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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2021 Aug 1.
Published in final edited form as: Int J Psychol. 2019 Sep 30;55(4):590–600. doi: 10.1002/ijop.12621

Psychological Maladjustment Mediates the Link Between Remembrances of Parental Rejection in Childhood and Loneliness in Adulthood: A Cross-Cultural Comparative Study

Ronald P Rohner 1, Diane L Putnick 2, Alex D Molaver 1, Sumbleen Ali 1, M Mussaffa Butt 3, Dara M Ibrahim 4, Cecilia Aurino 5, Marjolijn J M Blom 6, Fatima H Darwesh 4, Stefania Auricchio 5, Araz H Radha 4, Maria C Miranda 5, Kari Adamsons 1, Vincenzo Paolo Senese 5
PMCID: PMC7103494  NIHMSID: NIHMS1565375  PMID: 31565809

Abstract

Drawing stimulus from interpersonal acceptance-rejection theory (IPARTheory), this multicultural study examined relations between men’s versus women’s remembrances of maternal and paternal acceptance-rejection in childhood and their current level of loneliness, as mediated by adults’ self-reported psychological maladjustment. Adults (N=899) from five nations (Iraq, Italy, the Netherlands, Pakistan, and the U.S.) responded to the Adult version of the Parental Acceptance-Rejection Questionnaire-short form for mothers and fathers, the Adult version of the Personality Assessment Questionnaire-short form, and the Interpersonal Acceptance-Rejection Loneliness Scale. Adults’ remembrances of maternal and paternal rejection in childhood significantly and independently predicted feelings of loneliness, but remembered paternal rejection was more strongly related to these feelings than were remembrances of maternal rejection. Psychological maladjustment fully mediated the effect of remembered maternal rejection, but only partially mediated the effect of remembered paternal rejection on loneliness. There were no significant differences in these results across the five countries, or genders. Overall, the results suggest that adults’ remembrances of parental rejection in childhood—along with the theoretically expected development of psychological maladjustment—are likely to be associated panculturally with the experience of loneliness in adulthood.

Keywords: Loneliness, interpersonal acceptance-rejection theory, psychological maladjustment, acceptance-rejection syndrome, gender

Research in interpersonal acceptance-rejection theory (IPARTheory) provides strong evidence for links between experiences of parental acceptance and rejection and the psychological adjustment of children and adults, regardless of differences in culture, gender, language, or ethnicity (Khaleque & Ali, 2017; Khaleque & Rohner, 2012; Rohner & Lansford, 2017). Specifically, rejected children—and adults who remember having been rejected as children by their parents—tend to develop a cluster of seven to ten indices of maladjustment (Rohner & Lansford, 2017). These include anxiety, insecurity, emotional dependence or defensive independence, emotional unresponsiveness, negative worldview, anger or problems with the management of anger, low self-esteem, low self-adequacy, emotional instability, and cognitive distortions. Taken together, this cluster of personality dispositions is sometimes referred to as the acceptance-rejection syndrome (Rohner, 2004).

IPARTheory is an evidence-based theory of socialization and lifespan development that attempts to predict and explain pancultural effects, causes, and other correlates of interpersonal acceptance and rejection, especially parental acceptance-rejection (Rohner, 2019). Parental acceptance-rejection is construed in IPARTheory as a continuum or dimension defined at one pole by perceived acceptance and at the other pole by perceived rejection. Six decades of research with several hundred thousand children and adults on every continent except Antarctica have shown that people everywhere—panculturally—tend to understand themselves to be cared about (i.e., accepted) or not cared about (i.e., rejected) by the people most important to them in the same four ways (Rohner, 2019; Rohner & Lansford, 2017). These include the perceptions of parental warmth/affection (or coldness/lack of affection), hostility/aggression, indifference/neglect, and undifferentiated rejection (i.e., individuals’ feelings that the parents do not really love, appreciate, or care-about them, without necessarily having objective indicators present that the parents are unaffectionate, aggressive, or neglecting of them).

Experiences of parental rejection in childhood are particularly important in establishing a form of psychological maladjustment that perpetuates the acceptance-rejection syndrome into adulthood. In turn, this form of maladjustment tends to influence the level of acceptance-rejection experienced in other relationships. With adult intimate partnerships, for example, the view of the self as unworthy of love and respect, and the emotional distrust of others that often characterize this form of maladjustment can influence the partner-selection process, and act as a self-fulfilling prophecy in intimate relationships (Downey, Freitas, Michaelis, & Khouri, 1998).

The present research on adults’ loneliness in five countries (Iraq, Italy, the Netherlands, Pakistan, and the United States) in relation to their self-reports of parental acceptance-rejection in childhood and their self-reports of psychological adjustment is part of an effort to investigate other potentially culturally-invariant correlates of parental acceptance-rejection for children and adults, beyond the indices of maladjustment described in the acceptance-rejection syndrome. These five countries represent a broad range of social, economic, and religious traditions, as well as significant variations in economic and social development, parenting styles, and family structures. Exploring these effects across such divergent and understudied countries provides a robust test of the central tenets of IPARTheory.

In recent decades, loneliness has been identified internationally as a significant public-health issue. In Japan, for instance, there is growing concern about kodoku-shi or “lonely death” among the elderly; a new Minister for Loneliness has been appointed in the U.K.; loneliness is recognized as being a serious public-health issue in several Western European countries such as the Netherlands and Denmark; and, loneliness among young adults as well as the elderly is gradually becoming recognized as a public health problem in the U.S. (American Psychological Association, 2017).

Loneliness in North America could be a greater threat to public health than obesity or heavy smoking (American Psychological Association, 2017). It is associated, for example, with premature mortality, the development and progression of coronary heart disease, and stroke, cancer, renal disease, and other morbidity issues. Loneliness has also been shown to influence our genes and immune system, and even recovery from breast cancer (Holt-Lunstad, Smith, Baker, Harris, & Stephenson, 2015).

According to Peplau and Perlman (1982) and Sullivan (1953), loneliness involves insecurity and unhappiness that is thought to be felt when affection in close personal relationships is not experienced. Loneliness thus motivates individuals to try to achieve felt-acceptance, or to thwart felt-rejection. As such, loneliness is expected to be an important correlate of children’s current perceptions of parental rejection and of adults’ remembrances of parental rejection in childhood—as well as of individuals’ self-reported psychological maladjustment described in the acceptance-rejection syndrome.

Conceptual and Operational Approaches to Loneliness

Much of the current research on loneliness can be traced to Weiss (1973), and to Peplau and colleagues (Peplau & Perlman, 1982; Peplau, Russell, & Heim, 1979). Current research is commonly examined in relation to issues of psychological adjustment implicated in the capacity to form and maintain close relationships. From this approach, loneliness has been shown to be related to the clarity of self-concept, feelings of not mattering to others, emotion regulation, emotional dependence, and aversion to intimacy—as well as to impaired self-esteem and self-adequacy, and other aspects of adults’ mental representations of self, others, and relationships known in IPARTheory to be panculturally associated with interpersonal rejection.

Other variables linking psychological maladjustment to loneliness have also been identified. These include hypersensitivity to rejection—and social withdrawal because of an endorsement of the view that intimate relationships are essentially adversarial (Check, Perlman, & Malamuth, 1985). Loneliness has also been shown to relate to self-reports of relationship quality with parents in childhood (Lobdell & Perlman, 1986; Shaver & Rubenstein, 1980), and to marital history or relationship status such as divorce, widowhood, or other conditions where individuals lack an intimate relationship (Dykstra & De Jong Gierveld, 2004; Russell, Cutrona, Rose, & Yurko, 1984).

Context of the Present Study

The purpose of the present study was to explore whether or not – or the extent to which – the relation between adults’ remembrances of parental rejection in childhood and the level of adults’ loneliness covary in the same way across each of five nations, perhaps as mediated by the level of adults’ psychological maladjustment. As already noted, loneliness has been found in the United States to be related to negative experiences with parents in childhood, and with psychological maladjustment. The extent to which these conclusions can be generalized cross-culturally, however, is unknown.

In this study, we tested the unique contribution of remembered maternal and paternal rejection in childhood to the experience of loneliness in adulthood. We also tested the unique contributions of adults’ self-reported psychological maladjustment as a mediator of this relationship. As already noted, ample evidence shows that remembered maternal and paternal rejection in childhood tends worldwide to be associated with psychological maladjustment, and that psychological maladjustment is likely to contribute to feelings of loneliness, at least in the U.S. Longitudinal research has shown, for example, that rejection sensitivity—which is an expression of psychological maladjustment largely produced by the experience of rejection—predicts loneliness one year later among adolescents (Zhou, Tian, & Huebner, 2018).

Given the broad cross-cultural applicability of IPARTheory, we expected these relations to be largely invariant across countries. Even though we had no theoretical rationale for specifically hypothesizing that age, gender, and partnership status might affect these relations, we did wonder if these variables might possibly moderate the effects of parental rejection on psychological maladjustment and loneliness. This seemed plausible because social affiliation behaviors of men and women (Wong & Csikszentmihalyi, 1991), partnered and unpartnered adults (Beutel et al., 2017), and younger and older adults (Carstensen, Isaacowitz, & Charles, 1999) tend to differ. For example, women, partnered adults, and older adults may be less affected by adverse parenting experiences because they tend to have more or better developed social networks that buffer stress.

Method

Participants

The total sample consisted of 899 adults (59% female) between 18 and 77 years of age (M=28.33, SD=13.21). Members of the sample resided in Iraq (n=170), Italy (n=301), the Netherlands (n=75), Pakistan (n=231), and the United States (n=122). No eligibility requirements were imposed on sample members beyond being literate adults. Information on partnership status was inadvertently overlooked in Pakistan, but 65.53% of the participants in the other countries were single or living with their parent(s), 29.83% were married or living with a partner, and 4.64% were separated, widowed, divorced, or had other past relationships. Demographics for each country are presented in Table 1.

Table 1.

Sample Demographics, by Country

Iraq Italy Netherlands Pakistan United States
N 170 301 75 231 122
Gender (% female) 58.2 51.8 72.6 51.5 82.4
Age in years M(SD), range 21.52 (1.77) 38.13 (14.36) 30.01 (14.27) 19.74 (1.41) 28.91 (14.32)
18–26 20–68 19–77 18–23 18–68
Education (%)
 Less than high school n/a 4.32 0.00 n/a 0.00
 High school n/a 26.91 2.67 n/a 14.75
 Trade/business school n/a 13.95 36.00 n/a 1.64
 Partial college n/a 10.63 9.33 73.16 40.98
 Bachelor’s degree n/a 27.57 30.67 26.84 17.21
 Professional degree n/a 16.61 18.67 n/a 25.41
 Other n/a 0.00 2.67 n/a 0.00
Marital Status (%)
 Single/live with parent(s) 86.47 53.49 46.67 n/a 66.39
 Married/live with partner 13.53 40.20 17.33 n/a 29.51
 Other (divorced, widowed, etc) 0.00 6.31 8.00 n/a 4.10
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Note. n/a=not asked

Procedures

Researchers in each of the five participating countries were urged to follow to the greatest extent possible a specific set of guidelines. These were: 1) include 150 or more adult participants in the sample, balanced as evenly as possible by gender; 2) administer five self-reports in the following order: Adult version of Parental Acceptance-Rejection Questionnaire-Short Form for mothers (Adult PARQ: Mother), Adult Parental Acceptance-Rejection Questionnaire-Short Form for fathers (Adult PARQ: Father), Adult version of the Personality Assessment Questionnaire-Short Form (Adult PAQ), Interpersonal Acceptance-Rejection Loneliness Scale (IPARLS), and the Personal Information Form (PIF). The PIF (Rohner, 2005a) was used to gather sociodemographic information such as age, gender, ethnicity, and partnership status. 3) Finally, researchers were instructed to follow the ethical guidelines for behavioral research used in their own countries (e.g., get IRB approval whenever such approval was required, and get informed consent from respondents). Samples were recruited through universities in Iraq, Pakistan, and the United States. In-person snowball procedures were used for the most part in Italy and the Netherlands. Online survey procedures, however, were also used in the Netherlands. All measures were translated and back-translated following standard guidelines described by Hambleton, Merenda, and Speilberger, (2005). The measures were also validated, and administered as needed in the dominant language of each country (Dutch, English, Kurdish, Italian, and Urdu). Preliminary analyses of these translations showed that all measures were psychometrically sound for use in the countries where they were employed. For example, coefficient alphas for the total-test scores on the IPARLS in the five countries spread from .86 through .96 with a median alpha of .92; on the PARQ mother total-test scores spread from .72 through .95, with a median alpha of .89; on the PARQ father total-test scores spread from .62 through .96 with a median alpha of .91; and, on the PAQ total-test scores spread from .85 through .94, with median alpha of .87. Respondents were not offered any special incentive for participation in the research. Very little data was missing on any measure in any country. Details regarding the treatment of the small amount of data that was missing, however, are reported in Supplementary Information.

Measures

Adult Parental Acceptance-Rejection Questionnaire (PARQ): Mother and Father.

The short forms of these self-report measures (Rohner, 2005b) consist of 24 items each. They are designed to measure individuals’ perceptions of maternal and paternal acceptance or rejection. The mother and father versions are identical except for reference to mothers’ behavior versus fathers’ behavior. In both, respondents are asked to reflect on their perceptions of their mothers’ or fathers’ behaviors toward them when the respondents were children growing up at home. Items on the PARQ are scored on a 4-point Likert scale, with 1 (almost never true), 2 (rarely true), 3 (sometimes true), and 4 (almost always true). Both measures consist of four summed scales: (a) a 6-item Hostility/Aggression scale (e.g., “My mother [father] nagged or scolded me when I was bad”), (b) a 4-item Undifferentiated Rejection scale (e.g., “My mother [father] did not really love me”), (c) a 6-item Indifference/Neglect scale (e.g., “My mother [father] paid no attention to me”), and (d) an 8-item Warmth/Affection scale (e.g., “My mother [father] said nice things about me). The latter scale was reverse-scored to indicate Coldness/Lack of Affection. Higher scores on the PARQ reveal individuals’ perceptions of increasing rejection. Extensive evidence in Khaleque and Rohner (2002), Rohner (2005b), and Rohner and Ali (2018a) shows the Adult PARQ to be a reliable and valid measure for use in the United States and internationally. The range of internal consistency estimates (alphas) across the five countries for individual scales on all measures used in the study are presented in Table 2.

Table 2.

Alphas and Descriptive Statistics of Measures, by Country

M (SD)
α Iraq Italy Netherlands Pakistan United States
Mother PARQ
 Hostility/Aggression .66–.84 11.39(4.36) 9.63(2.89) 7.65(2.85) 10.38(3.45) 8.80(3.38)
 Undifferentiated Rejection .54a−.76 7.57(2.91) 5.09(2.00) 5.29(2.20) 7.09(1.89) 5.57(1.92)
 Indifference/Neglect .67–.87 11.61(3.65) 9.25(3.18) 8.99(3.82) 9.09(3.04) 9.79(3.99)
 Coldness/Lack of Affection .81–.92 12.58(4.39) 13.56(4.81) 12.51(5.12) 13.36(4.45) 13.59(5.78)
Father PARQ
 Hostility/Aggression .74–.88 11.08(3.62) 9.12(3.27) 7.84(3.23) 10.24(3.77) 9.05(4.11)
 Undifferentiated Rejection .52b−.85 7.32(2.39) 5.11(1.87) 5.16(2.07) 7.03(2.19) 5.69(2.59)
 Indifference/Neglect .74–.87 11.98(3.28) 10.32(3.90) 10.31(4.10) 10.02(3.26) 11.30(4.36)
 Coldness/Lack of Affection .82–.92 13.33(4.47) 15.83(5.93) 14.89(5.96) 15.32(5.45) 15.23(6.30)
PAQ
 Hostility/Aggression .64–.77 14.05(3.64) 11.63(3.39) 10.37(3.17) 14.19(3.32) 11.00(3.43)
 Dependency .63–.72 17.74(3.02) 19.16(3.11) 15.15(3.21) 17.75(3.37) 13.70(3.21)
 Negative Self-Esteem .70–.87 11.18(3.08) 9.52(3.04) 10.91(4.11) 11.90(3.28) 12.05(3.81)
 Negative Self-Adequacy .71–.91 12.24(3.21) 10.55(3.56) 11.49(4.40) 11.09(3.08) 10.87(3.73)
 Emotional Unresponsiveness .37b−.83 12.71(2.48) 11.03(3.99) 12.88(3.70) 14.67(3.67) 13.12(3.90)
 Emotional Instability .49b−.83 15.88(2.93) 14.84(3.47) 13.17(3.21) 16.78(3.40) 15.03(4.08)
 Negative Worldview .74–.83 12.53(4.02) 11.25(3.32) 10.75(3.81) 12.00(3.75) 11.64(3.99)
IPARLS .86–.96 35.87(10.64) 27.57(9.79) 25.77(10.66) 40.83(11.28) 35.05(14.49)
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Note. PARQ=Parental Acceptance-Rejection Questionnaire; PAQ=Personality Assessment Questionnaire; IPARLS=Interpersonal Acceptance-Rejection Loneliness Scale

a

Internal consistency estimates were > .60 in all countries except Pakistan and the United States.

b

Internal consistency estimates were > .60 in all countries except Iraq.

Adult Personality Assessment Questionnaire (PAQ).

The Adult PAQ, short form (Rohner & Khaleque, 2005) is a self-report measure assessing psychological adjustment of the form described in the acceptance-rejection syndrome noted earlier. The measure consists of 42 items divided into seven 6-item summed scales: (a) hostility/aggression (e.g., “I think about fighting or being unkind”), (b) dependence (e.g., “I like my friends to feel sorry for me when I feel ill”), (c) negative self-esteem (e.g., “I like myself” - reversed), (d) negative self-adequacy (e.g., “I feel I can do the things I want as well as most people” - reversed), (e) emotional unresponsiveness (e.g., “I have difficulty showing people how I really feel”), (f) emotional instability (e.g., “I get upset when things go wrong”), and (g) negative worldview (e.g., “I see life as full of dangers”).

Items are scored on a 4-point Likert scale: 1 (almost never true), 2 (rarely true), 3 (sometimes true), and 4 (almost always true). Higher scores on all scales indicate less positive psychological adjustment. Extensive evidence reported in Khaleque and Rohner (2002), Rohner and Ali (2018- b), and Rohner and Khaleque (2005) shows the PAQ to be reliable and valid for research in the United States and cross-culturally.

Interpersonal Acceptance-Rejection Loneliness Scale (IPARLS).

The IPARLS (Rohner & Molaver, 2015) is a newly developed self-report measure used internationally for the first time in this study. Fifteen items measure feelings of sadness resulting from the absence of and longing for desired companionship, or as a result of separation from a wanted relationship (e.g., “I feel unhappy because I am left out”, “I wish I had more friends”). Items are scored on a 5-point Likert scale from (1) almost never true through (5) almost always true. A total score is computed as the sum of the 15 items; higher scores represent more loneliness. Coefficient alpha in the initial validation study of the measure (Molaver, 2016) yielded a value of .96. Additionally, an exploratory factor analysis of the 15-items yielded a single, strong “loneliness” factor that accounted for 64% of the item variance. As noted earlier, alphas in this multicultural study were also strong (> .85) in all countries (Table 2).

Results

Descriptive Statistics and Correlations

Table 2 displays sample descriptive statistics by country. On average, adults remember their parents to have been relatively low on rejection. Adults also tended to report fairly positive levels of psychological adjustment, and only low levels of loneliness—all of which tended to reflect fairly low-risk community samples. Intercorrelations in Table 3 show strong relations among the four PARQ mother scales, and the four PARQ father scales—suggesting that they could be modeled as single factors of mother and father rejection, respectively. Furthermore, correlations between matching mother and father scales were medium to large, suggesting that like-scales may share additional variance. All PAQ scales had medium to large intercorrelations except for the dependency scale, which had small and sometimes negative relations with other PAQ scales. Loneliness was significantly related to all mother and father PARQ scales as well as all PAQ scales. Additional preliminary analyses and the full analysis plan are presented in the Supplementary Information.

Table 3.

Correlations Among Constructs in the Full Sample

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
PARQ Mother
1. Hostility/Aggression 1
2. Undifferentiated Rejection .66*** 1
3. Indifference/Neglect .60*** .60*** 1
4. Coldness .51*** .45*** .62*** 1
PARQ Father
5. Hostility/Aggression .44*** .33*** .34*** .22*** 1
6. Undifferentiated Rejection .38*** .47*** .34*** .17*** .71*** 1
7. Indifference/Neglect .32*** .26*** .45*** .29*** .55*** .55*** 1
8. Coldness .18*** .10** .25*** .38*** .45*** .39*** .67*** 1
PAQ
9. Hostility/Aggression .34*** .34*** .25*** .15*** .35*** .34*** .25*** .19*** 1
10. Dependency .04 −.05 −.05 −.09* −.02 −.05 −.07* −.05 .13*** 1
11. Negative Self-Esteem .27*** .28*** .30*** .27*** .29*** .35*** .30*** .29*** .36*** −.16*** 1
12. Negative Adequacy .26*** .25*** .30*** .23*** .25*** .29*** .32*** .28*** .35*** −.03 .73*** 1
13. Emotional Unresponsiveness .21*** .26*** .19*** .23*** .28*** .27*** .21*** .26*** .35*** −.17*** .54*** .47*** 1
14. Emotional Instability .28*** .24*** .20*** .17*** .27*** .28*** .27*** .22*** .60*** .20*** .49*** .49*** .41*** 1
15. Negative Worldview .25*** .24*** .25*** .25*** .29*** .28*** .29*** .27*** .38*** −.01 .60*** .58*** .39*** .46*** 1
IPARLS
16. Total Loneliness .19*** .26*** .19*** .17*** .32*** .34*** .22*** .16*** .38*** .09** .44*** .37*** .43*** .48*** .39***
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Note. PARQ=Parental Acceptance-Rejection Questionnaire; PAQ=Personality Assessment Questionnaire; IPARLS=Interpersonal Acceptance-Rejection Loneliness Scale.

*

p<.05.

**

p<.01.

***

p<.001.

Measurement Models

Measurement models were tested for (1) the mother and father PARQs, and for (2) the PAQ. The mother-father PARQ model required adding 2 residual covariances for acceptable model fit. All PARQ scales loaded significantly on their latent factors (standardized loadings=.55 to .84, ps<.001), and the correlation between the mother and father latent factors was .51, p<.001. In the PAQ measurement model, the dependence scale did not load significantly on the factor (β=−.07, p=.128), so this scale was dropped. In addition, two residual covariances were added to the model to achieve acceptable model fit. All remaining PAQ scales loaded significantly on the latent factor (standardized loadings=.47 to .84, ps<.001). Additional details about the measurement models are presented in Supplementary Information.

Measurement models were tested across countries, genders, and partnership status. Both measurement models were fully invariant across gender, and the PARQ model was fully invariant across partnership status. Both models were partially invariant across country (requiring 2 or 3 released loadings), and the PAQ model was partially invariant (requiring 1 released loading) across partnership status. Additional details are presented in Supplementary Information.

Structural Models

The model of the mother and father PARQ latent variables directly predicting the IPARLS loneliness scale depicted in Figure 1A had adequate fit, χ2(19)=100.54, p<.001. CFI=.97. RMSEA=.07, 90%CI=.06 - .08. SRMR=.04. Adults’ remembrances of both mother and father rejection in childhood significantly and independently predicted their feelings of loneliness. But father rejection was more strongly related to feelings of loneliness than was mother rejection, Δχ2(1)=7.02, p=.008. The full mediation model depicted in Figure 1B also fit the data, χ2(77)=344.16, p<.001. CFI=.95. RMSEA=.06, 90%CI=.06 - .07. SRMR=.04. Remembrances of both mother and father rejection significantly and independently predicted psychological maladjustment, which in turn predicted feelings of loneliness. The indirect effect of mother rejection on feelings of loneliness through psychological maladjustment was significant, β=.152, p<.001, as was the indirect effect of father rejection, β=.202, p<.001. Father rejection also directly predicted feelings of loneliness, but mother rejection did not. This suggests that psychological maladjustment fully mediated the effect of mother rejection on loneliness, but only partially mediated the effect of father rejection.

Figure 1.

Figure 1.

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Direct effects (A) of mother and father rejection on feelings of loneliness, and indirect effects (B) through psychological functioning. All coefficients are significant at p<.001 unless otherwise noted. PARQ=Parental Acceptance-Rejection Questionnaire; PAQ=Personality Assessment Questionnaire; IPARLS=Interpersonal Acceptance-Rejection Loneliness Scale.

Moderation by Country, Gender, Partnership Status, and Age Group

The model in Figure 1B was tested for moderation across the five countries (Iraq, Italy, Netherlands, Pakistan, and the United States), gender (males, n=369; and females, n=525), partnership status (partnered, n=174; and unpartnered, n=470), and age group (18–25, n=608; 26–77, n=287). After carrying over the fully or partially constrained factors from the measurement models (see Supplementary Information), the structural paths in Figure 1B were invariant across countries, Δχ2(59)=107.21, p<.001, ΔCFI=.008, genders, Δχ2(16)=17.64, p=.344, ΔCFI=.000, partnership status, Δχ2(15)=15.19, p=.438, ΔCFI=−.001, and age groups, Δχ2(14)=45.39, p<.001, ΔCFI=.006. Furthermore, the indirect effects of remembered maternal and paternal rejection on loneliness through psychological maladjustment were significant in each group. Maternal rejection was fully mediated, but paternal rejection was only partially mediated in each group.

Discussion

Results of this study indicate that remembrances of rejection by one’s mother in childhood are associated with poor psychological adjustment in adulthood among both men and women. This in turn is associated among both men and women with feelings of loneliness in adulthood. Remembrances of rejection by one’s father in childhood are also associated with poor psychological adjustment among both men and women, but both remembered paternal rejection and poor psychological adjustment contribute to feelings of loneliness. These models were fit on male and female adults of varying ages from five countries, some of whom had romantic partners, and some of whom did not. The effects observed in this study were similar across countries, genders, partnership status, and age groups, suggesting robust and common relations regardless of these differences.

These findings are fully consistent with IPARTheory’s universalist perspective where prior research has shown that parental acceptance-rejection is panculturally related to psychological functioning (e.g., Khaleque & Rohner, 2012; Rohner, 2019; Rohner & Lansford, 2017). This study adds feelings of loneliness to the list of possibly culturally invariant consequences of remembered parental rejection in childhood. Although both remembered maternal and paternal rejection were directly associated with loneliness, adults’ psychological functioning fully mediated the effects of mothers’ rejection and partially mediated the effects of fathers’ rejection on loneliness. According to MacDonald (1992), parental acceptance is a universal, species-specific, adaptive form of caregiving that evolved to protect and nurture offspring. Despite varying levels of acceptance-rejection across countries (e.g., Putnick et al., 2012), the consequences of feeling rejected by parents on offspring psychological functioning appear to be pancultural (Khaleque & Ali, 2017; Khaleque & Rohner, 2012; Rohner & Lansford, 2017). This study suggests that parental rejection is also associated with feelings of loneliness, but that psychological functioning is probably the primary mechanism that produces this effect. If adults can learn to cope emotionally with perceived parental rejection—and preserve their positive psychological functioning—they may be less inclined to be lonely in adulthood.

Another important conclusion from this study is the fact that remembered paternal rejection has larger relations with loneliness among both men and women than does remembered maternal rejection. Even though mothers around the world are generally children’s primary caregivers (Bornstein & Putnick, 2016), and mothers have generally been the primary focus in parenting research, there is mounting evidence that fathers are often as influential as mothers—and sometimes more so—on their children’s development (e.g., Khaleque & Rohner, 2011; Li & Meier, 2017; Rohner & Veneziano, 2001). One possible reason for fathers’ larger influence is the fact that men are sometimes perceived to have greater interpersonal power and prestige within the family than do women. Power/prestige differentials have been shown multiculturally to moderate the effects of perceived parental acceptance-rejection on offspring’s psychological adjustment (Rohner, 2014).

The invariance of results across cultures reported in this study suggests that similar mechanisms are at work despite seemingly large differences among the countries in parental rejection, psychological functioning, and loneliness (see Table 2). The way parents make their children feel accepted varies across the countries studied. With respect to this issue, for example, it is useful to note that McNeely and Barber (2010) asked adolescents in 12 cultures to indicate what parents do to make them feel loved (accepted). Responses were classified into four themes: (1) emotional and companionate support, (2) instrumental support, (3) moral guidance/advice and showing respect or trust, and (4) allowing freedom. Emotional and companionate support was the most commonly mentioned theme across cultures. However, adolescents in some cultures mentioned instrumental support (e.g., providing necessities and desired items) more than emotional support. The other themes were also mentioned in varying degrees across cultures. The finding in the current study that maternal and paternal rejection contributed to psychological maladjustment and loneliness regardless of country suggests that differences in country norms (e.g., degree of rejection and methods of demonstrating it) do not interrupt parenting effects on adult functioning.

This study has several advantages that should be noted. The sample size is large, providing adequate power to detect small effects. Adults were sampled from various settings across different countries and across a wide age range, increasing the generalizability of the findings. Although well-validated measures were used, the internal consistency of some scales is low, which may have contributed to only partial invariance of some factors across groups. Another disadvantage is the fact that all data were self-reported at a single time point. The self-report nature of the questionnaires may have inflated relations because of shared source and method variance. In the future, different reporters and methods should be used to control for source/method bias. For example, parent reports of the other parent’s prior rejection in childhood, and clinician reports or intimate partner reports of respondents’ current psychological functioning could be used to minimize shared variance among measures. Future research might also evaluate the possible impact on these relations of specific sociocultural variables, such as collectivism versus individualism, and patriarchy versus egalitarianism. Finally, future research should confirm these relations in longitudinal studies. Such studies would not only allow us to prospectively confirm results of cross-sectional studies like this one, but they would also allow us—in a cross-lagged panel analysis—to test for likely bidirectional effects over time. Despite these limitations, this study suggests the possibility that adults’ remembrances of parental rejection in childhood—along with the expected development of psychological maladjustment—are associated panculturally with the experience of loneliness in adulthood.

Loneliness has implications not only for emotional well-being, but also physical well-being (Holt-Lunstad, Smith, Baker, Harris, & Stephenson, 2015; Valtorta, Kanaan, Gilbody, Ronzi, & Hanratty, 2016). Understanding the origins of loneliness in childhood could help practitioners find new ways to alleviate it. Rook (1984) proposed three ways to treat loneliness: (1) preventing loneliness altogether, (2) promoting social bonding, and (3) improving coping with loneliness. Our findings suggest that lonely adults may also need to address their feelings of rejection by their parents. Results from a pilot study of a cognitive-behavioral intervention on loneliness in older adults suggests that learning about loneliness, as well as about human needs to belong, relationships, and community support can alleviate feelings of loneliness and improve blood pressure and other biomedical problems (Theeke et al., 2016). Hawkley and Cacioppo (2010) found in their meta-analysis of loneliness interventions that interventions targeting social cognition (e.g., combatting automatic negative thoughts in social interactions) were more beneficial than were interventions targeting social support, skills, and access. Dysfunctional social cognition often originates from feelings of parental rejection (Downey et al., 1998; Rohner & Lansford, 2017). Hence, lonely adults may need to address these feelings in order to minimize their psychological problems. Although loneliness tends to decrease slightly in late adolescence, some young adults maintain high levels of loneliness across this period and experience greater depression and anxiety, and lower self-esteem compared to their non-lonely peers (Vanhalst, Goossens, Luyckx, Scholte, & Engels, 2013). Our study suggests that interventions that focus on affective coping with parental rejection may have cascading effects on improving psychological functioning, and reducing feelings of loneliness.

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