Poster #87 - The Influence of Parental Psychological Factors on Parent-Student Communication Patterns at the Transition to College

• In Event: 3-003 - Poster Session 09
  In Poster Session: PS 09 Section - Education, Schooling

Integrative Statement

In the past decade, parental involvement in the lives of their college-aged students has increased (Levine & Dean, 2012). Parents who are significantly involved in the daily lives of their college students are often described as being “overinvolved” or as “helicopters.” These are parents who use typically valued parenting practices to an inappropriate degree (LeMoyne & Buchanan, 2012). Overinvolved parenting is related to a number of individual difference variables within college students, such as affective symptomatology (Darlow, Norvilitis & Schuetze, 2017) and attachment style (Galczyk & Goodman-Wilson, 2018), although it is difficult to determine the directionality of the relationships. Furthermore, little prior research has examined individual differences within parents which may contribute to their parenting style. The present study was designed to examine parental factors which contribute to overinvolvement, as well the interrelationship between parental and student variables in predicting parent-child communication patterns at the transition to college.

Data were collected from first year college students (N = 202; 162 female) and their parents (N = 97; 74 female). Student/parent data were collected separately, but participants were asked, if willing, to share the name of their parent/child for the purposes of comparing responses. Data were available for 33 dyads (27 mother-child pairs). All data were collected electronically in the weeks immediately following the campus’s short-term course designed for freshmen. Parents completed the short-form Experiences in Close Relationships (ECR-S; Wei, Russell, Mallinckrodt, & Vogel, 2007),Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale-Revised (CESD-R; Eaton, Smith, Ybarra, Muntaner, & Tien, 2004), the Trait Inventory for Cognitive and Somatic Anxiety (TICSA; Ree, MacLeod, French, & Locke, 2000), and the Parents of Adolescents Separation Anxiety Scale (PASAS, Hock, Eberly, Bartle-Haring, Ellwanger, & Widamin, 2001). Students completed the ECR and affective assessments. Parents also self-reported on the frequency of contact between parent and student, and parental satisfaction with the amount of contact.

Results indicate that parents were in frequent contact with their students during the first weeks of college, with 100% reporting having been in contact at least once per week and 31% in contact daily. For parents who reported being very/dissatisfied with the frequency of contact, 85.7% desired more contact. Parents in contact with their students daily were higher in cognitive anxiety, t (92) = 2.18, p = .03. Individual differences in parents’ attachment style, psychological symptomatology, and separation anxiety were significantly predictive of parental satisfaction with the amount of contact (Table 1). However, student individual differences in psychological well-being were not significantly predictive of increased contact between parent and student. When examining parental satisfaction with contact in a regression model, parental individual differences remained significant predictors, even when controlling for student variables, and indeed, no student variables achieved significance in an overall significant model (Table 2).

The present study suggests that during the transition period to college, patterns of parent-child communication and parental overinvolvement are more determined by parental individual differences than by students. Parental desire for more contact is driven by their own attachment patterns and separation anxiety, and not by student psychological well-being.

Authors

• Miranda Goodman-Wilson, Eckerd College
  Presenting Author

• Samantha Galczyk, Eckerd College
  Non-Presenting Author