Perceived Nurturant Fathering, Cognitive Emotion Regulation, and Interpersonal Problems in University Students: Indirect Associations Through Early Maladaptive Schema Domains

Father involvement has been linked to many child outcomes, but less is known about how the perceived affective quality of the father–child relationship relates to adult emotional and interpersonal functioning. This cross-sectional study examined whether perceived nurturant fathering was indirectly associated with cognitive emotion regulation strategies and interpersonal problems through early maladaptive schema domains. Participants were 317 university students in Türkiye who completed retrospective fathering ratings and self-report measures. Seventeen covariate-adjusted parallel models (N = 314) included five schema domains, and tests were corrected for multiple comparisons. Fathering showed weak zero-order correlations with six of nine emotion regulation strategies and two of eight interpersonal problem domains (|r| ≤ 0.19). After adjustment, small total associations remained for five strategies and none of the interpersonal domains. Fathering was inversely related to impaired autonomy, disconnection, and impaired limits, and for eight outcomes total indirect associations survived correction. Four specific associations through disconnection, all with interpersonal problems, survived correction (three negative, one positive, conditional), also with 19 excluded cases retained. Only then did associations through impaired autonomy, including four with emotion regulation, survive correction. These findings identify disconnection-related schemas as a candidate focus for longitudinal research on perceived nurturant fathering and interpersonal problems.