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BMC Medical Research
Methodology
Open Access
Research article
The assessment of recalled parental rearing behavior and its
relationship to life satisfaction and interpersonal problems: a
general population study
Katja Petrowski*1, Hendrik Berth2, Silke Schmidt3, Jörg Schumacher4,
Andreas Hinz5 and Elmar Brähler5
Address: 1Dresden University of Technology, Department of Psychotherapy and Psychosomatic Medicine, Fetscherstr. 74, D-01307 Dresden,
Germany, 2Dresden University of Technology, Department of Medical Psychology and Medical Sociology, Fetscherstr. 74, D-01307 Dresden,
Germany, 3Universitätsklinikum Hamburg-Eppendorf, Department of Medical Psychology and Medical Sociology, Martinistr. 52, D-20246
Hamburg, Germany, 4University of Jena, Department of Medical Psychology, Stoystr. 3, D-07740 Jena, Germany and 5University of Leipzig,
Department of Medical Psychology and Medical Sociology, Phillip-Rosenthal-Str.55, D-04103 Leipzig, Germany
Email: Katja Petrowski* - katja.petrowski@tu-dresden.de; Hendrik Berth - berth@inhaltsanalyse.de; Silke Schmidt - sischmid@uke.uni-
hamburg.de; Jörg Schumacher - joerg.schumacher@email.de; Andreas Hinz - hina@medizin.uni-leipzig.de;
Elmar Brähler - elmar.braehler@medizin.uni-leipzig.de
* Corresponding author
Abstract
Background: Parental rearing behavior is a significant etiological factor for the vulnerability of
psychopathology and has been an issue of clinical research for a long time. For this scope
instruments are important who asses economically recalled parental rearing behavior in a clinical
practice. Therefore, a short German instrument for the assessment of the recalled parental rearing
behavior Fragebogen zum erinnerten elterlichen Erziehungsverhalten (FEE) was psychometrically
evaluated [Recalled Parental Rearing Behavior].
Methods: This questionnaire was evaluated in a representative population sample (N = 2.948) in
Germany which included 44.2% male and 55.8% female persons with a mean age of M = 47.35 (SD
= 17.10, range = 18–92). For the content evaluation of the FEE the Life Satisfaction Questionnaire
(FLZ) and the Inventory of Interpersonal Problems (IIP) was filled out by the participants.
Results: The FEE scales yielded a good to satisfactory internal consistency and split-half reliability.
Its three factors (rejection/punishment, emotional warmth, control/overprotection) correlated
positively with most of the areas of life satisfaction. Furthermore, positive associations between
interpersonal problems and parental rejection and control could be identified.
Conclusion: The FEE is a short, reliable and valid instrument that can be applied in the clinical
practice. In addition, the data proved an association between recalled parental rearing behavior, life
satisfaction and interpersonal problems conform to the literature. Finally, specific problems with
the retrospective assessment of parental rearing behavior were addressed as well.
Published: 6 March 2009
BMC Medical Research Methodology 2009, 9:17 doi:10.1186/1471-2288-9-17
Received: 30 October 2007
Accepted: 6 March 2009
This article is available from: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2288/9/17
© 2009 Petrowski et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0),
which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
BMC Medical Research Methodology 2009, 9:17 http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2288/9/17
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Background
The impact of parental rearing behavior on child develop-
ment has been an issue of clinical research for a long time.
Perceived parental rearing practices were emphasized as a
significant etiological factor in a vulnerability model of
psychopathology [1] and connected to a child's general
psycho-social development as well as to the social prob-
lems of children [2]. Subjects who reported having had
supportive, non-rejecting and non-overinvolved parents
showed higher psychological adjustment, less social alien-
ation and more life satisfaction [3,2]. However, age and
gender moderated these effects as older individuals ideal-
ized their parents' child rearing behavior more than
younger ones did [4]. On the whole, male subjects
reported a more rejecting parental rearing behavior than
their female counterparts did [5].
In clinical research and in retrospective studies most of the
empirical results were obtained with the help of two ques-
tionnaires: The first one is the Parental Bonding Instru-
ment (PBI [6]) and its clinical version, the Measure of
Parenting Style (MOPS [7]). The PBI was comprised of the
two dimensions "care" and "control", and the MOPS con-
sisted of an additional third dimension of "parental
abuse" (retest-reliability = .63 to .76 [6]). The second one
was the Egna Minnen Beträffande Uppfostran (EMBU [8]
[Own Memories of Child Rearing Experiences] and
yielded separately a three-factorial structure with the
dimensions "rejection/punishment", "emotional
warmth", and "control/overprotection" for the mother as
well as the father [9]. The long version of the EMBU dis-
played an internal reliability of < .70 [9] and the short ver-
sion an internal reliability of > .72 [10].
Both questionnaires (EMBU, PBI) exist as long versions in
German and show good psychometric properties. Eco-
nomical short versions for clinical application do exist in
English and German exclusively for the EMBU. The Ger-
man short version of the EMBU, the Fragebogen zum erin-
nerten elterlichen Erziehungsverhalten (FEE [11])
[Recalled Parental Rearing Behavior], was already imple-
mented in different studies examining the perceived
parental rearing behavior in siblings, in clinical samples
in respect to attachment and relationship characteristics
[12-16]. However, the psychometric properties of this
German FEE short version had not yet been specified in a
representative sample. Therefore, the purpose of this
study was to evaluate the psychometric properties of this
short version based on a representative sample.
The first objective of this study was the specification of
internal reliability of this German FEE short version based
on a representative German sample. This questionnaire
might show a similar range of internal reliability indices
as published for the different English EMBU versions.
The second objective of this study was the evaluation of
the construct validity of this German FEE short version.
Starting from the assumption that similar psychometric
properties and results as based on the English version are
replicable, the male subjects may state more rejection in
parental rearing behavior than female ones. Whereby, the
older subjects might idealize the parental rearing behavior
more than the younger subjects did. Furthermore, non-
supportive and rejecting parental rearing behavior may be
associated with more interpersonal problems and less life
satisfaction.
Methods
Subjects
The sample consisted of 2,948 subjects constituting a rep-
resentative sample of the German population interviewed
by a demographic consulting company (USUMA, Berlin)
in 1994. The selection of the households by the random-
route-procedure was based on the register of the political
elections of 1994. The randomly selected household
member had to be over 18 and a native speaker. The sub-
jects were asked to fill out an extensive questionnaire. The
response rate of this examination was 68%. This sample
was representative for the main socio-demographic data
of the German population (age, gender, city, county and
education). The mean age of this sample was M = 47.35
(SD = 17.10, range = 18–92) with 44.2% male subjects
and 55.8% female subjects.
The study followed the ethical guidelines of the "German
professional institutions of social researcher" [Arbeitskreis
Deutscher Markt- und Sozialforschungsinstitute e.V.
(ADM), Arbeitsgemeinschaft Sozialwissenschaftlicher
Institute e.V. (ASI), Berufsverband Deutscher Markt- und
Sozialforscher e.V. (BVM)] which were implemented to
improve the German federal law to protect the ethical
rights of individuals. These guidelines specify amongst
others how the person has to be approached and treated
in the interview and how the personal as well as the col-
lected data has to be handled and stored. The application
of the guidelines secures that the studies follow the valid
ethical standards. Therefore, additional ethical approval is
not necessary. The study presented here was approved
according to the guidelines of the German professional
institution of social researchers.
Instruments
The EMBU by Perris and colleagues [8] was chosen to
establish an economical German instrument for recalled
parental rearing practices since it comprises good internal
reliability (> .70), is a well implemented questionnaire
and appears to be generalizable across cultures [17]. The
questionnaire Fragebogen zum erinnerten elterlichen
Erziehungsverhalten (FEE [11]) [Recalled Parental Rear-
ing Behavior] represents the only German short version of
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the EMBU for measuring recalled parental rearing behav-
ior which is not identical to any existing English EMBU
short versions. Since the factor loadings of the English and
the German long versions of the EMBU differ considera-
bly, the item selection for this German short version (FEE)
was based on the eight highest factor loadings on the
scales of the German long version [12]. For the scale
"emotional warmth" the items 2, 7, 9, 12, 14, 15, 17, 24,
for the scale "rejection/punishment" the items 1, 3, 6, 8,
16, 18, 20, 22 and for the scale "control/overprotection"
the items 4, 5, 10, 11, 13, 21, 23 were selected. Even
though the two English versions and the German short
version of the EMBU [3,10] care based on different item
selections, the same theoretical constructs (emotional
warmth, rejection/punishment, control/overprotection)
could be identified for the English and the German ver-
sions.
The FEE includes 24 items to be answered separately for
both, mother and father, on a Likert-type scale with the
categories 1 (no, never), 2 (yes, sometimes), 3 (yes, often)
and 4 (yes, always) (range = 8–32, for an example of the
items see [8]). This separate answering style had been
evaluated successfully for the original version of the
EMBU by a principal component factor analysis [8]. The
scales of the FEE were factor analytically derived as in the
English versions [9]: emotional warmth, rejection/pun-
ishment, control/overprotection. A high score on the scale
"rejection" means highly rejecting and punishing recalled
parental rearing behavior. Similarly, for emotional
warmth and overprotection high scores indicate great
emotional warmth and overprotective recalled parental
rearing behavior.
General and specific life satisfaction was assessed by the
Fragebogen zur Lebenszufriedenheit (FLZ) [Life Satisfac-
tion Questionnaire] by Fahrenberg, Myrtek, Schumacher
and Brähler [18]. This instrument measures the following
areas of life satisfaction: health, job and profession,
finances, leisure, spouse/partner, relationship to own chil-
dren, self, sexuality, friends and relatives, and home. All of
the ten subscales of the FLZ (with seven items each) were
rated from 1 (very dissatisfied) to 7 (very satisfied). High
scores indicate high satisfaction with the areas of life. The
reliability ranged from .82 to .95.
The Inventory of Interpersonal Problems (IIP) [19]
assesses self-reported difficulties in social interaction. The
German version of the instrument (IIP-D) [20] includes
64 items subdivided into eight subscales (overly domi-
neering; overly vindictive; overly cold; overly socially
avoidant; overly non-assertive; overly exploitable; overly
nurturant; overly intrusive). The items were rated on a
five-point Likert scale from 0 (not at all) to 4 (very much).
High scores on the scales of the IIP stand for great difficul-
ties in social interactions. The reliability of the scales
ranges from .36 to .64.
Statistical analysis
The statistical data analysis was performed by means of
SPSS for Windows version 10.0.
Concerning the psychometric properties of the FEE scales
the internal consistency of the scales was specified by
Cronbach's alpha. In addition, a split-half reliability was
calculated for each scale by a Spearman-Brown correla-
tion. Since the extraction of the items is based on the fac-
tor loadings of the German long version, the internal
reliability of the original and the new German short ver-
sion may be similar.
In order to test the three-dimensional structure and the
factorial validity of the FEE a principal component analy-
sis (PCA) was calculated separately for the mother and the
father. Hereby, an orthogonal varimax rotation was
applied ahead of time. The factorial structure for the Eng-
lish and the German long version had already been repli-
cated in several studies [9]. Therefore, the original
factorial structure can be expected to be replicable also for
the new German short version.
Differences between the mother- and father-scale ratings
were calculated by t-tests for paired samples. Since paren-
tal rearing behavior proved to be specific to the parent's
gender [8], significant differences between the mother-
and father-scales were to be expected. However, the simi-
lar constructs between the mother and the father might be
associated with higher than opposing constructs between
the mother and the father rating. Furthermore, the scales
were correlated with each other by using a Pearson corre-
lation coefficient (two-tailed).
To specify the influence of age (three categories: 18–30,
31–60 and 61–92 yrs.) and gender on parental rearing
behavior, two-factorial univariate analyses of variance
were calculated. T-tests were calculated to evaluate the
effect of the child's gender (child gender) on the rated par-
ent. Furthermore, the interaction effects between the gen-
der of the evaluated parent (father/mother) and the
gender of the child were calculated by a two-factorial mul-
tivariate analysis of variance. It can be postulated that
older subjects may recall more rejection and stricter
parental rearing behavior than younger ones [4], whereby
the male subjects may perceive more rejecting parental
rearing behavior than the female ones.
To specify the construct validity of the FEE, the well estab-
lished associations between perceived parental rearing
behavior and life satisfaction as well as interpersonal
problems were tried to be replicated using the FEE. Pear-
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son correlation coefficients (two-tailed) were calculated to
examine associations between the FEE and other con-
structs. Hereby, non-supportive, rejecting and overprotec-
tive parental rearing behavior may be connected to more
interpersonal problems and less life satisfaction than in
the case of supportive, non-rejecting and non-overprotec-
tive parental rearing behavior.
Results
Reliability of the FEE
The means and standard deviations of the FEE scales and
some additional characteristics are depicted in Tables 1
and 2. Each of the three FEE scales yielded a good to satis-
factory internal consistency and split-half reliability for
both paternal and maternal rearing behavior. For all three
scales, significant mean differences between the experi-
ence of recalled maternal vs. paternal rearing behavior
emerged in terms of less rejecting and less punitive, emo-
tionally warmer and more overprotective mothers. The
highest score on emotional warmth had 0.1 percent of the
sample whereas rejection had 0.2 percent and overprotec-
tion reported 0.02 percent of the participants. The lowest
score on emotional warmth had 0.6 percent, rejection
described 7.4 percent and overprotection experienced 1.4
percent of the participants.
Factorial validity of the FEE
Furthermore, the factorial structure as well as the inde-
pendence of the three dimensions were tested. In Table 3
the factor loadings for the recalled parental rearing items
are depicted. The original factor structure could be satis-
factorily replicated (with the exception of item 13 – "Did
your parents use the expression: If you don't do this, then
I'll be sad"). The largest proportion of variance was expli-
cable by the factor "rejection and punishment" (19.5% for
the paternal items and 18.0% for the maternal items) was
followed by "emotional warmth" (17.6% and 17.10%,
respectively) and "control and overprotection" (11.5% for
both factors). The cumulative explained variance was
48.6% for recalled paternal rearing and 46.6% for recalled
maternal rearing behavior.
Intercorrelations of the FEE subscales
Table 4 shows that some of the scales are highly corre-
lated. The highest intercorrelations could be found
between the identical (regarding content) scales for
fathers and mothers (r = .70 to .77). Positive but moderate
correlations were also found when investigating one par-
ent or both parents concerning the scales "rejection and
punishment" as well as "control and overprotection". Fur-
thermore, the scale "emotional warmth" correlated nega-
tively with the scale "rejection and punishment" whereas
"emotional warmth" and "control and overprotection"
were unrelated.
Influence of socio-demographic factors
In addition, the influence of age and gender on recalled
parental rearing behavior was calculated. Age (three cate-
gories: 18–30, 31–60 and 61–92 yrs.) exerted a significant
influence on the perception of recalled paternal rejection
and punishment as well as on emotional warmth. Fur-
thermore, the age also influenced the father's recalled
rejection and punishment as well as the mother's emo-
tional warmth (see Tables 5 and 6). According to their
memories, the older the subjects, the stronger they experi-
enced their parents' rejection and the less their parents'
emotional warmth. In addition, they reported much
stricter and less emotionally warm parental rearing behav-
ior in reference to their father as well as a lack of emo-
tional warmth from their mother.
Table 1: Psychometric properties of the FEE scales
Scales M SD αrtt Skewness Excess
Rejection and punishment paternal
N = 2771
12.30 4.25 .89 .88 1.45 2.30
maternal
N = 2871
11.88 3.94 .87 .86 1.57 2.69
Emotional Warmth paternal
N = 2771
18.73 4.55 .86 .86 0.04 0.02
maternal
N = 2871
21.03 4.41 .86 .86 -0.20 -0.05
Control and overprotection paternal
N = 2771
14.59 3.87 .74 .73 0.62 0.32
maternal
N = 2871
15.04 3.82 .72 .70 0.50 0.11
M ... mean
SD ... standard deviation
α ... internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha)
rtt ... split-half-reliability (Spearman-Brown)
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The data also revealed significant main gender effects on
recalled parental rearing behavior, i.e. the male subjects
recalled more rejecting and stricter parental rearing behav-
ior than the female subjects. In addition, the parents'
emotional warmth was less remembered by the male sub-
jects than by the female subjects. To be specific, the female
subjects reported their fathers as emotionally warmer and
less punishing than did the male subjects (see Tables 5
and 6).
Furthermore, there was a significant interaction effect
between the gender of the evaluated parent (father/
mother) and the gender of the child concerning "rejection
and punishment" (Mmales = 12.81 (SD = 4.33) vs. Mfemales
= 11.91 (SD = 4.12); F = 30.32; df = 1/2769; p(F) < .01)
and "emotional warmth" (Mmales = 18.32 (SD = 4.34) vs.
Mfemales = 19.05 (SD = 4.71); F = 16.65; df = 1/2766; p(F)
< .01). Significant interactive effects between age and gen-
der could not be observed.
Correlations between the FEE and other scales
As a first step for evaluating the external validity of the FEE
its relationships to other scales were tested (see Tables 7
and 8 for p < .001). Concerning life satisfaction (FLZ), low
to satisfactory relationships were established to most of
the examined areas from .07 to .39: Subjects who had
recalled more rejecting, punitive and controlling parental
rearing behavior and a lack of emotional warmth reported
a lower level of life satisfaction than subjects with a more
positive rearing experience.
Low to satisfactory relationships to recalled parental rear-
ing, behavior, in particular on the scales "rejection and
punishment" and "control and overprotection", also
appeared for interpersonal problems (IIP factors) with a
range of .09 to .39: Subjects who recalled rejective and
strict rearing behavior spoke of difficulties in trusting
other people, supporting others and caring for others'
needs. Furthermore, they had problems cooperating, and
they attempted to dominate and control others. They also
described themselves as resentful and quarrelsome.
Table 2: Comparison of the paternal and maternal FEE scales
Scales t p(t) d
Rejection and punishment paternal
N = 2771
7.02 .001 0.107
maternal
N = 2871
Emotional Warmth paternal
N = 2771
-35.58 .001 0.513
maternal
N = 2871
Control and overprotection paternal
N = 2771
-9.63 .001 0.117
maternal
N = 2871
Notes: significance of mean differences between perceived paternal
p(t)... and maternal rearing (t-test for paired samples)
d ... effect sizes
Table 3: Factor structure of perceived parental rearing
according to FEE (principal component analysis with varimax
rotation and extraction of predefined three factors)
Paternal rearing
(N = 2.771)
Maternal rearing
(N = 2.871)
Factor loadings Factor loadings
Item-No. h2I II III h2I II III
Scale I: Rejection and punishment
1 .65 .76 -.14 .23 .61 .72 -.19 .23
3 .38 .58 -.08 .18 .36 .56 -.08 .18
6 .50 .68 -.11 .15 .50 .66 -.15 .20
8 .63 .74 -.18 .20 .61 .72 -.19 .21
16 .57 .72 -.13 .18 .57 .71 -.15 .19
18 .65 .79 -.11 .12 .62 .77 -.13 .12
20 .49 .68 -.16 .11 .48 .67 -.12 .09
22 .56 .69 -.16 .24 .51 .64 -.18 .26
Scale II: Emotional warmth
2 .54 -.20 .71 -.07 .55 -.15 .71 -.12
7 .47 -.08 .68 .06 .46 -.15 .66 .11
9 .42 -.22 .61 .07 .42 -.17 .62 .02
12 .57 -.10 .75 -.01 .57 -.05 .75 -.01
14 .51 -.03 .71 .05 .49 -.08 .70 .07
15 .56 -.03 .75 .03 .54 -.19 .70 .12
17 .54 -.20 .71 -.07 .55 -.14 .72 -.08
24 .48 .01 .69 .01 .47 -.08 .67 .12
Scale III: Control and overprotection
4 .45 .05 .04 .67 .37 .13 .03 .59
5 .41 .19 .08 .61 .41 .09 .05 .63
10 .41 .35 -.14 .52 .40 .36 -.16 .50
11 .47 .19 .06 .65 .41 .28 .05 .57
13 .31 .46 .22 .23 .26 .23 .15 .42
19 .43 .27 -.17 .57 .35 .23 -.12 .54
21 .34 .15 -.05 .56 .25 .25 .01 .43
23 .32 .15 .19 .51 .45 -.03 .16 .65
% variance 19.5 17.6 11.5 18.0 17.1 11.5
Notes:h2 = communality;
factor loadings > .40 are underlined
Eigen values of the unrotated solutions:
paternal rearing: Faktor I 6.44/Faktor II 3.77/Faktor III 1.46
maternal rearing: Faktor I 6.29/Faktor II 3.61/Faktor III 1.29
Factor I = Rejection and punishment
Factor II = Emotional warmth
Factor III = Control and overprotection
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Discussion
Based on the data presented in this paper the FEE repre-
sented a reliable and valid instrument for the assessment
of adults' memories of their parents' rearing behavior for
the German-speaking areas. Its relatively low number of
items allowed for an economical application in research
and clinical work. Both, the items and the three scales
showed satisfactory to good psychometric properties. The
reliability figures highly corresponded to the values
obtained for the original long version of the EMBU from
14 countries (N = 3.500) [21].
In the present data, the results from the principal compo-
nent analysis successfully replicated the previously
obtained factorial structure of the EMBU [21]. The cumu-
lative variance explained by the three factors is higher
than the corresponding figures for the EMBU [21] and
confirmed the factorial validity of the FEE. Also, the inter-
correlational pattern of the FEE factors was consistent
with previous results using the original long version of the
EMBU [21].
When comparing recalled paternal and maternal rearing
behavior, a number of significant differences were found,
whose relevance deserves a closer look due to the small
numerical mean differences. However, the findings moth-
ers compared to fathers tended to be emotionally warmer
and less rejecting on the one hand and more controlling
and overprotective on the other, were in agreement with
the results of the study by Gerlsma and Emmelkamp [22].
Whereas based on the EMBU only a few studies reported
age and gender effects, the presented data indicated some
influence of these factors on recalled parental rearing
behavior. Based on their memories, older subjects recalled
their parents as more rejecting and less emotionally warm
than did their younger counterparts. This age effect might
be explained by the historical changes in parenting atti-
tudes and behavior in child rearing practices. In addition,
the historical German background may also have to be
considered. Furthermore, based on their memories, the
female subjects reported having received more emotional
warmth from their fathers than the male subjects did,
whereby the latter recalled their fathers as stricter and
more rejecting.
In the literature a few studies have focused on the connec-
tion between life satisfaction and parental rearing behav-
ior [2,3,23,24]. In line with the literature, the presented
data have shown that recalled parental rearing behavior
was connected to life satisfaction and self-reported inter-
personal problems.
Table 4: Intercorrelations of the FEE scales
Scales 1234 56
1 Paternal rejection and punishment -.31* .54* .70* -.27* .43*
2 Paternal emotional warmth -.01 -.19* .71* .01
3 Paternal control and overprotection .45* .02 .77*
4 Maternal rejection and punishment -.36* .53*
5 Maternal emotional warmth .02
6 Maternal control and overprotection
Notes: Pearson correlations (two-tailed), *p < .001
2.768 ≤ N ≤ 2.871
Table 5: The influence age on the recalled parental rearing
Age groups
18–30 31–60 61–92 F df p(F)
M (SD)M (SD)M (SD)
Parental rejection and punishment 11.72 (3.71) 12.17 (3.75) 12.23 (3.83) 3.71 2/2765 .02
Parental emotional warmth 20.52 (4.25) 19.69 (4.14) 19.73 (3.97) 9.13 2/2765 .00
Father's rejection and punishment 11.83 (4.17) 12.41 (4.25) 12.48 (4.28) 4.75 2/2768 .01
Mother's rejection and punishment 11.66 (3.96) 11.91 (3.93) 11.97 (3.96) 1.16 2/2868 .32
Father's emotional warmth 19.33 (4.80) 18.58 (4.52) 18.55 (4.37) 6.57 2/2768 .00
Mother's emotional warmth 21.69 (4.41) 20.83 (4.48) 20.90 (4.23) 8.57 2/2868 .00
M ... mean
SD ... standard deviation
p(F)... significance of mean differences between the age groups (ANOVA)
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The retrospective assessment of recalled parental rearing
behavior represents a specific problem in assessing the
actual parental rearing experienced during childhood or
its subjective representation [25,26]. The subjective repre-
sentation may reflect the present mood, errors in autobio-
graphical memory (un-/conscious distortions), false
memories or idiosyncratic reconstructions of the subjects'
personal history. However, the existing literature did not
provide consistent and conclusive data on the mood-con-
gruent recall of relevant personal stimuli [25,27-30] as
well as on the validity of retrospective data on parental
rearing behavior [31]. Therefore, longitudinal studies
with independent raters should be considered for the
validity of parental rearing practices (see [32]). Unfortu-
nately, in clinical practice, the child rearing experienced
by patients can only be assessed retrospectively after the
onset of the disorder. Nevertheless, the then obtained
information can be of help in the therapeutic process.
Based on the data from a representative sample, general
conclusions cannot be drawn, since the large sample size
could easily lead to significant results, e.g. a correlation
coefficient of r = .07 (p < .001). In the context of validating
the instrument, this study did not focus on any connection
Table 6: The influence child's gender on the recalled parental rearing
Child's gender
female male d t df p(t)
M (SD)M (SD)
Parental rejection and punishment 11.85 (3.73) 12.39 (3.79) -.14 3.79 1/2766 .00
Parental emotional warmth 20.07 (4.28) 19.63 (3.93) -.11 -2.81 2703.97 .00
Father's rejection and punishment 11.91 (4.14) 12.81 (4.33) -.21 5.59 1/2769 .00
Mother's rejection and punishment 11.79 (3.97) 11.98 (3.92) -.05 1.27 2869 .21
Father's emotional warmth 19.05 (4.70) 18.32 (4.34) -.16 4.22 2702.71 .00
Mother's emotional warmth 21.08 (4.53) 20.96 (4.26) -.04 -.74 2869 .46
M ... mean
SD ... standard deviation
d ... effect sizes
p(t)... significance of mean differences between perceived paternal and maternal rearing (t-test for paired samples)
Table 7: Correlations between perceived paternal rearing and both life satisfaction (FLZ) and interpersonal problems (IIP)
FEE scales
Paternal rearing
Rejection and punishment Emotional warmth Control and over-protection
FLZ health -.21* .16* -.11*
FLZ job and profession -.11* .17* .01
FLZ finance -.13* .13* -.03
FLZ leisure -.09* .08* -.03
FLZ spouse/partner -.23* .16* -.12*
FLZ children -.34* .22* -.20*
FLZ self -.27* .21* -.15*
FLZ sexuality -.17* .14* -.08*
FLZ friends/relatives -.26* .24* -.12*
FLZ home -.19* .07* -.11*
FLZ general life satisfaction -.26* .21* -.13*
IIP-BC (overly vindictive) .37* -.18* .26*
IIP-DE (overly cold) .33* -.20* .22*
IIP-FG (overly soc. avoidant) .31* -.17* .22*
IIP-HI (overly non-assertive) .19* -.13* .12*
IIP-JK (overly exploitable) .19* -.09* .16*
IIP-LM (overly nurturant) .19* -.03 .19*
IIP-NO (overly intrusive) .32* -.06 .28*
IIP-PA (overly domineering) .39* -.12* .32*
Notes: Pearson correlations (two-tailed), *p < .001; 2.651 ≤ N ≤ 2.820
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Page 8 of 9
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to psychological symptoms. Therefore, additional studies
that include assessments of psychological symptoms as
well as a formal comparison of the German long and short
version of the EMBU as well as the original version would
still be essential. Furthermore, retest-reliability testing and
connections to other parental child rearing questionnaires
or external ratings would be helpful to further specify the
validity and reliability of this short version.
Conclusion
In summary, the afore-discussed data show that the FEE is
a reliable and valid instrument for the retrospective assess-
ment of subjective representations of parental rearing
behavior. Moreover, this information will be relevant not
only to the research concerning psychological disorders
but also to the field of non-clinical applications.
Competing interests
The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
Authors' contributions
KP did the final draft of the manuscript and critically
revised it for the intellectual content. HB and SS have
given final the approval of the version to be published. JS
substantially contributed to the analysis and the interpre-
tation of the data. He wrote the first draft of the manu-
script. AH substantially contributed to the analysis and
the interpretation of data. EB was responsible for the col-
lection of the data and the general supervision of the
research group. He substantially contributed to the con-
ception and the design of the study as well as the acquisi-
tion of the data. All authors read and approved the final
manuscript.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank all of the participants of the study as well
as the University of Leipzig, which made it possible for us to collect the pre-
sented data.
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