The Impact of Childhood Parenting Styles on Feelings of Embodiment in Adolescence

Abstract

This research project aims to better understand the relationship between parenting styles and feelings of embodiment. Embodiment is defined as a perceived sense of ownership and awareness that individuals have over their own bodies, and healthy embodiment is believed to positively impact psychological functioning in children. The parenting styles examined within this study were Baumrind’s original three parenting styles: authoritative, authoritarian, and permissive. These parenting styles are based on two dimensions: control and warmth. Authoritative parenting has been found to encourage independence while maintaining a supportive environment. For this reason, there is a lot of research that supports authoritative parenting in young children. Undergraduate participants were asked to complete a modified version of the Parental Authority Questionnaire and the Body Consciousness Questionnaire. Participants were then shown three parent-child interactions related to sleep, food, and bathroom, as well as two potential parent responses to these interactions. Participants were asked to rate the level of autonomy and warmth each of these potential parent responses conveyed, as well as which response they preferred, which response they believed that their parents would have chosen, and which response they would choose if they were the parent. Due to the empirical research supporting the benefits of authoritative parenting in many aspects of psychological functioning, we predicted a correlation would exist between authoritative parenting and positive embodiment. However, there was no significant correlation found between these variables. A new significant relationship between authoritarian parenting and public body consciousness was found. Further research on this relationship is suggested, as well as the development of a better scale for measuring healthy embodiment.