Abstract
The literatures on sex-role socialization and social comparison theory were used to predict how parents would evaluate the life success of adult sons and daughters and how parents' assessments of themselves would be influenced by comparisons with these children. Although parents (N=215) did not report different levels of life success for 291 adult sons versus 251 adult daughters, parental well-being was more closely tied to assessments of sons' success. In addition, although parents' reported that both sons and daughters had exceeded their own life success, theparent-child comparison with daughters was the better predictor of parents' well-being. Findings are discussed in terms of parents' individual development, family processes at midlife, and cohort differences between parents and their children.
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Schmutte, P.S., Ryff, C.D. Success, social comparison, and self-assessment: Parents' midlife evaluations of sons, daughters, and self. J Adult Dev 1, 109–126 (1994). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02259677
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02259677