Perceived Parental Psychopathology and Quality of Life in Emerging Adults: Indirect Effects through Psychopathy

Approximately one in four individuals experience mental health disorders during their lifetime; these disorders can impact the quality of life (QoL) of the individuals experiencing the disorder as well as the people around them. Certain factors such as psychopathy can play a role in the association between psychological problems and QoL. Additionally, research has connected parental psychopathology to the development of psychopathic characteristics in emerging adults, as well as psychopathic characteristics to QoL. The current study examined the indirect effect of perceived parental psychopathology on QoL via psychopathic characteristics. Participants consisted of 604 emerging adults recruited from an online participant pool in a psychological research program at a large southern United States university. Measures utilized in the study included the Adult Behavior Checklist (ABCL) to measure perceived parental psychopathology, the Antisocial Process Screening Device (APSD) and the Inventory of Callous-Unemotional Traits (ICU) to create a latent variable of psychopathic characteristics, and The World Health Organization Quality of Life – Brief (WHOQOL-BREF) to measure emerging adult QoL. Results indicated that perceived parental problems had an indirect effect on emerging adult QoL in all parent–child dyads except for the father-son dyad. Moderated mediation was present in each model. Results suggested that the cross-sectional relation between parental psychological problems and emerging adult QoL is almost fully explained by psychopathic characteristics in this sample. Future research should continue examining gender differences to find potential explanations for why father-son dyads did not demonstrate an indirect effect.