From a developmental perspective, adjustment and maladjustment can vary depending on the phase of the life span (Mcadams et al., 1993; Liu et al., 2019; Buchinger et al., 2021). Later life is characterized by a loss of primary control capacity and decreasing opportunities associated with reductions in personal and social resources (Baltes, 1987), such as increases in health problems (e.g., cognitive decline) and fewer social roles (e.g., retirement). By contrast, adulthood is usually related to several developmental tasks that contribute to successful development from young adulthood (e.g., university studies) to midlife (e.g., progression of career), when middle-adults achieve high levels of achievement, mastery, and control over the self and the environment (Liu et al., 2019; Buchinger et al., 2021).

Consequently, there is an age-related decline in the self in old age (Orth et al., 2010, 2018). Overall, older adults have a poorer sense of their own worth (i.e., self-esteem) in comparison with middle-life (the peak levels) and young adulthood. Even in later life, scores on self-esteem might be similar to those of adolescence (Robins and Trzesniewski, 2005; Liu et al., 2019), and so older adults might be vulnerable to problems such as depressive symptoms and low self-rated health, less ego integrity, and more despair and death anxiety (Bergman and Bodner, 2020). Nevertheless, despite the pattern of greater losses than gains, adaptive changes appear in older life; specifically, emotion regulation seems to be relatively spared (Carstensen and Mikels, 2005). Based on a multidimensional approach to the self (i.e., self-concept), there might be an age-related decline in the emotional component of the self (self-concept), as has been described in self-esteem (Liu et al., 2019), but it can also be preserved due to relatively good emotion regulation in later life (Carstensen and Mikels, 2005). However, this point has not been exhaustively tested. Additionally, empathy (i.e., concern for the other) is an important component of adjustment throughout life, and it is positively related to prosocial behaviors and is a protective factor against deviance (Eisenberg and Strayer, 1987). Empathy seems to decrease with age, particularly related to understanding more complex emotions and mental states (Henry et al., 2013). However, there is limited evidence, and it is mostly based on comparisons of young and older adults (e.g., Bailey et al., 2008; Henry et al., 2013).

By contrast, aggression and prejudice are commonly identified as important components of maladjustment and poor functioning (Donnellan et al., 2005; Gracia et al., 2008). Aggressors are more likely to show antisocial behavior, conduct problems, lack of self-control and empathy, and an increased risk of internalizing problems, such as anxiety and depression (Donnellan et al., 2005). Overall, aggression is related to greater maladjustment in later life, but also in adulthood (Liu et al., 2013) and adolescence (Perez-Gramaje et al., 2020). Additionally, higher scores on prejudice are also related to more aggression and discrimination (Genthner and Taylor, 1973; Gonsalkorale et al., 2009), and it seems to be greater in later life (Hammond et al., 2018). Particularly, prejudice against women (e.g., hostile sexism) has been studied less in later life (Hammond et al., 2018), given that most of the studies have been limited to more classic forms such as racial prejudice (e.g., Gonsalkorale et al., 2009).

Although previous studies have examined some variations in their functioning in older adults, adjustment and maladjustment in later life, compared to adulthood and adolescence, are not clearly identified. They could reflect age-related declines in some domains (e.g., self-esteem, Liu et al., 2019), whereas others seem to be preserved (e.g., emotion regulation, Carstensen and Mikels, 2005). Determining age-related differences in different dimensions of adjustment and maladjustment is important for identifying moments of vulnerability or strength throughout the life cycle. For example, adolescents and older adults tend to report lower self-esteem than middle-aged adults, making them more likely to have certain problems and difficulties. Much of the research has been limited to comparing a few groups (e.g., young adults and older adults), or it has considered only a few similar variables (e.g., empathy, Bailey et al., 2008), but not broad and different dimensions of adjustment and maladjustment at the same time.

The pattern of adjustment and maladjustment during later life and adulthood could be especially related to early experiences (e.g., peers and family), as many developmental scholars have proposed (Freud, 1933; Baumrind, 1978; Maccoby, 1992; Darling and Steinberg, 1993). Early experiences in the family during parental socialization are crucial for children and adolescents when they are being raised by their parents, but they could also have a long-term impact beyond adolescence. Parents help the child to become an adult, but there is a time when parental socialization is over and the child reaches adulthood (Stafford et al., 2015, 2016). At any time in life, there are differences between individuals with higher well-being and less maladjustment and those with poor adjustment and greater problems. These differences are already described in childhood (Eisenberg et al., 1998; Ridao et al., 2021; Hung, 2022), but they become greater in adolescence, for example, between adolescents with high and low academic engagement (Veiga et al., 2021), empathy (Musitu-Ferrer et al., 2019), and self-concept (Veiga et al., 2015), perhaps partly because adolescents spend more time with their peers without adult supervision and are more susceptible to group standards. The same is true of differences in adjustment and maladjustment among adults (Scales et al., 2016; Orth et al., 2018). The family influences the development of children (Gomez-Ortiz and Sanchez-Sanchez, 2022; Sandoval-Obando et al., 2022), and, particularly, the so-called parental socialization can be consistently related to differences in child adjustment and maladjustment during childhood (Baumrind, 1967; Baumrind, 1971) and adolescence (Lamborn et al., 1991; Steinberg et al., 1992; Garcia and Gracia, 2009). Additionally, less is known about whether differences in adjustment and maladjustment during adulthood can be consistently related to parental socialization.

Many classic and current studies on parental socialization are based on the model with two independent dimensions (i.e., orthogonal) whose combination gives rise to four parenting styles (Maccoby and Martin, 1983; Darling and Steinberg, 1993; Martínez et al., 2017; Garcia et al., 2019). The warmth dimension (also called responsiveness, security, care, love, or acceptance/involvement) refers to the degree to which parents show acceptance, emotional closeness, and communication with their children (Lamborn et al., 1991; Martinez-Escudero et al., 2020; Martínez et al., 2021). The strictness dimension (also known as demandingness, severity, or supervision) refers to the degree of imposition and rigidity with which parents act to establish rules, imposing their authority (Darling and Steinberg, 1993; Martinez et al., 2019; Garcia et al., 2020a,b). Four parenting styles emerge from the combination of the two orthogonal dimensions: authoritative (high warmth and high strictness), indulgent (high warmth and low strictness), authoritarian (low warmth and high strictness), and neglectful (low warmth and low strictness).

Parents transmit social norms and values to make their children autonomous, mature, and independent individuals (Darling and Steinberg, 1993; Climent-Galarza et al., 2022). Parental socialization takes place in very different social, cultural, and ethnic contexts (Deater-Deckard et al., 1996; Chao, 2001; Dwairy et al., 2006; Fuentes et al., 2022). For example, poor neighborhoods tend to have fewer opportunities, higher unemployment, worse schools, and greater crime rates than middle-class neighborhoods (Steinberg et al., 2006; Sandoval-Obando et al., 2022). However, parental socialization can be consistently related to differences in adjustment, so it is possible to identify parenting styles that are positive for children’s well-being and parenting styles that are related to detrimental consequences (Lamborn et al., 1991; Fuentes et al., 2022). In parental socialization research, for each specific context, families can be characterized in terms of high or low levels of warmth and strictness. For example, authoritarian families are less warm and stricter than other families, but the characterization of each family based on warmth and strictness is sample specific, depending on the ethnicity, e.g., European-American (Baumrind, 1967) and African-American (Baumrind, 1972), or country, e.g., Sweden, United Kingdom, Portugal or Slovenia (Calafat et al., 2014). The key issue is that there may be variations in the optimal parenting style depending on the culture (Pinquart and Kauser, 2018), and the authoritative style (i.e., strictness combined with warmth) may not be universally beneficial in all cultural contexts (Palacios et al., 2022).

Authoritative parenting (i.e., warmth and strictness) has been related to optimal levels of psychosocial adjustment mostly in studies in the Anglo-Saxon context with European-American families (Baumrind, 1967; Baumrind, 1971; Maccoby and Martin, 1983; Darling and Steinberg, 1993; Steinberg et al., 1994; Steinberg, 2001). Benefits of authoritative parenting have been found for different criteria, such as self-esteem, mental health (Maccoby and Martin, 1983), psychosocial development, school performance, internalized distress, and behavioral problems (Lamborn et al., 1991; Steinberg et al., 1994). However, authoritative parenting is not always associated with the optimal adjustment of children and adolescents across all cultural contexts (Darling and Steinberg, 1993; Chao, 2001; Pinquart and Kauser, 2018; Garcia et al., 2019).

Some studies conducted in ethnic minorities in the United States, such as African-American (Baumrind, 1972) and Chinese-American (Chao, 2001), as well as in Arab societies (Dwairy and Achoui, 2006), report that the authoritarian parenting style (i.e., strictness without warmth) is related to some benefits in psychosocial adjustment, for example, greater assertiveness and independence in African Americans (Baumrind, 1972) and an absence of mental health problems in Arab adolescents (Dwairy and Achoui, 2006).

Furthermore, a body of recent research, mostly from studies conducted in Europe and Latin America, points to the benefits of indulgent parenting in raising children (Calafat et al., 2014; Garcia et al., 2019; Martinez et al., 2020). Indulgent parenting (i.e., warmth without strictness) is associated with equal or better psychosocial adjustment than authoritative parenting (i.e., warmth and strictness), whereas the authoritarian and neglectful parenting styles (i.e., without warmth) are associated with worse levels of adjustment (Villarejo et al., 2020; Gimenez-Serrano et al., 2021). Children from indulgent families present better adjustment than children from authoritative families on criteria such as self-esteem and environmental values (Queiroz et al., 2020), alcohol use and abuse, and motivations for drinking and non-drinking (Garcia et al., 2020b), as well as a wide spectrum of behavioral problems (Fuentes et al., 2015a).

Additionally, it is commonly conjectured that early experiences in the family (e.g., parental socialization) could be related to adjustment and maladjustment in adulthood and later life. However, little is known about the relationship between parental socialization and adult adjustment and maladjustment, given that the empirical evidence is mostly limited to examining parenting and its consequences in children and adolescents (Maccoby and Martin, 1983; Lamborn et al., 1991; Riquelme et al., 2018; Queiroz et al., 2020). A few studies have tested the long-term socialization impact of parenting beyond adolescence, but most of them have been limited to samples of young adults (Garcia et al., 2021), used different outcomes in the comparisons across adulthood (Stafford et al., 2016), included adult children but not adolescents at the same time (Stafford et al., 2015; Gimenez-Serrano et al., 2022) or compared adolescents with only one group of adults (Garcia O. F. et al., 2018), examined specific adult ages (e.g., 43 years) but not age groups (e.g., middle-aged adults; Stafford et al., 2016), or used isolated parenting practices instead of parenting styles (Ali et al., 2015).

The present study examined age-related differences in adjustment (self-esteem, emotional self-concept, and empathy) and maladjustment (aggression and hostile sexism) from adolescence to later life in a European country (i.e., Spain). Based on previous studies, older adults were expected to score negatively on self-esteem, empathy, and hostile sexism, but more positively on outcomes associated with good emotion regulation in old age (lower aggression and higher emotional self-concept). It is of interest to ask whether, despite the expected pattern of age-related differences, variations in adjustment and maladjustment among the four age groups (adolescence, young and middle adulthood, and later life) might also be consistently associated with early experiences in the family (authoritative, indulgent, authoritarian, and neglectful). Based on some recent studies, we hypothesized that indulgent parenting would be related to equal and even more positive scores than authoritative parenting in terms of greater adjustment (higher self-esteem, emotional self-concept, and empathy) and less maladjustment (lower aggression and hostile sexism), whereas the most negative scores would be associated with parenting characterized by lack of warmth (authoritarian and neglectful parenting styles).

The sample consisted of 2,158 Spanish participants, 1,258 females (58.30%) and 900 males (41.70%), who were adolescents and adult children (M = 35.74, SD = 20.26) from four age groups: adolescents (n = 624, 362 females, 58%), aged 12–18 years (M = 16.69, SD = 1.60); young adults (n = 630, 376 females, 59.7%), aged 19–35 years (M = 23.60, SD = 3.73); middle-aged adults (n = 504, 312 females, 61.9%), aged 36–59 years (M = 48.41, SD = 6.37); and older adults (n = 400, 208 females, 52%), aged 60 years or older (M = 68.61, SD = 7.47). Following the a priori power analysis (Faul et al., 2009), a minimum sample of 1,724 participants was required to detect with a statistical power of 0.95 (by fixing the conventional values of Type I and Type II statistical inference errors: α = 0.05; 1 − β = 0.95) and the low effect size generally identified in parenting styles, f = 0.10 (Cohen, 1977; Lamborn et al., 1991; Garcia et al., 2008; Faul et al., 2009). For instance, a small effect size (f = 0.17) was estimated from ANOVAs from a classic parenting study based on univariate F-tests of the four parenting styles and a large number of dependent variables (Lamborn et al., 1991). However, the effect size of parenting styles depends on the criterion measured (e.g., greater relationship with family self-concept than with general self-esteem). In this study, we expect the effect size to be small because the constructs used as criteria are especially broad. It is therefore important to ensure that the sample has sufficient power to detect these possible small sizes (see Lamborn et al., 1991, p. 1063). A sensitivity power analysis with the study sample (N = 2,158, α = β = 0.05) showed that main effects between the four parenting styles can detect statistically significant differences with a very small effect size (f = 0.089; Faul et al., 2009; Garcia and Gracia, 2009; Calafat et al., 2014; Fuentes et al., 2015b). G-power 3.1 was used to calculate the statistical power (Faul et al., 2009).

Adolescents were recruited from the complete list of high schools. The heads of all the high schools invited to participate were contacted. If a high school declined to be part of the study, an alternative school from the complete list was chosen until completing the sample size required (Garcia O. F. et al., 2018; Martínez et al., 2019). Parental consent was mandatory for adolescent participation. Young adults were recruited in undergraduate education courses (Manzeske and Stright, 2009; Garcia et al., 2021). Middle-aged adults were recruited from city council neighborhoods (Garcia et al., 2011). Older adults were recruited from the complete list of senior citizen centers. If a senior citizen center refused to be part of the study, an alternative center from the complete list was chosen until completing the sample size required (Garcia O. F. et al., 2018). Data were gathered by using an online survey with obligatory responses. To ensure data protection measures, identifiers and survey data were stored in separate archives, passwords to directories were protected, and sensitive files were encoded. The questionnaires were studied for doubtful response patterns, such as describing implausible inconsistencies between negatively and positively formulated responses (Tomás and Oliver, 2004; Garcia et al., 2011). Subjects who participated in the following study met the following requirements: (1) They were Spanish, as were their parents and grandparents; (2) Participation was voluntary; (3) Informed consent was required; and (4) Anonymity of responses was guaranteed.

The statistical analyses performed were multivariate analyses (MANOVA), univariate analyses (ANOVA), and Bonferroni hypothesis tests. First, a multivariate factorial design MANOVA (4 × 2 × 4) was applied, in which the dependent variables were the indicators of adjustment (i.e., self-esteem, emotional self-concept, and empathy) and maladjustment (i.e., aggression and hostile sexism), and the independent variables were the parenting styles (authoritative, indulgent, authoritarian, and neglectful), sex (male and female), and age groups (adolescents, aged 12–18 years; young adults, aged 19–35 years; middle-aged adults, aged 40–59 years; and older adults, aged 60 years or more). Second, univariate tests were used to analyze sources of variation that reached statistical significance in the multivariate analyses. Third, post-hoc Bonferroni tests were applied to those univariate sources of significance while maintaining the alpha per study at 5%. The IBM SPSS 28.0.1.1 statistical program was used for the MANOVAs, ANOVAs, and differences between pairs of means, with Bonferroni correction for rate of Type I error.

The participants were distributed by parenting styles (see Table 1). The indulgent parenting (M = 73.60, SD = 4.51) and authoritative parenting (M = 72.52, SD = 4.36) styles had higher scores on warmth, compared to the authoritarian parenting (M = 55.22, SD = 9.98) and neglectful parenting (M = 56.69, SD = 9.62) styles. Additionally, authoritative parenting (M = 39.78, SD = 5.10) and authoritarian parenting (M = 41.65, SD = 5.55) showed higher scores on strictness than indulgent parenting (M = 28.17, SD = 5.41) and neglectful parenting (M = 28.07, SD = 5.77).

The results of the multivariate analyses showed statistically significant differences in the main effects of parenting style, Λ = 0.879, F(15.0, 5858.3) = 18.64, p < 0.001, sex, Λ = 0.844, F(5.0, 2122.0) = 78.44, p < 0.001, and age, Λ = 0.895, F(15.0, 5858.3) = 14.84, p < 0.001, and in the interaction effects of parenting style by age, Λ = 0.969, F(45.0, 9495.3) = 1.47 (see Table 2).

Statistically significant age differences were found in all the adjustment and maladjustment criteria, p < 0.01 (see Table 3). Examining the age profiles in the adjustment indicators (see Figure 1), self-esteem showed an age-related increasing tendency from adolescence (low levels), reaching a peak in middle-adulthood and then subsiding in later life. Middle-aged adults reported higher self-esteem than older adults. Moreover, adolescents reported lower self-esteem than the three adult age groups. Emotional self-concept showed an age-related increasing tendency from low levels in adolescence to high levels in later life. Specifically, scores on emotional self-concept were higher in older and middle-aged adults than in young adults and adolescents. The age profile for empathy showed that scores were low in adolescence, rising to a peak in young adulthood, and then declining in middle life and later life. The lowest empathy corresponded to older adults and adolescents (who did not differ from each other), whereas young adults were the most empathic. Additionally, middle-aged adults had higher scores than older adults.

Examining the age profiles for the maladjustment indicators (see Figure 1), aggression showed a declining tendency from adolescence to later life. The lowest aggression levels corresponded to older adults, who scored lower than young adults and adolescents. By contrast, adolescents scored higher than young, middle-aged, and older adults. Hostile sexism showed an increasing tendency from young adulthood to later life. Older adults scored higher than middle-aged, young adults, and adolescents. Furthermore, young adults (who did not differ from adolescents) scored lower than middle-aged adults.

Additionally, when analyzing sex differences (see Table 4), on the adjustment indicators, males scored higher on self-esteem and emotional self-concept than females, but lower on empathy. On the maladjustment indicators, the lowest aggression corresponded to females, and on hostile sexism, males again scored higher than females.

The results of the univariate analyses showed statistically significant differences between the parenting styles on all the adjustment and maladjustment criteria, p < 0.05 (see Table 5). On the adjustment criteria, in adolescents and adult children, the only parenting style constantly related to the most positive scores was indulgent parenting. On self-esteem, children from authoritarian families scored lower than their peers from the other households. On emotional self-concept, children with indulgent parents obtained the highest scores, whereas authoritative, authoritarian, and neglectful parenting were related to a poor emotional self-concept. On empathy, children raised in authoritative and indulgent families scored higher than their counterparts from authoritarian and neglectful homes, whereas of the parenting styles related to poor empathy (i.e., authoritarian and neglectful), the lowest scores corresponded to neglectful parenting.

A similar pattern was found for the maladjustment criteria in adolescents and adult children. Indulgent parenting was the only parenting style constantly associated with the lowest scores. On aggression, children from indulgent homes obtained the lowest scores, and the highest scores corresponded to their peers from authoritarian and neglectful homes, whereas children from authoritative homes scored in a middle position between the most aggressive (i.e., from authoritarian and neglectful families) and the least aggressive (i.e., from indulgent homes). On hostile sexism, children with indulgent parents obtained the lowest scores, compared to children raised by authoritative, authoritarian, and neglectful families.

Statistically significant effects of parenting style and age were found for empathy, F(9, 2,126) = 3.569, p < 0.001, and aggression, F(9, 2,126) = 1.955, p = 0.041. Examining the family profiles for empathy by age (see Figure 2), a common pattern can be observed in adolescents and adult children: indulgent and authoritative parenting were related to high scores (in adolescence the greatest empathy corresponded to the indulgent style), whereas authoritarian and neglectful parenting were associated with low empathy (in middle and later life, the lowest scores corresponded to the neglectful style). Additionally, empathy declined with age, but not in all families. In families characterized by warmth, adult children tended to preserve their empathy: older adults scored similar to young adults from indulgent and authoritative families. By contrast, a decline in empathy was found in families without warmth: older adults reported lower scores than young adults from authoritarian and, remarkably, neglectful homes.

Examining the family profiles for aggression by age (see Figure 2), a decreasing tendency was found over time in children raised by authoritative, indulgent, and authoritarian parents. The neglectful parenting style did not present this decreasing pattern, given that it was related to high and constant levels of aggression from adolescence to later life. Additionally, authoritative and indulgent parenting were related to low aggression (the lowest scores corresponded to indulgent parenting in adolescence, adulthood, and later life). By contrast, children from authoritarian and neglectful families tended to report high aggression (the highest scores corresponded to authoritarian parenting in adolescence and to neglectful parenting in later life, whereas they were practically identical in young adulthood and middle life).

The present study offers new and crucial evidence, but some limitations should be considered. We cannot determine a relationship of causality between the variables because the methodology is not experimental and the design is cross-sectional rather than longitudinal. This study has not been designed to be representative of the Spanish population, although other representative Spanish data offer similar results (Alonso-Geta, 2012). The results of this study are from middle-class families, and so future studies should examine parental socialization in families from other environments. Nevertheless, the results of the present study are similar to those obtained in other studies with Spanish families from at-risk neighborhoods (Gracia et al., 2012; Fuentes et al., 2015a). It is important to bear in mind that parenting is measured based on the two main dimensions that make up the four parenting styles (i.e., authoritative, authoritarian, indulgent, and neglectful), providing a family categorization that is different from other parenting studies in which parental socialization is captured through a clustering method such as LPA (i.e., latent profile analysis; Power, 2013; Borden et al., 2014; Ayon et al., 2015; Huang et al., 2022). Additionally, adjustment and maladjustment have been measured with self-report measures, so future studies might also include more tangible measures. Despite the use of self-report measures to capture parenting and adjustment and maladjustment, children seem to offer more reliable and accurate data than other sources (e.g., parents; Gonzales et al., 1996; Barry et al., 2008). Moreover, the sample used in this study includes almost the entire life cycle, which makes it possible to examine differences in adjustment and maladjustment criteria throughout life, as well as the impact of early experiences (i.e., parenting style) in the short and long term.