0.06

Adolescent personality .049���

Extraversion .11�� 0.14 0.04Benevolence .18��� 0.26 0.05Conscientiousness �.04 �0.04 0.04Emotional Stability �.10�� �0.10 0.04Imagination .08� 0.10 0.04

Note. For clarity of presentation, results are presented for the two par-enting behaviors separately.� p � .05. �� p � .01. ��� p � .001.

195PARENT AND ADOLESCENT PERSONALITY AND PARENTING

their parents with (implicit or explicit) feedback that they appre-ciate their parents’ affective and concerned behaviors, because ofwhich their parents are more likely to display more warmth. On theother hand, extraverted adolescents’ social dominance may chal-lenge the parent’s authority, which may frustrate parents andbecause of which parents’ disciplinary behaviors may becomemore overreactive. Extraverted adolescents also tend to be moresociable with peers and thus spend a lot of time engaging inactivities with friends and romantic partners. Parents of theseadolescents may fear, or have experienced, that their childrenengage in more risk-taking and delinquent behavior in these peergroup settings, and thus are making every effort to control theiradolescent’s behavior (cf. Stattin & Kerr, 2000). Agreeablenessentails a tendency toward cooperation, rather than antagonism, insocial relations, and agreeable persons are generally cheerful,easygoing, and compliant. All these characteristics make it morelikely that the parent–adolescent relationship of agreeable individ-uals is characterized by more support and less overreactive disci-pline (cf. Denissen et al., 2009; O’Connor & Dvorak, 2001; Prinzieet al., 2004, 2009). Thus, parental and adolescent Extraversion andAgreeableness (Benevolence) were shown to remain important forthe parenting of both mothers and fathers above and beyond theimpact of the other personality dimensions. The findings extendthe results of studies in which the impact of only parental oradolescent personality on parenting was examined and in whichassociations between personality and parenting were examinedcontemporaneously. It was demonstrated that the links exist aboveand beyond the impact of the other personality characteristics, ofboth parents and adolescents, and that linkages remain across anextensive period.

Additionally, it was found that more emotionally stable parentsshowed less overreactivity and parents of less emotionally stableadolescents showed more warmth (cf. Clark et al., 2000; Prinzie etal., 2004; Smith et al., 2007). Emotionally stable parents are lessprone to anxiousness and thus may be better able to stay calm andcomposed under stressful times, such as when adolescents displayproblematic behaviors. Additionally, parents of less emotionallystable adolescents showed more warmth 2 years later. As thebivariate correlation between adolescent Emotional Stability andwarmth was not significant, the significant path between Emo-tional Stability and warmth may be a suppressor effect, onlyappearing when the impact of the other dimensions is taken intoaccount. Emotionally stable adolescents may be perceived as beingmore self-reliant, and parents of such adolescents may feel thatthey do not need to show that much affect or attention. On theother hand, emotionally instable adolescents may be more anxiousand insecure, which may elicit displays of empathy and affect inparents. Results further suggest that more autonomous parents andparents of more imaginative adolescents display more warmth.Autonomy (or openness, imagination) has been related to displaysof positive affect (Losoya et al., 1997). Further, autonomousparents may be more eager to learn about the changes that takeplace in the child’s life during adolescence and are likely moreopen to the perspective and feelings of their adolescents (Belsky &Jaffee, 2006; Clark et al., 2000; Prinzie et al., 2009). As such,autonomous parents may be more affective and emphatic towardtheir adolescents. Imaginative children, who are curious and open-minded, may be better able to adjust to adolescence, a develop-mental phase that is characterized by exploring new physical,

cognitive, and social potentials, and because of this easier adjust-ment, elicit more warm parenting. Overall, findings suggest thatwhereas parental personality was more important in predictingoverreactive discipline, both parental and adolescent personalitywere similarly important in predicting warmth. Moreover, person-ality dimensions that are most strongly related to interpersonalrelationships, that is, Extraversion and Agreeableness (Benevo-lence), were most strongly related to both types of parenting.Finally, the findings that more extraverted adolescents receivedmore overreactive discipline and that less emotionally stable ado-lescents received more warm parenting indicates that if all adoles-cent Big Five dimensions are taken into account and parentalpersonality is also controlled for, adaptive parenting is not reservedonly for less difficult adolescents.

Limitations and Future Research

Several methodological limitations warrant caution in the inter-pretation of results. First, this study examined statistical predictionof levels of parenting by previous levels of personality character-istics, and future research could employ a repeated-measures de-sign to gain more knowledge about dynamic and longitudinalassociations between personality and parenting. Further, althoughthis study offered insight on which personality characteristics ofparents and adolescents are related to later parenting, the results donot explain why personality is related to this social behavior. Apossible mechanism that underlies the linkages between parentalpersonality and parenting may be cognitions and evaluations, suchas self-efficacy or perceived parenting competence (e.g., Bandura,1989; Bornstein et al., 2003), or, as proposed in the process modelof parenting (Belsky, 1984; Belsky & Barends, 2002), the widersocietal context. A plausible explaining mechanism between ado-lescent personality and parenting may be problematic adolescentbehaviors, which have been found to be predicted by child char-acteristics (e.g., Prinzie et al., 2004; see also Shiner & Caspi,2003). For example, low Benevolence (Agreeableness) has beenrelated to higher externalizing behaviors. Possibly, then, childrenwho are low in Benevolence may, through their elevated problembehaviors, demand more overreactive discipline. Research thatinvestigates explaining mechanisms for the associations betweenchild personality and parenting may be particularly fruitful if itincludes certain lower order traits of the personality dimensionsthat were shown to affect parenting. For example, research thatexamines facets belonging to Extraversion (optimism, shyness) orBenevolence (irritability, egocentrism), and investigates linkagesbetween these lower order facets, child problem behaviors, andparenting, could provide detailed knowledge on why child person-ality is related to parenting.

General Conclusions

Together, results from this study show that in a close andlong-lasting dyadic relationship such as the parent–child relation-ship, individual characteristics of both members of the dyad sub-stantially affect the relationship quality. Moreover, it was shownthat in addition to parents’ own characteristics, the characteristicsof the adolescent elicit certain behaviors. Last, if characteristics ofboth individuals in a dyad are taken into account, parents’ char-acteristics are similarly related for parents of easier or more

196 DE HAAN, DEKOVIC, AND PRINZIE

difficult adolescents, and for mothers and fathers parenting sonsand daughters. Results further suggest that supportive behaviorsare equally well predicted by the adolescent’s personality as by aparent’s own personality, whereas more negative overreactiveparenting is more strongly affected by the parent’s own character-istics. Further, adolescent Extraversion and parental and adoles-cent Agreeableness (Benevolence) affected parenting in importantways. These results indicate that the two Big Five characteristicsthat are most closely related to interpersonal behaviors are alsoimportant for one of the most affectively challenged and possiblymost central tasks that most adults are faced with, that of being aparent.

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Received October 20, 2010Revision received May 31, 2011

Accepted July 24, 2011 �

199PARENT AND ADOLESCENT PERSONALITY AND PARENTING