Role of Perceived Maternal Favoritism and Disfavoritism in Adult Children’s Psychological Well-Being

• In Event: 178 - Section on the Sociology of the Family Paper Session. Families, Health, and Well-Being

Abstract

The detrimental consequences of parents’ differential treatment on children’s well-being have been documented in childhood, adolescence and young adulthood; however, little is known about this pattern in later-life families. Using data collected from 725 midlife adult children nested within 309 families, we examined the association between children’s depressive symptoms and perceptions of maternal differentiation regarding emotional closeness, pride, tension and disappointment. Drawing from theories of social comparison, we predicted that the association between differential treatment and depressive symptoms would be strongest when children perceived that they were disfavored and that their siblings were favored. Depressive symptoms were higher when offspring perceived that they were those to whom their mothers were most emotionally close, with whom their mothers had the greatest tension, and in whom their mothers were most disappointed. Tests for differences by race revealed substantially stronger effects of mothers’ disappointment in Black than White families.

Authors

• J. Jill Suitor, Purdue University

• Megan Gilligan, Iowa State University

• Siyun Peng, Purdue University

• Jong Hyun Jung, Purdue University

• Karl Pillemer, Cornell University