Intergenerational Transmission of Perceived Bonding Styles and Paternal Emotion Socialization: Mediation Through Paternal Emotion Dysregulation

We examined perceived parental styles, emotion socialization practices and emotion dysregulation among fathers from a community sample in order to understand the intergenerational transmission of normative parenting behaviors. The sample consisted of 217 fathers of school-age children ranging in age from 6 to 12 years. We used a cross-sectional design. The fathers completed a set of self-report questionnaires including parental boding instrument, difficulties in emotion regulation scale, and coping with children’s negative emotion scale. The findings indicated that fathers’ perceived parental care of their own parents (G1) was negatively linked to fathers’ (G2) non-supportive responses to negative emotions shown by their children (G3) through its negative association with the father’s (G2) emotion regulation difficulties, whereas fathers’ perceived parental overprotection of their own parents (G1) was positively linked to fathers’ (G2) non-supportive responses to negative emotions shown by their children (G3) through its positive associations with the fathers’ (G2) emotion regulation difficulties. The current study contributed to the further understanding of individual differences in fathers’ emotion socialization practices. The findings potentially shed lights on prevention and intervention efforts regarding limiting the expansion of maladaptive emotional parenting behaviors across generations.