Parenting Styles and the Big Five Personality Traits among Youth in Mukuru Settlement in Nairobi County, Kenya

Background: The youth in the current era make their own decisions and demand full freedom in life. They do not want their parents to interfere with the decisions that they make.
Objective: To establish the Big Five personality traits derived from prevalent parenting styles.
Methodology: The research methodology involved descriptive survey design. The target population was 308,632 residents in Mukuru Settlement, Nairobi County. Yaro Yamane sampling formulae, simple random sampling and purposive sampling methods were used. The sample size was 144, while the response rate was 75%. The data collection instrument was structured questionnaire involving, the Parental Authority Prototype (PAQ) inventory and Big Five Trait inventory (BFI)]. Descriptive and inferential data were processed using SPSS version 25. Exploratory Factor Analysis included correlation matrix, the KMO and Barlett’s tests.
Key Findings: The study reveals that, agreeableness (r=0.320), conscientiousness (r=0.423) and emotional stability (r=0.325) are moderately correlated to authoritative parenting. The study shows that the Big Five personality traits of agreeableness, conscientiousness and emotional stability are derived from authoritative parenting among youth aged 15-34 years living in Mukuru settlement, Nairobi County.
Conclusion: Emotionally stable youth are conscientious, agreeable and extraverted. When authoritative parenting style is prevalent, the youths’ parents exhibit warmth, support, control and supervision when nurturing their children. Consequently, the youth are nurtured to become helpful, forgiving, kind, trusting, cooperative and reliable citizens. They perform their jobs thoroughly, are efficient and do follow-ups. They become relaxed, persevere and calm.

Parenting, Big Five personality traits, Youth

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