Maternal parenting and the development of adolescent self-esteem: A longitudinal twin study

Adolescence is a critical period for self-esteem development, yet the extent to which perceived maternal parenting practices are prospectively associated with self-esteem after accounting for overlapping genetic and shared environmental influences remains unclear. Using longitudinal TwinLife data from 1524 German twins (323 monozygotic and 439 same-sex dizygotic twin pairs), this study examined perceived maternal warmth and psychological control from ages 13 to 15. Classical twin models decomposed genetic and environmental variance and covariance, and ACE-beta models estimated prospective associations with self-esteem at age 15. Univariate ACE models indicated developmental shifts in the genetic and shared environmental contributions to perceived parenting, whereas self-esteem showed a relatively stable pattern and substantial nonshared environmental variance. Bivariate ACE models showed a positive shared environmental correlation between warmth and self-esteem (rC = .78) and a negative genetic correlation between psychological control and self-esteem (rA = -.68). Within the ACE-beta parameterization, warmth at age 13 was prospectively associated with higher self-esteem at age 15 (β₂₁ = .28), whereas psychological control was associated with lower self-esteem (β₂₁ = -.17), after adjustment for prior self-esteem and covariates. These prospective associations are consistent with, but do not uniquely establish, directional effects of parenting on later self-esteem. The findings support maternal warmth and autonomy-respecting practices as plausible targets for promoting adolescent self-worth.