The interaction between socioeconomic status and personality traits in predicting parental warmth among parents in Lebanon

Abstract

ABSTRACT Parents’ socioeconomic status and personality traits are important predictors of parental warmth. The aim of the present study was to examine the multiplicative relations between parents’ socioeconomic status and personality traits in predicting parental warmth. Parents’ education was used as the indicator for parent’s socioeconomic status. Building on the resource substitution hypothesis, we expected that the associations between parents’ personality traits and parental warmth will be stronger among parents of lower socioeconomic status. Our sample comprised of 378 Lebanese parents who completed an online survey. We found significant interactions between parents’ socioeconomic status and three personality traits, which are agreeableness, conscientiousness, and neuroticism. Generally, we found evidence that personality traits compensate for low socioeconomic status in predicting parental warmth. Our findings call for further investigations of the complex relations between socioeconomic status and the different determinants of parenting, and allay concerns about the negative influence of socioeconomic status on parental warmth.