and Psychological Adjustment of Spanish Adolescents

A growing body of research suggests that the authoritative style of parenting is not always necessarily associated with optimum psychological and social outcomes among adolescents. This paper analyzed the relationships between parenting styles and adolescents' psychological adjustment using a two-dimension four-typology model of parenting styles, with the aim to determine which style of parenting Authoritative vs. indulgent was associated with optimum psychological adjustment outcomes among Spanish adolescents. Parenting styles were measured with the Parental Acceptance-Rejection/Control Questionnaire (Rohner, 1990). The outcome measures were six indicators of psychological adjustment measured with the Personality Assessment Questionnaire (Rohner, 1990). Multivariate Analyses of Variance (MANOVAs) were conducted with a sample of 489 Spanish children. Results suggest that adolescents of indulgent families do perform equal or even better in measures of psychological adjustment than adolescents from authoritative households. Authoritarian and neglectful parenting was associated, in general, with the minimum adjustment of adolescents. Research examining relat ionships be tween parent ing styles and children's outcomes fo l l ow largely a four typo logy model of parental socialization styles. In 1983, Maccoby and Mar t in proposed, af ter Baumrind's (1967, 1971) t r ipar t i te model—authori tat ive-authori tar ian-permissive—a bidimensional mode l of parental socialization in wh ich the dimensions demandingness and responsiveness were theoret ical ly o r thogona l (Darl in