Influence of Parental Expectations on Self-Criticism and Emotional Well-Being among First Born College Students in Ernakulam District Kerala: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Parental expectations, self-criticism, and emotional well-being of emerging adults: A systematic review protocol, Parental expectations have a significant effect on emerging adults’ psychological adjustment, self-evaluative patterns, and emotional well-being. The proposed systematic review aims to integrate contemporary empirical research investigating the link between perceived parental expectations, self-criticism, and emotional well-being with specific contextual relevance to the first-born college students in Ernakulam District, Kerala, India. The review will follow the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA 2020) statement and will include 51 seminal studies retrieved from ScienceDirect, PsycINFO, PubMed, Web of Science, and Google Scholar. The extracted themes are related to (1) a range of parental expectations associated with maladaptive perfectionism and severe self-criticism; (2) a role of self-criticism and self-regulatory efficacy as key cognitive processes that mediate the links between parental pressure, psychological distress, depressive mood, and test anxiety; (3) protective family functioning, wherein parent autonomy support and warmth buffer negative associations; (4) birth order effects, reflecting the distinct ‘eldest child syndrome,’ characterized by heightened responsibility and parental pressures while accentuating inter-individual differences; and (5) sociocultural imperatives, in particular, the stress associated with high educational investment, filial piety, and competitive examinations in this population of emerging adults in Kerala and South Asia. The review highlights significant empirical gaps related to first-born cohorts in Southern India and outlines structured directions for context-sensitive psychological interventions, academic counseling, and family mental health policies.