Family: beyond attachment

Question 1

Dimensions of Parenting:
Attachment Theory (Bowlby 1968, 1973, 1980)

Answer 1

• expressed affection
• involvement
• conflict
• control
• monitoring
• teaching
• security

Question 2

Dimensions of Parenting:
Security

Answer 2

Attachment is about an extremely important but a SINGLE aspect of parenting.

The central theme of attachment theory is that primary caregivers who are available and responsive to an infant’s needs allow the child to develop a sense of security.

The infant knows that the caregiver is dependable (positive internal working model), which creates a secure base for the child to then explore the world.

Proponents of attachment theory often think that other dimensions of parenting can’t have such an impact if attachment security isn’t in place….debatable point.

BUT there is much more to parenting than attachment security.

Question 3

What are the four dimensions of parenting Diana Baumrind (1973) assessed?

Answer 3

• control
• nurturance
• clarity of communication
• maturity demands

Question 4

Diana Baumrind (1973)
1- where did she start from?
2- what did the samples consist of?
3- what did she find from her research?
4- From these 4 dimensions, who categorised parents?

Answer 4

1- Like the beginnings of many types of research she started from an ethological standpoint. Ethology is when you hang out with the participant group that you are interested in, in their natural environment. In this case, Baumrind spent a lot of time with human parents and their children; describing and observing what actually happens in their natural environments or ‘habitats’ – i.e. within the family settings.

2- The samples were 134 preschool aged children and their MOTHERS – interviews, extensive observations.
WEIRD sample – western, education, industrialised, rich and democratic societies. Middle class, almost exclusively white families in the San Francisco Bay area. Q: does this generalise?

3- Through her work she saw four important ways in which the parenting styles across these mothers differed: how controlling they were; how nurturing or warm; clarity of communication – both speaking and listening to their preschool child in an appropriate way that they could understand; maturity demands – expectations about independence / doing things for themselves in developmentally appropriate way

4- Baumrind then categorised parents.

Question 5

What parenting styles did Baumrind’s model assess?

Answer 5

• authoritative
• permissive
• authoritarian
• neglectful (added later)

Question 6

What does Baumrind’s model look like?

Answer 6

Authoritative parenting- high responsiveness and appropriately high demandingness (top left quadrant).

Permissive parenting- high responsiveness and low demandingness (top right quadrant).

Authoritarian parenting- low responsiveness and high demandingness (bottom left quadrant)

Initially measured three, but later following a review of the literature around parenting styles, Maccoby and Martin also added a fourth style: The bottom right quadrant is low responsiveness and low demandingness – this is Neglectful parenting. Most unusual and damaging parenting type.

Responsiveness can be thought of as warmth / positive dimension. So being high on it is more positive – responding to children’s bids for attention in a positive and warm way.

Demandingness – maturity demands. e.g. conveying demand that preschooler must wait before getting attention etc.

Question 7

Explain Authoritarian parenting style

Answer 7

High on control & demandingness (assertion of parental power, and expect their orders to be obeyed without explanation), low on nurturance & responsiveness (rarely praise or show pleasure at child’s achievements)

Children display low levels of independence and social responsibility.

Question 8

Explain permissive parenting style

Answer 8

High on love & affection, but exercise limited control, and place few demands on children

These children tend to be aimless, immature, lack impulse control and self-reliance, as well as lacking in social responsibility and independence.

Question 9

Explain Authoritative parenting style

Answer 9

High levels of warmth and achievement demands. Firm, but non-punitive control, and open communication between parents and children.

These children are most competent: self-reliant, socially responsible, keen to achieve, cooperative

Question 10

Explain Rejecting-neglecting parenting style

Answer 10

Disengaged style. Parents are neither responsive nor are they demanding. They may be actively rejecting, or simply neglect their child-care responsibilities.

Most harmful to children, resulting in low levels of cognitive and social competence.

Question 11

Parenting Style -> Adolescent School Performance (Dornbusch et al., 1987)

Method

Answer 11

Data collected from 7,836 adolescents in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1985.

Questionnaires of:

• Authoritarian parenting
  E.g., in their family communication, the parents tell the youth not to argue with adults; parents are correct and should not be questioned
• Permissive parenting
  E.g., hard work in school is not important to parents; there are no rules concerning watching television
• Authoritative parenting
  E.g., they emphasize that everyone should help with decisions in the family; parents tell the youth to look at both sides of issues

Teenagers were invited to assess how their parents behaved towards them. Qs adapted to be appropriate to teenagers. E.g., ‘should everyone help with decisions in the family’ ‘do parents tell the youth not to argue with adults’

Only 50% of families could be “purely” classified – top 1/3 of only one index.

Question 12

Parenting Style -> Adolescent School Performance (Dornbusch et al., 1987)
Findings
Average grades for males and females with different types of parents

Answer 12

In all cases, the adolescents who rated their parents as purely authoritative parents had the highest GPAs (2.96 – boys; 3.08 for girls).

Then for authoritarian – GPA overall 2.65 – so lower, but it gives you a feel for the fact that the differences are not really that big. (link to small differences being significant when samples are big).

The lowest grades were seen when all indices were high, and when parents were rated as both authoritarian and permissive.

Authors interpret this as evidence that Baumrind’s categories of parenting is still relevant for adolescents and authoritative parenting does predict the best child outcomes.

Question 13

What do standardised beta values give an indications of?

Answer 13

Effect sizes (so we can compare their relative importance in terms of predicting the outcome)

Question 14

Parenting Style -> Adolescent School Performance (Dornbusch et al., 1987)
Findings- Effect Sizes

Answer 14

Useful to look at parenting in relation to other factors such as race, gender, family structure. You can see the negative association with authoritarian and permissive parenting, is stronger than the positive association with authoritative parenting (similar advantage to being a girl). Weak to moderate predictor.

Question 15

In Western samples, authoritative parenting styles have been linked to…

Answer 15

• adaptive behaviours and fewer behaviour problems
• higher subjective wellbeing
• higher self-esteem and life satisfaction
• lower depression
• lower substance and alcohol (mis)use in adolescence

Question 16

Cross-cultural differences?
- what samples

Answer 16

• predominance of WEIRD samples
  (White, Educated, Industrialised, Rich and Democratic)

Question 17

Cross-cultural differences?
- across cultures- what did Sorkhabi (2005) find?

Answer 17

Baumrind’s categories are applicable across cultures but parents in non-Western cultures may endorse different styles of parenting (Sorkhabi, 2005).

Sorkhabi (2005) reviewed a large number of studies and found that all three parenting styles in Baumrind’s original typology were found in both collective and individualistic cultures.

But differing socialisation goals may mean that different parenting styles are favoured or associated with different outcomes. Socialization involves the acceptance of values, standards, and customs of society, as well as the ability to function in an adaptive way in the larger social context.

Question 18

Cross-cultural differences?
- Indian studies- Sahithya et al’s (2019)

Answer 18

Recent cross-cultural review found similar results for West compared to Indian studies BUT also cultural shift occurring in Indian families from authoritarian to more authoritative parenting practices (Sahithya et al, 2019)

Sahithya et al’s (2019) review found that despite hypothesized cultural differences between the West and India, the effect of parenting styles on children appear to be similar across culture, and culture did not serve as a moderator for parenting style and child outcome. An authoritative parenting style was associated with better outcomes than authoritarian and neglectful/uninvolved parenting style in both Western countries and in India. Findings on indulgent/permissive parenting style were mixed in both Western countries and in India.

BUT limited studies available from India – only 30 cross-sectional studies.

Question 19

Cross-cultural differences?
- What might be overlooked?
- who was found to be more authoritarian?

Answer 19

Sociocultural differences within countries may be overlooked.

Chinese American parents in US more likely to be more authoritarian, and this was related to neighbourhood disadvantage.

Question 20

Cross-cultural differences?
Lee (2014)
Study and what they found

Answer 20

Lee et al (2014) used a socioeconomically diverse sample of Chinese American children (n -= 258, aged 6-9 years) immigrant families. Found that neighborhood Asian concentration was positively associated with authoritarian parenting, which in turn was associated with Chinese American children’s higher externalizing and internalizing problems (by parents’ reports). In addition, neighborhood economic disadvantage was positively related to children’s externalizing problems (by parents’ reports), which in turn predicted lower authoritative parenting.

This study suggests there are complex association between neighbourhood, family, and child adjustment, and that neighbourhood factors affect parenting style.

Question 21

Cross-cultural differences?
Lin et al. (2022)

Answer 21

• Lin et al. (2022) used open-ended questions to explore ‘What is it to be an ideal parent?’ with over 8,000 mothers and over 3,500 fathers from 37 countries and attempted to determine parenting culture zones based on shared ideal-parent beliefs.
• Parenting ideals of being “loving and patient”, “caring”, “listening” or “being present” in English and French-speaking countries
• “Being responsible”, “proper-demeanour-focused” and “family-focused” in the Majority World (Africa and Asia)
• BUT a lot of variation within countries too based on parental educational level

Question 22

Decolonising parenting research
Raval (2023)

Answer 22

Coloniality in parenting (and other psychology!) research is reflected in:
- dominant groups being the focus of the research and the researchers;
- the types of research questions being asked
- the types of research methods being used
- beliefs, behaviours and practices of the dominant groups being considered the norm and desirable – “studying down” or “epistemological violence”

Question 23

What did Raval (2023) argue

Answer 23

Need to focus on efforts to generate and elevate local knowledge and indigenous practices; not-overgeneralise; question dominant approaches to generating knowledge; allow participants to decide what to study /what research questions are relevant; to understand parenting from a cultural resource rather than a deficit framework.

Not enough just to carry out research with people living in the Global South or the Majority World

Question 24

Current perspectives

Answer 24

1. Research shifting towards studying parenting in terms of dimensions rather than global styles; more specificity
2. Domain-specific models – parenting as multifaceted and situationally determined

Domain specific - parents are seen as flexibly deploying different practices or strategies in various situations. Different childrearing goals and needs that are activated in different situations: protection (security, protection against harm), control (acquiring societal expectations, avoiding threats to autonomy occurring through parental over control), guided learning (mastery of specific skills), group participation

3. Greater emphasis on the role of child-driven processes
   e.g.
   legitimacy beliefs- The extent to which they view parental authority as legitimate or not influences responses to parenting and subsequent adjustment. ACTIVE CHILD.
   adolescent disclosure- more focus on what types of parenting facilitate adolescent disclosure and how parental responses to disclosures affect adjustment (cyclical effects).
4. Greater consideration of how the effects of parenting on children’s development are mediated or moderated by different beliefs and the different meanings behaviours have in different cultural contexts.

Question 25

Parent to Child effects

Answer 25

Parents are more powerful than children and have the responsibility.

Question 26

Child to Parent effects

Answer 26

• appropriate, responsive parenting
  – Adaptation to different developmental stages
• children’s growing agency (agency – links to the theme of the active child, increases with age. Some children demand more or less attention)
• how children’s individual temperaments and behaviour may elicit different parenting responses and strategies

Question 27

Are there characteristics of different children that elicit different types of parenting?

Answer 27

yes. And a lot of these differences are appropriate and responsive, e.g. parents adapt to their children’s needs / temperament (link to PoC)

Many of these adjustments represent positive, sensitive parenting. Still counts as child having an effect on parent behaviour.

Question 28

What did Bonamy Oliver find?

Answer 28

Bonamy Oliver published a paper which measured child conduct problems and negative parenting behaviours across time with the same children and parents. When you have longitudinal data, and you have parenting behaviour and child behaviour over time you can then fit what is called a cross-lagged model and look to see how much is the child behaviour predicting parenting later on, versus how much is the parenting predicting child behaviour later on. In this case, conduct problems.

Question 29

Bidirectionality (e.g., Oliver, 2015)
FIndings

Answer 29

Longitudinal research.

This cross-lagged model shows associations between conduct problems and negative parenting. Both are measured when children were aged 4-, 7- and 9-years old.

Age 4 parenting predicted conduct problems at age 7, AND age 4 conduct problems predicted negative parenting at age 7. Smaller effect, but still statistically significant. This is a clear demonstration of bi-directionality.

From age 7 to 9, there was significant prediction from parenting to conduct problems, but not vice-versa.

Question 30

Family Systems Theory:
Mother-child relationship

Answer 30

One part of families, but it has received the lion’s share of research attention, particularly when thinking about infancy e.g. attachment theory

In Family System lingo, this circle depicts one family sub-system.

Question 31

Family Systems Theory:
3 overlapping circles. They overlap in a triangle shape, like a mini pyramid. Each circle depicts a distinct family sub-system. What are these?

Answer 31

One of the circles is again labelled “mother-child relationship”. Another overlapping circle is labelled ”father-child relationship.” They are overlapping because (of course) they are inter-dependent. The child is part of both of the relationships, and they develop alongside one another. The third circle is above the other two, and labelled “marital relationship”. Again, this overlaps with the other two relationships. The marriage influences parent-child relationships, often referred to a “spillover”. Parent-child relationships also influence marital dynamics.

Question 32

Systems Theory (Minuchin, 1985)
4 elements?

Answer 32

1. Wholeness
2. Integrity of subsystems
3. Circularity of influence
4. Stability and change

Question 33

Systems Theory (Minuchin, 1985)
Explain the elements

Answer 33

Wholeness: a system is an organised whole that is greater than the sum of its parts
- i.e. if you knew everything about each member of the family, it still wouldn’t tell you everything you need to know. More to a family than the individual actors.

Integrity of subsystems: Systems are composed of subsystems that may be studied in their own right

Circularity of influence: all components are mutually interdependent, change in one has implications for all

Stability and change: systems are open to outside influences that may change it

Question 34

Marital Functioning -> Child adjustment (Stroud, Meyers, Wilson & Durbin, 2015)

What did the study test?

Answer 34

Study testing ‘spillover’ effects from marital relationship to family interactions and child adjustment.

Whether the marital relationship is associated with dyadic and triadic interactions and also responsiveness of mother / father to child and child to each parent.

Question 35

Marital Functioning -> Child adjustment (Stroud, Meyers, Wilson & Durbin, 2015)

How marital functioning, family interactions and child adjustment were recorded?

Answer 35

1. Marital functioning (relationship)– range of self and partner-report measures and coding of conflict discussions
2. Family interactions – videotaped observations of triadic (child with both parents) and dyadic (child with each parent separately) interactions

Dyadic interactions included: Etch-a-sketch tasks, collaborative magnet puzzle task – to make geometric design etc (four in total)

Triadic interactions (looking at the coparenting relationship): cooperation, play and compliance tasks to capture free play (board game), instructional contexts e.g. ball toss game and compliance (clean up toys).

Triadic interactions were coded for warmth and negative/affect hostility towards the co-parent

3. Child adjustment – internalizing and externalizing behaviour – parent-report questionnaire Child Behaviour Checklist (Achenbach & Resorla, 2000)

Question 36

Marital Functioning -> Child adjustment
Model

Answer 36

Externalising symptoms= conduct problems, hyperactivity
Internalising symptoms= anxiety, worry, depression

Lots of things predicting other things

These models are really testing lots of MEDIATIONS at once

Question 37

Marital Functioning -> Child adjustment
Key Findings

Answer 37

Children’s responsiveness to their mothers (but not fathers) was an important mechanism for spillover effects from marriage functioning to:
– internalizing (in boys)
– externalizing (in girls)

More adaptive marital functioning was related to greater levels of child responsiveness to their mothers which in turn was related to greater levels of boys internalising and lower levels of girls externalising behaviours

More adaptive marital functioning was related to greater triadic warmth which is turn was related to lower levels of internalizing and externalizing behaviour
– true for boys and girls

(triadic warmth is parents showing more warmth towards each other when engaging on tasks together with their child)

Question 38

Functioning vs structure

Answer 38

Dominant focus on two-parent heterosexual family structures

Key findings in family research apply to different family forms

Family functioning and relationship quality (e.g. warmth / communication) is more important for child adjustment than family structure

New family forms: single parent families; single parents by choice; families who have had same-sex parents; parents who have had children through different types of assisted reproduction

It is the attitudes of others rather than any issues within their family that can have impact i.e. constantly having to explain their family to others