Adolescents are involved in the difficult task of identifying themselves and making important life decisions. (Smits, Soenens, Vansteenkiste, Luyckx, & Goossens, 2010). Parental support seems to help adolescents greatly in their identity formation process. Two theories that have been used in research to examine adolescent identity are adolescent psychosocial development and Bandura's social learning theory. The psychosocial development theorized by Erikson involves eight stages through which a healthy developing human being should move from childhood to late adulthood (Kail & Cavanaugh, 2010). Adolescents fall into the fifth phase, Identity vs. Role Confusion, in which they try to find an answer to the question “Who am I”. In an effort to discover the answer to this question, teenagers tend to gravitate towards groups where they feel they fit in. Social learning theory focuses on learning that occurs within a social context (Kail & Cavanaugh, 2010). Bandura's theory believes that people learn from each other, including concepts such as observational learning, imitation, and modeling (Kail & Cavanaugh, 2010). These two theories will be used as a framework for this study. Both emphasize the importance of environmental influences as a basis for understanding the relationship between parents and adolescents. In the early 1960s, psychologist Diana Baumrind conducted a study in which she suggested that most parents exhibit one of four types of parenting styles (Kail & Cavanaugh, 2010). The construct of parenting style is used to capture normal variations in parents' attempts to control and socialize their children (Darling, 1999). Two points are crucial to understanding this definition. First, parenting style is intended to describe… half of the paper… 2006). Patterns of competence and adjustment among adolescents from authoritative, authoritarian, indulgent, and neglectful families: A replication in a sample of serious juvenile delinquents. Journal of Adolescent Research, 16(1), 47-58. doi:10.1111/j.1532-7795.2006.00119.xVieno, A., Nation, M., Pastore, M., & Santinello, M. (2009). Parental and antisocial behavior: A model of the relationship between adolescent self-disclosure, parental closeness, parental control, and adolescent antisocial behavior. Developmental Psychology, 45(6), 1509-1519. doi:10.1037/a0016929Smits, I., Soenens, B., Vansteenkiste, M., Luyckx, K., & Goossens, L. (2010). Why do adolescents collect information or comply with parental norms? Examining autonomous and controlled motivations behind adolescents' identity style. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 39(11), 1343-1356. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.