Several important limitations of the study can be noted. First,
our methodology relied upon self-report measures rather than
informant or observational ratings of parenting behaviors and
structured clinical interviews to assess adjustment and psychopathology.
Future multi-method studies can help to address potential
limitations involving self-report response sets or auto-correlation.
Second, findings are based on cross-sectional analyses and any
causal inferences drawn about the association between parental
child-rearing practises and adult socio-emotional adjustment is
purely theoretical in absence of longitudinal investigations. Finally,
the aim of this paper was to investigate the basic relationships between
parental child-rearing and adjustment in early adulthood.
As such, this study was unable to incorporate additional important
mediators and moderators of these relationships (e.g., variables
assessing genetic contributions to these relationships) or to focus
on a complimentary profile of strengths and achievement rather
than psychopathology.