EMOTION REGULATION, SOCIAL COMPETENCE AND PARENTAL BONDING IN FUNCTIONAL AND DYSFUNCTIONAL FAMILIES: A COMPARATIVE STUDY

Abstract

The present study aimed to investigate the relationship of emotion regulation, social competence and parental bonding in functional and dysfunctional families. The data was collected from a sample of adolescent’s age ranging from 12 -18 years. The total sample accessed for the present study was 1088, which was screened for adolescent with family functioning and family dysfunctioning. 228 respondents were ineligible for the inclusion in the study and data from 860 respondents was ensued for the data analysis. The psychological instruments used for the present study were Multi-dimensional Family Functioning scale, Index of Family relations (Hudson, 1997), Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (Gross & John, 2003), Youth Social Competence Scale (Lyon, 2005) and Parental Bonding Instrument (Parker, Tupling, & Brown, 1979) for measuring Family dysfunctioning, Emotion Regulation, Social Competence and Parental Bonding respectively. The present study comprised of three Phases. Phase I intended to develop a scale to assess functional and dysfunctional families with good psychometric properties. Sample for Phase I of the study, scale development was comprised of (N = 260) adolescents from functional and dysfunctional families. For generation of items for the scale, literature was thoroughly reviewed and focus group discussions were also conducted. Exploratory factor analysis yielded five factors emotional reactivity and cutoff, Family Cohesion, Family Projection, Family Triangulation and Family Support. Psychometric properties of the newly developed scale, Multi-Dimensional Family Functioning Scale with 26-items were also established Phase II Pilot testing consisted of conducting a pre-testing of the scale developed in the Phase I with a sample of 200 adolescents from functional (n=100) and dysfunctional families (n=100). It examined the psychometric properties of the study scales. The results of the study revealed Multi-dimensional Family Functioning Scale to be highly reliable psychological instrument for the assessment of family functioning and dysfunctioning. Findings indicate that Parental bonding instrument and all its subscales Emotion Regulation Scale, and Youth Social Competence confirmed a high internal consistency. The construct validity of Multidimensional Family Functioning Scale (MFFS) was confirmed via analyzing the convergent and divergent validity of the scale. Phase III consisted of the main study with a screened sample of 400 adolescents from functional (n=200) and dysfunctional families (n=200), it aimed to study the relationship between emotional regulation, parental bonding and social competence and family dysfunctioning. It investigated the moderation of parental bonding on the relationship between emotional regulation and social competence. It also investigated the difference between research groups. It investigated the gender differences in emotional regulation, parental bonding and social competence. The comparisons of functional and dysfunctional families on the study variables were also investigated. For the analysis of the data, correlation, t-test, and regression analysis were applied. The findings of the main study exposed that maternal and paternal care, cognitive reappraisal, are positively, while maternal and paternal control, expressive suppression, are negatively connected to social competence. vii Family group differences revealed that parental bonding in terms of care and control, social competence, use of cognitive reappraisal is higher in adolescents from functional families. On the other hand maternal and paternal control, expressive suppression is higher in adolescents with dysfunctional family as compared to adolescents from functional family. The present study also established that family dysfunctioning is a strong predictor of poor Social Competence among adolescents. Gender differences were also investigated and the findings revealed no gender differences on paternal bonding, cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression strategies of emotion regulation. Findings also reported that Maternal Bonding is higher in female adolescents than male adolescents while social competence is higher in male adolescents as compared to their female counterparts. Findings also revealed that social competence is higher in students of private educational institutes as compared to students from government educational institutes. Present study investigated whether parental bonding moderates the relationship between emotion regulation and social competence in a sample of adolescents. The findings revealed a direct relationship that expressive suppression predicts social competence. Paternal Bonding moderated the relationship between expressive suppression and social competence whereas Maternal Bonding did not moderate the relationship between expressive suppression and social competence. The findings indicated a direct relationship that cognitive reappraisal predicts social competence. Results also revealed that Paternal Bonding did not moderate the relationship between cognitive reappraisal and social competence whereas Maternal Bonding moderates the relationship between cognitive reappraisal and social competence. But overall it can be stated that parental bonding moderates relationship between emotion regulation and social competence. The present study indicated that adolescents from Nuclear Families had greater family dysfunctioning and use of expressive suppression as compared to adolescents from Joint Families whereas adolescents from joint families had greater social competence. Findings also showed that adolescents from joint families and nuclear families did not differ significantly on use of cognitive reappraisal, maternal and paternal bonding. The overall findings of the study emphasize on the importance of family functioning level and parental practices. It argues for concentrating on these aspects for the development of healthy adolescents. Keywords: Emotion Regulation, Social Competence, Parental bonding, Adolescents, Functional and Dysfunctional families