Parenting Styles, Gender-Role Orientations And Romantic Beliefs And Experience In Emerging Adulthood

Abstract

The paper traces out a problem that is not well-analysed in the psychological literature, namely, the relationship between parenting styles, gender-role orientations and romantic beliefs and experience in emerging adulthood. Emerging adulthood is a distinct developmental stage that differs from adolescence and young adulthood ( Arnett, 2004 ). In order to capture these major characteristics of emerging adulthood in the Bulgarian context, in the period September – November 2015, students aged 18–29 (M = 22.86, SD = 3.86) from University of Library Studies and Information Technologies – ULSIT, Sofia, were surveyed in groups during seminars (N = 255). All respondents studied to obtain a Bachelor’s degree in various professional fields. The results of the empirical research have shown that the authoritative parenting style is the most preferred among young people. Preference for feminine gender-role orientation is observed. Romantic beliefs and experience are also essential for the formation of psychosocial identity in the years of emerging adulthood.

Keywords: Parenting stylesgender-role orientationsromantic beliefs and experienceemerging adulthood

Introduction

In modern western societies and cultures adolescence begins earlier, while adulthood (linked with romantic partnership, marriage, and parenting) comes much later than in previous generations (Arnett, 2000, 2004). For most young people the years from the end of adolescence to the end of the twenties are a time of both excitement and uncertainty, open opportunities and confusion, new freedoms and new fears (Arnett, 2004). That is why this period is notable as a unique and important stage in development, different than adolescence and early adulthood.

Arnett (2004) postulates that emerging adulthood is a period during which young people explore opportunities in romance and love. Emerging adults are eager to find out what kind of person they would like to get married to and to acquire romantic experience before choosing the one to partner with permanently. According to Arnett, emerging adults can have many different romantic relationships, and these relationships are often unstable and short-termed. From that point of view romantic relationships during emerging adulthood are largely associated with exploration and experimentation and should have little impact on later marital behavior.

The formation and maintenance of a romantic relationship is a priority psychosocial development task of emerging adults. Romantic relationships have important implications for the subjective well-being and psychological adaptation of the individual. Gender-role orientations and behavior linked with romantic experience can also predict attitudes and behavior in marriage in the form of parenting styles (Axinn & Thornton, 1993; Axinn & Barber, 1997). Therefore, it is important to analyse both the romantic relationships during emerging adulthood and the determinants and consequences of these romantic ties. Not surprisingly, the purpose of this article is to explore the relationship between perceived parenting styles, gender-role orientations and romantic experience and beliefs in emerging adulthood among the 18–29-year olds.

Emerging adults are still a poorly studied age group in Bulgaria. A few empirical studies focusing specifically on the 18–29 age group verify the existence of heterogeneity at this age, confirm the existence of certain dimensions of emerging adulthood and highlight the typological specificities and life tasks typical of emerging adults in the context of contemporary Bulgarian culture (Pencheva & Papazova, 2009; Papazova, Moody, & Bathurst, 2015; Garvanova & Papazova, 2017). Consequently, there is a need for new empirical data on the issues related to the years of emerging adulthood.

Problem Statement

The current study seeks to outline some of the major characteristics of emerging adulthood such as parenting styles, gender-role orientations and romantic beliefs and experience among Bulgarian students.

Research Questions

The leading hypotheses are based on the assumption that there are: 1) age-related terms of parenting styles, gender roles, and romantic beliefs and experience, and 2) a relationship between them in emerging adulthood (Lin & Billingham, 2014).

Purpose of the Study

The aim of the study is to present the characteristics of the parenting styles, the gender-role orientations, and the romantic beliefs and experience in the years of emerging adulthood in the Bulgarian socio-cultural environment with the following tasks: 1. To develop a profile of young people regarding these constructs, and 2. To trace the correlation between them.

Research Methods

• Parenting Style Questionnaire – PSQ (Robinson, Mandleco, Olsen, & Hart, 1995). It consists of three scales: 13 items for the authoritarian style, 13 items for the authoritative one and 4 items for the permissive one. The respondents are asked to assess the extent to which they would engage in parenting practices as perceived by them. The rating scale is a 6-point one: from 1 – “never” to 6 “always”. The highest score of the three scales defines the preferred parenting style. The Cronbach’s alpha is as follows: for the whole questionnaire – 0.76, authoritative parenting style – 0.83, authoritarian parenting style – 0.80, and permissive parenting style – 0.52.

• Bem Sex-Role Inventory – BSRI (Bem, 1979). This questionnaire consists of 60 items, 20 items for masculinity, 20 items for femininity, and 20 items for gender neutrality. The rating scale is 7-point: from 1 – “never or almost never true” to 7 – “almost always true”. Its Cronbach’s alpha is as follows: for the whole methodology – 0.87, scale for masculinity – 0.83, scale for femininity – 0.80, and neutral scale – 0.60.

• Romantic Beliefs Scale – RBS (Sprecher & Metts, 1989). The questionnaire consists of 15 items. The respondents are asked to share their personal opinion on love and romance in any of the statements. The rating scale is 7-point: from 1 – “strongly disagree” to 7 – “strongly agree”. The Cronbach’s alpha is 0.83.

• Relational Experience Scale – RES (Costigan, 2006). The respondents must first answer the question of whether they are currently in a romantic relationship. If they have romantic experience, they are requested to assess how satisfied or dissatisfied they are with their relationship with this person according to a 7-point scale, where 1 is “completely dissatisfied” and 7 – “completely satisfied” (M = 5.65, SD = 1.23).

The sample consists of 255 students in the 18–29 age group (M = 22.86, SD = 3.86), 166 of them (65.1%) men and 89 (34.9%) women. 141 (55.3%) of them are single, 41 (16.1%) are married, 10 (3.9%) are divorced and 63 (24.7%) cohabit with a partner. Those who have children are 66 (25.9%) and those without children are 189 (74.1%). Students were surveyed in groups during seminars in the period September – November 2015. All respondents studied at the University of Library Studies and Information Technologies – ULSIT, Sofia to obtain a Bachelor’s degree in such major professional fields as Public Communications and Information Sciences and Informatics and Computer Science.

Findings

Conclusion

One of the important psychosocial development tasks in emerging adulthood (18–29 years) is to seek and experiment with romantic partnership. The present study focuses precisely on the romantic beliefs and experience among Bulgarian emerging adults. We have tried to make a profile of Bulgarian youth in three dimensions: gender-role orientations, adopted parenting style and romantic beliefs and experience. These research efforts appeared due to the absence of relevant studies in the period of emerging adulthood in Bulgaria. It was also interesting to trace the relationship between the three constructs in this age group. In summary, the results show that:

7.1. The most preferred parenting style of the students in emerging adulthood is the authoritative one. Emerging adults tend to show both high control and high responsiveness and warmth for their children. The presence of romantic experience brings moderate satisfaction.

7.2. Emerging adults prefer the feminine gender-role orientation in the highest degree, which is most likely due to the specifics of the Bulgarian culture.

7.3. Romantic beliefs are less associated with the authoritative parenting style with all three gender-role orientations. In turn, romantic experience weakly correlates with authoritative parenting style and femininity. These correlations can be explained with the preference for autonomy and positive self-esteem in emerging adulthood and are within the bounds of the assumptions made.

The findings generally confirm the assumption of a specific, age-bound relationship between the three measured constructs – parenting styles, gender-role orientations, romantic beliefs and experience to be analysed in relation to other psychological traits in future research studies.

Acknowledgments

This work is supported by: (i) National Science Fund at the Bulgarian Ministry of Education and Science Project: DN 15/2/ 11.12.2017; (ii) NIP-2018-09 Project of the University of Library Studies and Information Technologies under the Ordinance of the Bulgarian Ministry of Education and Science.

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