Azar, Naomi (5/15) Childhood parentification: understanding the influence of emotion regulation and shame-proneness on the association between perceived unfairness and mental health outcomes (Sara C. Haden, Ph.D.; Kevin B. Meehan, Ph.D.;Nicholas Papouchis, Ph.D.)
Childhood parentification, a process whereby children assume caregiving roles in the family, is ubiquitous. Estimates suggest that approximately 1.3-1.4 million children between the ages of 8-18 in the USA are parentified. Parentification has been linked to a wide range of mental health outcomes in adulthood, ranging from increased responsibility and maturity to mood, eating, and personality disorders. Children's perception of their role as unfair has recently emerged as a powerful predictor of negative mental health outcomes. The current study examined the mediating effect of emotion regulation on the link between perceived unfairness and mental health outcomes. A sample of 198, formerly parentified, undergraduate students (ages 18-36+) from a diverse urban university completed online self-report questionnaires to examine the relationship between (a) perceived unfairness and mental health outcomes, (b) the mediating effect of emotion regulation on this relationship, as measured by both the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale, and the Differentiation of Self Inventory-Revised, and (d) the mediating effect of shame-proneness on the relationship between perceived unfairness and mental health outcomes. Mediated model path analyses indicated that emotion regulation mediates the relationship between perceived unfairness and mental health outcomes. In addition, shame-proneness was found to mediate the relationship between perceived unfairness and emotion regulation. Differences between the two measures of emotion regulation, and the two measures of shame-proneness are discussed. In addition, cultural, childhood socioeconomic, and current socioeconomic determinants of parentification are also examined.
