Week 1 - Parenting Style

Question 1

What is Baumrind’s Typology?

Answer 1

Argues that key parental role is to socialise child into conforming to societal demands while maintaining a sense of personal integrity.

Question 2

What is Baumrind’s definition of parental control?

Answer 2

Parents’ attempts to integrate the child into society by demanding behavioral compliance.

Question 3

What differentiates Baumrind’s ideas from earlier researchers? (4)

Answer 3

1) Operationalized parenting style in terms of parenting control
2) Distinguishes between TYPE of parental control – permissive, authoritarian,, authoritative (not just high vs low)
3) Configurational approach – influence of any aspect of parenting depends on configuration of all other aspects
4) Bidirectionality – viewed socialisation process as dynamic

Question 4

What is the key limitation of Baumrind’s typology?

Answer 4

High intercorrelation between different parenting characteristics make it difficult to discern the mechanism that underlies differences in children’s developmental outcomes. Any parenting typology captures a configuration of parenting practices, not just 1 practice, so we don’t know what exactly contributes to the developmental outcome.

Question 5

How did Maccoby & Martin build on Baumrind’s ideas?

Answer 5

Tried to merge Baumrind’s configurational approach (authoritative, authoritarian, permissive, neglecting) with earlier attempts to define parenting along some dimensions (responsiveness, demandingness).

Question 6

How did M&M defined demandingness and responsiveness?

Answer 6

Demandingness – number and type of demands made by parents

Responsiveness – contingency of parental reinforcement

Question 7

What are 3 similarities between Baumrind and M&M’s ideas?

Answer 7

1) both propose bidirectionality
2) similar guiding theoretical perspective – social learning/ecological perspective
3) both discuss an element of control (Baumrind talks vaguely about parental control, while MnM talks about demandingness)

Question 8

What are 3 differences between baumrind and M&M’s ideas?

Answer 8

1) their ideas of authoritaitve and authoritarian parents are not exactly the same
2) baumrind accounts for difference in quality of demandingness, M&M doesn’t
3) M&M tries to improve the configurational approach by defining configurations with orthhogonal dimensions (high vs low responsiveness/ demandingness). Attempt to tease apart the processes that underlie the influence of style.

Question 9

In what ways are Baumrind’s and M&M’s ideas of authoritative and authoritarian parents not exactly the same?

Answer 9

M&M – communication patterns discussed separately

Baumrind – communication patterns is crucial in distinguishing authoritarian vs authoritative parents.

Question 10

In what way does Baumrind accounts for difference in quality of demandingness between authoritative and authoritarian parents?

Answer 10

Both have high demandingness but quality of demandingness is different. Authoritative parents are high on behavioral control. Authoritarian parents are high on BOTH behavioral and psychological control.

Question 11

Define parenting practice.

Answer 11

Specific behaviors done to achieve socialization goals. The meaning of the parent’s behavior depends on the socialisation goal.

Question 12

Define parenting style. (2)

Answer 12

1) the context of parenting practice

2) the constellation of attitudes towards the child and emotional climate in which parents’ behaviors are expressed

Question 13

Parenting style can be expressed via two types of behaviors. What are the two types?

Answer 13

1) Goal-Directed
- specific practices allow children to infer the emotional attitudes of parents
2) Non-Goal Directed
- aspects of interaction that communicate emotional attitude (eg. tone of voice, body language, outburst of temper etc.)

Question 14

What is the difference between parenting style and parenting practice?

Answer 14

parenting style – domain general (wide range of situations)
parenting practice – domain specific

Question 15

Explain the relationship:

parental goals and values –> parenting style

Answer 15

indirect pathway in affecting adolescent outcomes

Question 16

Explain the relationship:

parental goals and values –> parenting practices

Answer 16

direct pathway in affecting adolescent outcomes

Question 17

Explain the relationship:

parenting practices –> adolescent outcomes

Answer 17

parenting practices have direct effect on development of specific child behaviors (eg. studying hard) and characteristics (eg. high self-esteem).

Question 18

Explain the moderation relationship:

parenting style as a moderator in the link between parenting practices –> adolescent outcomes

Answer 18

parenting style moderates the relationship by changing the effectiveness of their parenting practice. Transform nature of parent-child interaction (more reciprocal)
2)

Question 19

Give an example of how parenting style can change an adolescent’s willingness to be socialized.

Answer 19

authoritativeness –> enhance child’s openness to socialisation by increasing child’s desire to make parents proud in a domain known to be important to them.

Question 20

Give an example to illustrate this relationship.
parenting practices –> adolescent outcomes
moderator - adolescent’s willingness to be socialised

Answer 20

eg. authoritarian parenting –> increase child’s resistance to parental advice –> reduce/reverse the effects of involvement on school outcomes

Question 21

What are the 2 strengths of Darling & Steinberg’s model of parenting?

Answer 21

1) show us a comprehensive relationship between the variables, especially between parenting style and parenting practices
2) takes into account socialisation goals and values

Question 22

What are the 5 limitations of Darling & Steinberg’s model of parenting?

Answer 22

1) limited in considering bidirectionality.
2) not adequate to just say parental goals and values –> parenting style. there are other important factors affecting parenting style
3) doesn’t provide a clear way to measure parenting style. no operational definition
4) still a lot of confounding involved. configurational model.
5) need to account for relative importance each parent places on each socialisation goal

Question 23

In what ways did Darling & Steinberg’s model not consider bidirectionality?

Answer 23

although it talks about adolescent’s willingness to be socialized, all arrows still point from parent to child. the child also has an effect on the parent. like the child’s temperament can change parents’ parenting style

Question 24

Why do we need to consider the relative importance of different socialisation goals?

Answer 24

Not as straightforward as just having 1 most important goal.
Most parents want their children to be successful in all socialisation domains (eg. academics, peer cooperation etc.) but the relative importance they place on each matters.

Question 25

What is an advantage of using a configurational approach to study parenting?

Answer 25

allow us to categorise and cluster parents into 4 different groups. quite parsimonious.

Question 26

What is a disadvantage of studying parenting using a configurational approach?

Answer 26

we don’t know the underlying process as to HOW parenting style asserts its influence on developmental outcomes. like which aspect of parenting style specifically matters for child’s development.