Examination of Emerging Adults' Emotional Autonomy and Parental Monitoring Under Varying Living Arrangements

The current trends of increasing community college enrollments and large numbers of emerging adults living with their parents suggest the need to examine patterns of adjustment and competence, in particular, emotional autonomy during college years. However, there has been little research focus on the role of extended parental monitoring on emotional autonomy in the context surrounding emerging adults attending a community college. The current study expanded current theory and research on emotional autonomy and parental monitoring by examining how emotional autonomy develops in community college students in the context of living arrangements. The objective was to explore the levels of parental monitoring and emotional autonomy in community college students, investigate the relationship between these two constructs, and examine group differences between those living at home and not living at home with regard to these constructs. The measures used for this descriptive and comparative research design were the Parenting Monitoring Scale (PMS) and the Emotional Autonomy Scale (EAS). A sample of 302 emerging adults attending community college served as participants. Community college students living at home reported, on average, higher emotional autonomy and higher parental monitoring than those community college students not living at home. There was a statistically significant, moderately strong negative correlation between EAS and PMS in the overall sample. The results for the participants living at home were similar to the overall group and also statistically significant, while those not living at home reported a slightly stronger negative correlation. MANOVA results identified a significant difference in parental monitoring as expected, but this difference did not carry over to any significant difference between the two living arrangements with regard to emotional autonomy. The findings add to the theoretical framework surrounding Blos's theory. The reported means in this study did not indicate that students living at home were at a disadvantage in relation to emotional autonomy. The results within this study suggest further research to bear out the explanations for the findings is needed. These findings suggest that community college students, regardless of their living arrangement experience similar levels of emotional autonomy. This is even the case when parental monitoring is higher in those living at home. No additional behaviors were examined within this study and subsequent studies might include a variety of behaviors to examine how parental monitoring and emotional autonomy relate to these.