The Relationship between Self-Esteem and Parenting Style

Abstract

Within Western cultures, self-esteem consistently has been demonstrated to be inversely related with parenting styles characterized by low levels of acceptance and high levels of overprotection (i.e., affectionless control). Although in traditional collectivist cultures there may be a preference for this parenting style, within a strong collectivist framework it is not thought to have a negative impact on self-esteem. However, for immigrant adolescents, the cultural context of collectivism may no longer support such a parenting style as adaptive, particularly because they tend to acculturate more quickly than their parents. To investigate this proposal, 118 Vietnamese Australian and 120 Anglo-Australian adolescents, aged 11 to 18 years, were recruited. They were administered the Coopersmith Self-Esteem Inventory; the Parental Bonding Instrument, an acculturation measure; and two subscales of Eysenck’s Personality Questionnaire. As expected, parenting characterized by high levels of overprotection and low levels of acceptance related negatively with self-esteem for both samples of adolescents.