Perceived parental rejection and psychological well-being in emerging adulthood :|moderator role of reflective functioning

Abstract

The main aim of this study was to investigate moderator role of Reflective Functioning (RF) between perceived maternal and paternal rejection in childhood and psychological well-being during emerging adulthood period. A secondary aim of this study was to examine factor structure, convergent validity, and reliability of a short Turkish version of Reflective Functioning Questionnaire (RFQ-8) in a non clinical sample. In total, 330 people between 18-29 years of age completed related online surveys. Analyses assessing psychometric features of RFQ-8 found out the unidimensional structure of this measure is a more valid instrument to use in this sample rather than the originally proposed two-factor version. Other analyses regarding the main goal of the study showed that psychological well-being during the emerging adulthood period has significant negative correlations with recalled rejection from both mother and the father in childhood and lower levels of current RF. Also, perceived rejection from mother and RF were found as significant predictors of psychological well-being in all levels of regression analysis after controlling for some background characteristics. However, the hypothesis regarding the moderator role of RF was not confirmed. An additional analysis conducted to explore mediating role of RF showed that RF partially mediates the relationship between psychological well-being and perceived paternal but not maternal rejection. Based on this, it was concluded that RF can be a buffer between paternal rejection perceived in childhood and psychological well-being in emerging adulthood. All findings, implications, and limitations of the study were discussed in the light of related literaturei