Few controlled studies exist that examine specific hypotheses about abusive families, especially with regard to direct behavioral observation. Despite two decades of research on child abuse, surprisingly little is known about the specific behavioral excesses and deficits in the parenting skills of abusive parents. In this study, 11 physically abusive mother-child pairs were compared with 12 nonabusive matched controls in a laboratory playroom situation. Parenting skills, as well as interaction patterns, were assessed using three different tasks designed to create varying levels of parental stress and child frustration. One task, known as the Child's Game, consisted of the mother playing with her child in a free play situation where the child was given the instructions to select the toy or game. On the second task, the Parent's Game, mothers were told to select the activity and motivate their children to play along with them. The last task, the Bean Game, required mothers to induce their children to put beans into a decorated jar for a relatively long period of time. Mother-child interactions were observed and coded, providing frequency (rate per minute) and proportion (percentage of each behavior relative to total behavior) data on the occurrence of twelve behaviors hypothesized from the literature to be potentially relevant to parenting ability. Questionnaire measures of knowledge of child behavior, and social desirability were also administered. Discriminant function analyses of the data revealed that 10 of 11 abusive mothers and 10 of 12 control mothers could correctly identified, representing an 87% classification rate. The predominant difference between the two groups was in overall rate of activity. Abusive mothers were seen to engage in significantly less behavior than control mothers; behavior rates were essentially similar for both groups of children. One individual behaviors, questions and approval statements were the only two categories that significantly differed, with abusive mothers less likely to engage in either one. However, when frequency of behavior was corrected for overall rate effects, no differences on individual behaviors were found. Abusive mothers were also observed to use less contingent praise while abused children were found to comply to commands less often. Speculation as to which behavioral patterns mediate abusive episodes, as well as suggestions as to how to better design diagnostic, treatment and prevention programs are offered.

This study utilizes Wave One of the National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH) to investigate a possible relationship between parenting style and parental occupation. This study asks the question: How do parenting styles differ as a function of parental occupational status? This issue was examined by utilizing chi square and analysis of variance tests. Parental attitudes and behaviors toward raising their children were investigated and then compared with the parental occupation. Statistical analysis indicates that the three parenting styles examined (authoritative, permissive, and authoritarian) did correlate with the occupational environment, white collar, pink collar, or blue collar, in which the adults work on a day-to-day basis. The hypothesis that employment ideologies overlap into household matters determining how parents behave towards their children, in terms of rewards and discipline, is supported by the findings presented here. The statistical results once again substantiate the existing literature in revealing that parenting styles do vary as a function of parental occupational status. / Department of Sociology

The relationship between parenting style and political socialization was examined in 258 college students with an average age of 19.6. Political socialization approaches along with Erik Erikson’s Eight Stages of Man comprised the theoretical framework in this study. Regression analysis was used to determine the relationships between maternal and paternal parenting style, political party affiliation, attitude to authority, political conservatism (racial/social conservatism, religious fundamentalism, and punitiveness), and political identity. Results indicated that high levels of maternal acceptance were related to a conservative political party affiliation, high scoring on overall political conservatism, and high levels of religious fundamentalism. High levels of maternal psychological control were linked to a conservative political party affiliation, pro-attitudes to authority, high levels of overall political conservatism, and higher punitiveness. High levels of paternal firm control were related to political identity achievement. / Master of Science

Because children eat better when their parents use appropriate feeding practices, this study examined WIC participation and parental knowledge about child feeding practices. A Child Feeding Questionnaire was developed to evaluate parental knowledge about these feeding practices. The questions evaluated parents' knowledge about their responsibilities and the responsibilities of their children in feeding situations, the role of parental modeling when eating, appropriate snack habits, management of dislikes/picky eating, and the use of coercive feeding practices. The directors of four WIC clinics, with clients of differing sociodemographic status, agreed to participate in the study. The questionnaire was tested with and revised following work with clients in two of the four WIC clinics. The questionnaire was then administered to 403 parents during WIC certification visits. Cronbach Alpha reliability measures indicated that the reliability of the instrument was low. Therefore, no real conclusions could be drawn from the results. However, the data analyses did suggest some possible findings that would need additional study to verify their existance. ANOVA measures indicated that increased length of WIC participation was not associated with an increase in the total number of correct responses. Parental responds suggested that the majority of respondents understood the responsibility of parents for deciding what foods to offer (88.3), and when to offer food (71.7 %), the importance of healthy snacks in the diet of children (79.4 %), the need to set a good parental example with eating (92.6 %), and the importance of exposing children to foods that the children dislike (80.1%). However, one-third of the parents did not agree or know that children should be resonsible for deciding how much to eat when foods are being offered. In addition, the majority of parents (68.7 %) indicated that it was acceptable to substitute a food for one that is disliked by children. With respect to the use of coercive feeding strategies to get children to eat, parental responses reflected that many parents (46.7 %) did not feel that the use of rewards to get children to eat was not advisable. Based on the researcher's professional knowledge that WIC staff generally provide only nutrition information related to immediate problems, it was recommended that WIC staff members who provide nutrition education might serve the participants better if the education that they provided was directed at broader nutrition issues that parents face in guiding their children to eat well. Perhaps this education will indirectly alleviate immediate nutritional needs of the individual child and prevent the occurance of other nutrition problems. This would require additional study for verification. / Department of Home Economics

This study examined the levels of collective and personal self-esteem as well as the relationships between parental communications and self-esteem in college students in Japan (N= 260) and the U.S. (N= 286). The results showed that the U.S. students reported significantly higher collective self-esteem and higher personal self-esteem than did the Japanese students. Parental communications related to self-esteem differently among Japanese and the U.S. students. Japanese students who had more open communications with their mothers had higher collective and personal self-esteem, whereas those who had more open communications with their fathers had higher personal self-esteem. In contrast, for the U.S. students, more open communications with either their mothers or fathers was associated with both higher personal and collective self-esteem. / Department of Psychological Science

The present study examines the relationship between acculturation, parental control, and psychological adjustment among adult first and second-generation Asian Indian women who have immigrated, or whose parents have immigrated to the United States, from the Indian state of Kerala. Data from 73 participants indicate second-generation immigrants report poorer psychological adjustment than do their counterparts. Additionally, regression analyses reveal discomfort towards Kerala culture significantly predicts depressive symptoms, while high maternal control predicts self-esteem. Qualitative data were collected to provide richer understanding of immigrants' adaptation to the U.S. Implications of this research may impact mental health practitioners' ability to improve quality of life with Asian Indian women from Kerala.

Following the decision by the Supreme Court of the United States in Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association (2011), which struck down the state of California’s appeal to restrict the sale of games deemed to have “deviant violence” to those 18 or older and the court’s recommendation that parents use the ESRB Ratings System instead, this ethnographic study sought to better understand what parents thought of laws on video games and how they used the recommended ratings system. A total of 30 interviews using semi-structured open-ended questions were conducted and analyzed to reveal what parents thought of laws on video games, how they used the ESRB Ratings System to assess video game content, and what other methods they used for video game content assessment in addition to the ratings system. This research utilized Dervin and Nilan’s (1986) sense-making methodology as a way to learn how parents bridged their knowledge gap when it came to learning about video game content and how they made sense of the knowledge gained to determine the content appropriateness for their children. Analyses of the collected data provided the foundation for a model on the effects of the parent-child relationship on parental information behavior.

This study examined a mediational model of mental illness stigma, parent-child communication about mental health concerns, and help seeking attitudes/behaviors among young adults with at least one immigrant parent while considering the possible moderating effect of acculturation gap. The primary goal of this study was to examine whether the acculturation gap changed the relation between mental illness stigma and communication about personal mental health concerns with immigrant parents, which in turn could become a significant predictor of their help-seeking attitudes, as well as a barrier to seeking professional mental health services. Findings provided support to the direct and indirect effects of mental illness stigma through communication about mental health concerns on attitudes about help-seeking. The acculturation gap hypothesized to be a possible moderator for the stigma-communication about mental health concerns relationship among young adult ABCI was found to be significant for ABCI with a low mainstream culture acculturation gap. Discussion on the findings, limitations of the study, future research directions, and counseling implications are addressed.