Construct validation in adolescents of the brief current form of the Parental Bonding Instrument

We have reported elsewhere the development of a brief version of the Parental Bonding Instrument (PBI), which we have called the Parental Bonding Instrument-Brief Current form (PBI-BC), for use in survey research in adolescent samples. It was shown in that report that PBI-BC retained the factor structure of the original instrument. The structure remained stable in adolescents' ratings of their mothers and their fathers. Given the evidence of a relationship between the dimensions from the original scale and psychopathology, it was expected that the PBI-BC would be similarly related to measures of psychopathology, namely, that there would be a set of positive correlations between the perceived parental bonding styles of high control and low autonomy-giving and measures of pathology, with a negative relationship between pathology and perceived parental styles of high care and low rejection. In addition, the present study explored the relationships between perceived parental styles and bipolar positive and negative self-concept measures, with the expectations that high control and low autonomy would be associated with more negative self-concept and that high care and low rejection would be associated with more positive self-concept. The results generally confirmed these expectations, suggesting that the brief instrument has adequate construct validity and would be particularly useful as a brief index in studies of adolescents.