Parenting and child development

Question 1

What parenting styles are there according to Baumrind (1967,
1983)?

Answer 1

■Authoritarian:parents with strict ideas about discipline and
behaviour unopen to discussion
■Authoritative:parents who have ideas about behaviour and discipline that they’re willing to explain and discuss with children even willing to adapt at times
■Permissive:parents who have relaxed ideas about behaviour and
discipline

Question 2

What 4 parenting styles exist in Maccoby and Martin’s (1983) dimensional approach?

Answer 2

1.Authoritative=responsive and demanding
2.Permissive=responsive and undemanding
3.Authoritarian=unresponsive and demanding
4.Uninvolved=unresponsive and undemanding

Question 3

What did Dekovic and Janssens (1992) the Netherlands find on the impact of parenting styles in western settings?

Answer 3

6-11 years old
Authoritative parenting=socially popular and prosocial
Authoritarian parenting=socially rejected

Question 4

What did Steinberg et al. (1992) USA find on the impact of parenting styles in western settings?

Answer 4

14-18 years old
Authoritative parenting + high parental involvement = Higher academic achievement
Authoritarian parenting + high parental involvement = Lower academic achievement

Question 5

What are parenting and culture typically like in western and individualistic settings?

Answer 5

-Authoritative parenting
-children are perceived as mental agents
-socialisation goals=autonomy independence

Question 6

What are parenting and culture typically like in non-western and collectivist settings?

Answer 6

-Authoritarian parenting
-children are perceived to operate on natural instinct
-socialisation goals=obedience relatedness

Question 7

What did Rudy & Grusec (2000) find about how parenting differs between cultures?

Answer 7

-Compared correlates of authoritarian and authoritative parenting in mums from collectivist and individualistic cultures
–Authoritarianism associated with mothers’ negative feelings and cognitions about child.(individualist but not found in collectivist cultures)
–Authoritarian parenting may not have the same meaning in non-western cultures

Question 8

What’s a limitation of Baumrind’s (1967) parenting styles?

Answer 8

Contains a wider range of parenting behaviours which whilst a strength, could also make it hard to determine which specific parenting behaviours are associated with poorer child outcomes

Question 9

What’s a limitation of Maccoby & Martin’s (1983) parenting styles?

Answer 9

–Did simplify Baumrind’s model to focus on two specific parenting dimensions (demandingness and responsivity) allowing us to examine more specific associations between each parenting dimension and child outcomes
–BUT is it a comprehensive model?

Question 10

What important parenting behaviours linked to children are seen in authoritative parenting?

Answer 10

1.responsiveness
2.warmth
3.autonomy granting
4.behavioural control

Question 11

What did Pinquart’s (2017) meta-analysis demonstrate on specificity of parenting style on externalising problems?

Answer 11

-conducted a meta-analysis including parenting styles and specific parenting practices.
■Psychological control and harsh control showed strongest
associations with externalising problems

Question 12

What was argued on specificity of outcome?

Answer 12

–Grusec et al., (2000) argues for a domain specific approach
–Focus on specific practices related to specific outcomes

Question 13

Specificity: How did Davidov & Grusec (2006) examine what aspects of parenting predict child empathy?

Answer 13

–106 6-8 year old children
■Hypothesised parental ‘responsiveness to distress’ (NOT parental warmth) would be relevant to the development of child empathy
This could be due to:
–modelling – children see parents modelling (showing) empathic
behaviour and adopt it themselves.
–having your own distress responded to promotes emotion regulation capabilities in the child, which in turn allows them to respond empathically to others.

Question 14

Specificity: What did Davidov & Grusec (2006) find?

Answer 14

–Responsiveness to distress and NOT warmth predicted child empathy
–Mediated by child’s negative affect regulation
-Parental responsiveness to distress–>child negative affect regulation–>child empathy.

Question 15

What distinction did Goldberg, 1999;McElwain & Booth-LaForce, 2006 make?

Answer 15

An important distinction between parental sensitivity to distress AND sensitivity to non-distress

Question 16

What is sensitivity to distress (e.g. cries, fusses and frets) linked to?

Answer 16

–Attachment security
–Reduced behavioural problems
–Empathy
–Social competence
–Affect (emotion) regulation
(Leerkes et al., 2009; McElwain & Booth-LaForce, 2006; Del Carmen et al., 1993).

Question 17

What is sensitivity to non-distress (responding to bids for play,
direct attention, communication) linked to?

Answer 17

Language and Cognitive development (Murray et al., 1996; Bornstein & Tamis-Lemonda,
1997)

May help explain small associations found between global sensitivity (which includes non-distress and distress) and child outcomes in many studies

Question 18

What is the socialisation goal of parenting?

Answer 18

for child to internalise societal norms and become a functioning member of society

Question 19

How does hostile or punitive parenting impact children?

Answer 19

–Produces affective overarousal in children
–Undermines emotion regulation development
–Undermines learning in specific contexts by compromising attentional capacities

Question 20

How does supportive and positive practices impact children?

Answer 20

–Much less likely to create over-arousal in the child
–Better able to respond to parental efforts/guidance
–Children more likely to internally process their parents’ messages, requests for desirable behavior (e.g., inhibiting undesirable behavior and paying attention), and controlling their emotion and behaviour
–More able and motivated to attend to and learn from parental interactions
–Parents more likely to model constructive, regulated ways to manage interpersonal interactions
–Parents may help their children to manage their distress and cope constructively (promote emotion regulation abilities)
–Parents more likely to evoke positive emotion in their children (Eisenberg et al. 2009)

Question 21

State the features of Belsky’s (1984) process model of influences on parental functioning

Answer 21

■Personal psychological resources of the parent:parental mental health, the quality of internal representations of relationships and their developmental history
■Contextual sources of support: the social network of support from partner, relatives and friends, and job conditions and financial circumstances
■Characteristics of the child: in particular, easy or difficult temperament

Question 22

Define child driven effects on parenting?

Answer 22

■Recognition of what child brings to parenting (child-driven or bi-directional effects) e.g., harsh parenting and child externalising problems
■Historically strong emphasis
placed on the role of the parent

Question 23

Explain Belsky’s (1997) Differential Susceptibility Theory

Answer 23

*Individuals are more affected both for better and for worse by their environmental exposures and developmental experiences
*Other individuals more ‘fixed’ and less affected by their environment (sometimes has no effect on them regardless whether good/bad)

Question 24

Belsky’s Differential Susceptibility Theory: Example of Infant temperament (Bradley & Corwyn, 2008)

Answer 24

*N=985 (looked at difficult temperament X maternal sensitivity interaction)
*Infants with “Easy” temperament showed similar school age externalising problems regardless of sensitivity
*Infants with “Difficult temperament” showed the lowest problems with high sensitivity and the highest externalising problems with low sensitivity

Question 25

What statistics did Radford et al., 2011 find on a big survey on physical punishment and child abuse?

Answer 25

–39.4% of parents of under-11-year-olds reported using physical punishment over the last year
–45.9% of young people themselves aged 11–17 years reported this over the last year
■Physical punishment illegal in 35 countries (Österman, Björkqvist & Wahlbeck, 2014) e.g., Sweden BUT still legal in the UK and USA.

Question 26

True or false: Multiple studies show associations between physical punishment and aggression and externalising problems in children (Gershoff, 2013)

Answer 26

True

Question 27

What factors should be considered in physical punishment?

Answer 27

–Direction of effects? – child-driven and bi-directional
■Moderation by parental warmth (Deater-Deckard et al., 2006):
–High physical punishment + low warmth = higher externalising problems
–High physical punishment + high warmth = lower externalising problems
■Dependant on severity and frequency so effects are worse with more severe and more frequent physical punishment

Question 28

What did Larzelere & Kuhn, 2005 find in a meta-analysis comparing 4 types of physical punishment to other disciplining strategies?

Answer 28

-Conditional associated with better child outcomes than other techniques
-Customary equal to other techniques
-Overly severe and Predominant use of physical punishment led to worse child outcomes

Question 29

What 4 types of physical punishment did Larzelere & Kuhn, 2005 compare in their meta-analysis?

Answer 29

1.Conditional-spanking under limited conditions
2.Customary-spanking (smacking) used as one of a range of disciplinary methods
3.Overly severe-use of excessive force, hitting with an object, slapping the face
4.Predominant-the primary disciplinary method

Question 30

What does The World Health Organisation define child maltreatment as?

Answer 30

“All forms of physical and/or emotional ill-treatment, sexual abuse, neglect or negligent treatment or commercial or other exploitation, resulting in actual or potential harm to the child’s health, survival, development or dignity in the context of a relationship of responsibility, trust or power.”

Question 31

What 4 types of abuse have the WHO classified?

Answer 31

1.neglect (key point is they’re able to do so but don’t)
2.physical abuse
3.emotional abuse
4.sexual abuse

Question 32

What outcomes from childhood abuse were found in Radford et al.’s 2011 UK survey?

Answer 32

1.decreased emotional wellbeing
2.increased suicidality
3.increased delinquent behaviour (could also involve substance abuse too)

Question 33

What’s the impact of parental conflict on children according to Evans, Davies & DiLillo’s 2008 meta-analysis on exposure to IPV (Inter-partner violence)?

Answer 33

Internalizing problems (emotional):
■Total sample d =.48 (moderate to large effect)
■Boys d =.44
■Girls d =.49
Externalising problems (behavioural):
■Total sample d =.46
■Boys d =.46
■Girls d =.23 (effect smaller for girls)
–Child trauma symptoms (effect size d = 1.54)

Question 34

How does IPV affect the parents?

Answer 34

this exposure to IPV directly effects the child (traumatising directly
viewing violence in the home) BUT

-it will also impact these problems in the marital relationship
-impacting on the parent’s ability to parent.

Question 35

Define the spill-over hypothesis

Answer 35

the stress of IPV carries over into the parent-child relationship and affects their ability to parent their child

Question 36

Spill-over hypothesis: Gustaffsson et al. (2012) followed 705 low-income mothers and children from age 2 months to 4.5 years and found what?

Answer 36

■Maternal sensitivity mediated the effect of IPV
■Low sensitive parenting fully explained the association between IPV and worse child effortful control (bad effortful control is linked to externalising problems and problems with your attention and academic achievements)

Question 37

Spill-over hypothesis: What did Manning et al. (2014) find following 201 high-risk mothers and their 2 years olds annually for 3 years?

Answer 37

■Maternal sensitivity moderated the detrimental effects of IPV
■IPV was associated with significant increases in externalising behavior at low levels of maternal sensitivity
■IPV predicted decreases in children’s prosocial behavior at low levels of sensitive parenting