Assessment of Emotional Autonomy Among Teenagers and Parenting Styles Adopted by Primary Parent in a Selected Sample of Delhi Region

Abstract

The aim of the study is to assess the emotional autonomy among teenagers and parenting styles adopted by primary parents in a selected sample of Delhi region. The study was conducted on 400 participants out of which 200 were parents (100 mothers and 100 fathers) and 200 were their children (100 boys and 100 girls). Data was collected using stratified purposive sampling and Emotional autonomy scale by Steinberg and Silverberg to measure emotional autonomy and Parenting style questionnaire by Robinson et.al (1995) to identify type of parenting style adopted by parents. The objectives of the study was to explore the psychological antecedent i.e. emotional autonomy of Teenagers and to explore the demographic antecedents i.e. parenting style, gender of primary parent and child, birth order of the child. Based on the review of literature various hypotheses were stated i.e. (i) There will be an impact of parenting style on the emotional autonomy of teenagers. (ii) Presence of Emotional autonomy will be— (a.) Significantly and positively related to – authoritarian style of parenting; (b). Significantly and negatively related to – Authoritative and permissive style of parenting and uninvolved style of parenting. (iii) Parenting styles will be significantly different depending upon – (a.) The primary parents’ gender; (b.) the gender of the teenager; (c.) birth order of the child. In order to test hypothesis correlation and regression analysis was computed to find out the relationship among variables. It was found that Deidealisation and parent as people (dimension of emotional autonomy) is positively correlated with Authoritarian style of parenting.