Poster #214 - The Influence of Parental Affection on Self-Esteem: A Monozygotic Twin Difference Study

• In Event: 3-106 - Poster Session 11
  In Poster Session: PS 11 Section - Social, Emotional, Personality

Integrative Statement

Self-esteem, or the affective and cognitive appraisal a person holds of him- or herself, has been shown to predict mental health (Rosenberg, Schooler, Schoenbach, & Rosenberg, 1995) and general life satisfaction (Kang, Shaver, Sue, Min, & Jing, 2003). Behavioral genetic researchers have found that variability in self-esteem can be attributed to genetic and non-shared environmental factors (Neiss, Sedikides, & Stevenson, 2002). The relationship individuals have with their parents represents an environmental factor that is predictive of self-esteem (Bean, Bush, McKenry, & Wilson, 2003). Specifically, Bean et al. (2003) found that parental support positively relates to self-esteem in adolescence. However, parenting has been shown to be influenced by the genes that parents and children share (Scarr & McCartney, 1983).
Method
The current study extended prior work by examining parenting received in adolescence as it predicts self-esteem. We used monozygotic twins (n = 690, mean age = 43.99 years) from the Midlife in the United States (MIDUS) longitudinal study of health and well-being. A monozygotic twin difference analysis was used to control for the shared genetic sources of self-esteem and parenting and to isolate the relationship between environmental aspects of parenting and environmental aspects of adult self-esteem. It was hypothesized that differences in monozygotic twins’ self-reported experiences related to parental affection would predict adulthood differences in self-esteem between twins. A measure of self-esteem was created using a series of items selected as a result of a data reduction process (Table 1). The first factor explained 41.34% of the variance in the items. The minimum factor loading was .55, the maximum factor loading was .71, and the average factor loading was .64. The scale was shown to be reliable (α = .76). Paternal affection during childhood was reported by the adult twins, and used an existing scale consisting of 7 items designed to assess the amount of affection in the relationship between parent and child (e.g., “How much love and affection did she give you?”). The affection scale was shown to be reliable for both maternal (α = .91) and paternal affection (α = .93).
Results
Both maternal affection (r = .33, p < .001) and paternal affection (r = .28, p < .001) were significantly related to self-esteem. However, monozygotic twin differences in maternal affection were not significantly related to monozygotic twin differences on self-esteem (r = .11, p = .06), whereas differences in paternal affection were significantly related to monozygotic twin differences in self-esteem (r = .21, p < .001).
Discussion
These results suggest that maternal and paternal affection are related to self-esteem through different mechanisms. Specifically, it is possible that the relationship between maternal affection and self-esteem is primarily due to genes that mothers and children share, while the relationship between paternal affection and self-esteem is partially due to nonshared environmental factors. These results suggest that interventions designed to increase self-esteem might benefit from efforts to increase the affection that fathers show children, whereas efforts to increase maternal affection may not be as beneficial.

Authors

• Riley Marshall, Southern Illinois University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Colin Harbke, Western Illinois University
  Presenting Author

• Lisabeth Fisher DiLalla, Southern Illinois University School of Medicine
  Non-Presenting Author