The Role of Parental Reflective Functioning in the Relation between Parents’ Self-Critical Perfectionism and Psychologically Controlling Parenting Towards Adolescents

SYNOPSIS Objective. Parental self-critical perfectionism has been identified as an important source of parents’ psychologically controlling parenting. Nevertheless, it remains unclear how this well-established association can be explained. This study aims to advance insight in the association between parental self-critical perfectionism and psychological control by addressing the role of parental reflective functioning among parents of adolescents. Design. This cross-sectional study included 268 adolescents (Mage = 15.14 years, 50.7% female), mothers (Mage = 45.83 years), and fathers (Mage = 47.77 years). Parents completed questionnaires assessing self-critical perfectionism, parental reflective functioning, psychologically controlling parenting, and their child’s problem behaviors. In addition, adolescents rated their parents’ use of psychological control. Results. Self-critical perfectionism related both directly and indirectly, via parents’ pre-mentalization, to psychological control among mothers and fathers. Most associations remained significant when controlling for adolescent problem behaviors. Conclusions. This incapacity to reflect on the adolescent’s mental world, and the tendency to make maladaptive attributions about the adolescent’s internal states, make parents with high levels of self-critical perfectionism vulnerable to rely on psychologically controlling parenting.