Relationship between Parenting and Cognitive Schemas in a Group of Male Adult Offenders

This work analyzes the correlation of retrospective ratings on parental binding with cognitive patterns in the inmates for property crimes. The participant group comprehended 248 adults men, including 130 marked out as offenders (the target group), aged between 19 and 70, currently serving sentences in the Cavadonna prison in Siracusa, and 118 marked out as non-offenders (the control group), aged between 20 and 70, living in Siracusa (Sicily). The instruments used were the Parental Bonding Instrument (PBI), and the Young Schema Questionnaire-3 (YSQ). The preliminary analysis showed a high percentage of offenders who experienced an affectionate constraint parenting. Offenders scored significantly higher than the non-offenders on the level of paternal control and the YSQ subscales. The study underlines the influence of maternal care on most of the cognitive schemas, and the role of father's control on the tendency to social isolation and defectiveness in the offenders.

The author identified 18 early maladaptive schemas that have been organized into five themes known as domains:

1. disconnection and rejection domain: people with these schemas expect that their needs for stability, nurturance, security, and empathy in family relationships will not be met in a consistent or predictable way;
2. impaired autonomy and performance: this domain has to do with expectations about oneself and the environment that interfere with one's ability to separate and function independently and one's perceived ability to survive alone; typically the family of origin is enmeshed or overprotective;
3. impaired limits domain: characterized by deficiencies in internal limits, respect, and responsibility to others; typically the family of origin is characterized by permissiveness and indulgence;
4. other-directedness domain: relates to an excessive focus on meeting the needs of others, at the expense of one's own needs; Typically the family of origin gave only conditional acceptance, resulting in the children suppressing normal needs and emotions in order to gain attention and approval;
5. overvigilance and inhibition domain: characterized by an excessive focus on controlling, suppressing, or ignoring of one's emotions; typical of the family of origin are domination and suppression of feelings, or a bleak environment where performance standards and self-control take priority over pleasure and playfulness.

Full article at:   http://goo.gl/mUwUu2

By:  Monica Pellerone,* Giuseppe Craparo, and Ylenia Tornabuoni

Faculty of Human and Social Sciences, “Kore” University of Enna, Enna, Italy

Edited by: Omar Carlo Gioacchino Gelo, Universita del Salento/Sigmund Freud University, Italy

Reviewed by: Guenter Karl Schiepek, Paracelsus Medical University, Austria; Salvatore Gullo, Niccolò Cusano University, Italy

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