TY - JOUR
T1 - The Process Linking Child-Invested Contingent Self-Esteem and Conditional Regard
T2 - The Roles of Maternal Anger and its Regulation
AU - Steffgen, Sarah Teresa
AU - Otterpohl, Nantje
AU - Wessing, Franziska
AU - Schwinger, Malte
AU - Assor, Avi
AU - Kanat-Maymon, Yaniv
AU - Gueta, Bat El
AU - Stiensmeier-Pelster, Joachim
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2022, The Author(s).
PY - 2022/9/1
Y1 - 2022/9/1
N2 - Parents whose self-esteem is contingent on their children’s achievements tend to exert more control over their children by displaying decreased affection and regard after failure in school (parental academic conditional negative regard). The current study examined parental anger and dysregulated anger expression as possible mechanisms in the respective association. In total, 221 mothers reported their child-invested contingent self-esteem, habitual dysregulated anger expression, anticipated anger after child failure, and their explicit use of conditional negative regard; their 12- to 14-year-old adolescent children reported perceived conditional negative regard. The moderated mediation analysis revealed that anger after child failure partially mediated the effect of child-invested contingent self-esteem on maternal explicit use of conditional negative regard, which, in turn, predicted adolescents’ perception of conditional negative regard. The effect of anger was moderated by dysregulated anger expression, and anger was only positively related to conditional negative regard when expressed as medium- to highly-dysregulated. The results support our hypotheses and provide an explanation for parental application of conditional negative regard apart from socialization goals or a lack of knowledge about its suboptimal nature. Furthermore, our results underscore the importance of parents’ self-esteem concerns and strategies for anger regulation. We discuss the practical implications of an anger-driven, reactive type of conditional regard.
AB - Parents whose self-esteem is contingent on their children’s achievements tend to exert more control over their children by displaying decreased affection and regard after failure in school (parental academic conditional negative regard). The current study examined parental anger and dysregulated anger expression as possible mechanisms in the respective association. In total, 221 mothers reported their child-invested contingent self-esteem, habitual dysregulated anger expression, anticipated anger after child failure, and their explicit use of conditional negative regard; their 12- to 14-year-old adolescent children reported perceived conditional negative regard. The moderated mediation analysis revealed that anger after child failure partially mediated the effect of child-invested contingent self-esteem on maternal explicit use of conditional negative regard, which, in turn, predicted adolescents’ perception of conditional negative regard. The effect of anger was moderated by dysregulated anger expression, and anger was only positively related to conditional negative regard when expressed as medium- to highly-dysregulated. The results support our hypotheses and provide an explanation for parental application of conditional negative regard apart from socialization goals or a lack of knowledge about its suboptimal nature. Furthermore, our results underscore the importance of parents’ self-esteem concerns and strategies for anger regulation. We discuss the practical implications of an anger-driven, reactive type of conditional regard.
KW - Academic achievement
KW - Anger
KW - Contingent self-esteem
KW - Emotion regulation
KW - Parental conditional regard
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85128806506&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s10826-022-02316-y
DO - 10.1007/s10826-022-02316-y
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85128806506
SN - 1062-1024
VL - 31
SP - 2412
EP - 2423
JO - Journal of Child and Family Studies
JF - Journal of Child and Family Studies
IS - 9
ER -