Child-rearing patterns and dimensions of personality

The Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ) and EMBU Inventory for measurement of child-rearing practices were administered to 85 university students, 72 medical and surgical patients, and 66 employees of a state department in order to assess the relationships between personality dimensions and child-rearing. Results indicate that parents of extraverts tend to be performance-oriented and stimulating, parents of high psychoticism scorers tend to be unstimulating and unaffectionate, and that parents of high neuroticism scorers tend to be guilt-engendering, overprotective and shaming. There is no relationship between the Lie scale and parental rearing patterns. These findings suggest that child-rearing patterns have an influence on personality, although inheritance cannot be ruled out.