Intergenerational transmission of paternal early maladaptive schemas through intergenerational transmission of parenting styles

Early maladaptive schemas are proposed as to be shaped through frustration of core emotional needs during childhood and persist into adulthood by leading psychological and relationship problems. While early maladaptive schemas' associations with various psychopathologies and psychosocial variables are well established in the literature, intergenerational transmission of them has been studied rarely and existing studies mostly focused on mother-to-child transmission. The current study aims to examine schema transmission from fathers to children and focused on a specific schema domain, which is impaired limits and exaggerated standards. 172 families, i.e., fathers, mothers and their young adult children, participated to the study. While fathers and young adults completed Young Schema Questionnaire-Short Form 3 (YSQ-SF3) and Young Parenting Inventory, mothers completed YSQ-SF3 to be used as a control variable. The results revealed that schema domain of impaired limits and exaggertaed standards of fathers is significantly associtaed with the same schema domain and disconnection and rejection schema domain of their children, and adverse parenting styles of fathers reported by their children mediate these relationships. In addition, it was revealed that adverse parenting styles of fathers' own parents are associated with impaired limits and exaggerated standards schema domain and disconnection and rejection schema domain of their children and in these relationships, impaired limits and exaggerated standards schemas of fathers and adverse parenting styles of fathers reported by their children are the mediating variables, respectively. Embodying psychosocial variables from three generations, the current study reveals different pathways for transmission of paternal schemas.