Tharani Veerangavedu Balasubramaniam
April 22nd, 2020
Psyc 2103
Perez-Gramaje, A., Garcia, O., Reyes, M., Serra, E., Garcia, F. (2020). Parenting styles and
aggressive adolescents: Relationships with self-esteem and personal maladjustment. The
European Journal of Psychology Applied to Legal Context, 12(1), 1-10.
In past studies, there were opposing perspectives and inconsistent results about the impact of
strict and warmth parenting practices on the developmental outcome of adolescents. This
study examines the impact of parenting approach on aggressive and non-aggressive
adolescents and their socialization patterns. Adolescent socialization pattern was evaluated
with self-esteem and their personal maladjustment factors. The research was conducted with a
sample of 969 high school adolescents of 12 to 17 years old through questionnaires during the
class time. The parenting approach was classified based on the median split procedure using
warmth and strictness scales, and aggression scale was used to categorize the adolescents.
It was hypothesized that 1) aggressive children would be linked with the psychological
maladjustment, and 2) Indulgent and authoritative parenting styles would be correlated with
the optimal socialization pattern when compared to the other two parenting styles irrespective
of the sex and age of the participants. The actual findings concluded the proposed hypothesis.
In addition to that, it was found that family self-esteem could be different in aggressive and
non-aggressive adolescents depending on the parenting style. Also, self-esteem and
maladjustment outcome varied depending on the age and sex of the participants supporting
the results of previous studies.
The major strength of the study is that self-esteem and psychological maladjustment patterns
are thoroughly measured using Personality Assessment Questionnaires and Multidimensional
Self-Esteem Scale, which provides the base for the analysis of socialization pattern of aggressive
and non-aggressive adolescents. Further, the comparison made between all four parenting
styles clearly demonstrated that aggressive kids with warmth parenting approach showed
optimal self-esteem when compared to non-aggressive adolescents who grew up in an
authoritarian parenting style.
One of the major limitations in this study is that the research was conducted only with Spanish
male and female adolescents, which cannot be generalized for other communities. Sampling
could have been taken from youngsters belonging to diversified ethnicity and gender (LGBTQ)
for better results. Further, the evaluation was done in schools with permission from parents
and administration, so the data shared by kids could be inaccurate in order to avoid the
conflicts. Data could have been gathered from both parents and their kids in order to avoid the
data inaccuracy.
Adolescent delinquents can be included as the participants for future studies since that would
effectively determine the impact of parenting style in the juvenile’s aggressiveness. A
longitudinal study can be conducted with the sampling group to track the long-term results in
the later stages of development. The experimental method can be followed in order to
comprehend if the change from the authoritarian approach to an indulgent parenting style
could cause an improved socialization pattern with the teen delinquents.