Personality traits mediate the association between perceived parental bonding and well-being in adult volunteers from the community

• Main Authors: Akiko Murakoshi, Nobuyuki Mitsui, Jiro Masuya, Yota Fujimura, Shinji Higashi, Ichiro Kusumi, Takeshi Inoue
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: BMC 2020-10-01
• Series: BioPsychoSocial Medicine
• Subjects: Subjective well-being; Quality of parenting; Temperament and character inventory; Structural equation model; Covariance structure analysis
• Online Access: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s13030-020-00198-4

Abstract Background Previous studies reported that subjective well-being in adulthood correlates with perceived parental bonding in childhood as well as personality traits. However, whether personality traits mediate the effect of perceived parental bonding on well-being or not has not been reported to date. In this study, we hypothesized that ‘parental care and overprotection’ in childhood affect ‘well-being’ in adulthood through various ‘personality traits’, and analyzed this using structural equation modeling. Methods A total of 402 adult volunteers from the community provided responses to the following questionnaires: 1) Parental Bonding Instrument, 2) Temperament and Character Inventory, and 3) The Subjective Well-being Inventory. Two structural equation models were designed and the maximum likelihood estimation method was used for covariance structure analysis. Results Parental care in childhood directly increased well-being in adulthood and indirectly increased it through personality traits (harm avoidance, reward dependence, and self-directedness). Parental overprotection in childhood had no direct effect on well-being in adulthood but decreased well-being in adulthood indirectly through personality traits (harm avoidance, reward dependence, and self-directedness) and increased it through one personality trait (self-transcendence). Conclusions This study showed that the influences of perceived parental bonding on well-being in adulthood are mediated by self-directedness, harm avoidance, reward dependence, and self-transcendence among the seven personality dimensions evaluated by the Temperament and Character Inventory.