The Relationship between Parent's and Offspring's Personality and Offspring's Psychological Adaptation

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between personality of parent and offspring, and offspring's psychological adaptation. METHODS: We examined temperament and character of 65 parents and their offspring (measured using the Junior Temperament and Character Inventory and Temperament and Character Inventory) and offspring's internalizing (anxiety, depression) and externalizing (delinquency, hyperactivity) problems. RESULTS: The internalizing problems of offspring were positively associated with harm avoidance (HA) of offspring and parent, and negatively associated with self-directedness (SD) of offspring and parent. The externalizing problems of offspring were positively associated with novelty seeking of offspring, and were predicted by SD of parent. The interaction between parent's HA and offspring's HA predicted higher levels of anxiety of offspring. CONCLUSION: The association between the offspring's personality and internalizing and externalizing problems can depend on the personality of the parent.