research paper on parenting styles

An official website of the United States government

The .gov means it's official. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you're on a federal government site.

The site is secure. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Publications
Account settings
Browse Titles

NCBI Bookshelf. A service of the National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health.

StatPearls [Internet]. Treasure Island (FL): StatPearls Publishing; 2024 Jan-.

StatPearls [Internet].

Types of parenting styles and effects on children.

Terrence Sanvictores ; Magda D. Mendez .

Affiliations

Last Update: September 18, 2022 .

Definition/Introduction

Parenting varies widely across families, with cultural backgrounds having a significant role in shaping family dynamics and child-rearing practices. Over the past several years, the demographic makeup of the United States has shifted, driven by immigration, socioeconomic changes, and the rise of single-parent households, all of which influence parenting styles. These changes bring diverse cultural, ethnic, and spiritual ideologies into play. According to 2014 US Census Bureau data, 1 quarter of children lived in single-parent households, while 3 quarters resided with 2 married parents, and these patterns varied across different racial and ethnic groups. Although children can thrive in all family structures, data indicate that, on average, children residing in single-parent households face more challenges than those in 2-parent families.

Culture is defined as a shared pattern of social norms, values, language, and behavior, which significantly influences parenting. As a result, parenting approaches to self-regulation—such as promoting attention, compliance, delayed gratification, executive function, and effortful control—vary across cultures.

Each parent has a unique approach to interacting with and guiding their children, thereby shaping their morals, principles, and behavior. Researchers have categorized parenting styles into various groups—typically 3, 4, or 5 psychological constructs. However, this discussion focuses on 4 main categories—authoritarian, authoritative, permissive, and uninvolved. Each category represents a distinct approach to raising children, although parents often blend characteristics from multiple categories. Parenting styles can also vary depending on the situation.

Issues of Concern

Authoritarian Parenting

Authoritarian parents typically engage in a 1-way mode of communication where they establish strict rules that the child is expected to follow without question or negotiation. These rules are rarely explained, and children are expected to meet high standards without making mistakes. Errors are often met with punishment. Authoritarian parents tend to be less nurturing, maintaining high expectations with limited flexibility.

Children raised by authoritarian parents often exhibit well-behaved behavior due to the consequences of misbehavior. Additionally, they tend to follow precise instructions more effectively to achieve their goals. However, this parenting style can also lead to higher levels of aggression, while children may also exhibit shyness, social ineptitude, and difficulty making their own decisions. [1] This uncontrolled aggression may stem from challenges in managing anger, as these children often lack proper guidance. Additionally, they may struggle with low self-esteem, which further hinders their decision-making abilities. [2] Strict parental rules and punishments can also drive children to rebel against authority figures as they grow older.

Authoritative Parenting

Authoritative parenting is characterized by a close, nurturing relationship between parents and children. Parents set clear expectations and guidelines and explain the reasoning behind their disciplinary actions. They use disciplinary methods as a supportive tool rather than as punishment. Children are encouraged to have input in setting goals and expectations, thereby fostering open, frequent, and appropriate communication between parent and child. This parenting style generally results in the healthiest outcomes for children but requires considerable patience and effort from both parties.

Authoritative parenting fosters confidence, responsibility, and self-regulation in children. [1] [3] These children manage negative emotions more effectively, leading to improved social outcomes and emotional well-being. By encouraging independence, authoritative parents help their children understand that they can achieve goals on their own, resulting in higher self-esteem. Additionally, these children tend to excel academically and perform well in school. [4]

Permissive Parenting

Permissive parents are typically warm and nurturing, often holding minimal expectations for their children. They impose few rules and maintain open communication, allowing their children to navigate situations independently. This lack of expectation usually leads to infrequent disciplinary actions, as permissive parents often take on a more friend-like role than that of traditional authority figures.

Limited rules can lead children to develop unhealthy eating habits, particularly regarding snacks, [5] increasing their risk of obesity and other health issues later in life. These children enjoy considerable freedom, making decisions about their bedtime, homework, and screen time on computers and televisions. [6] Such extensive freedom can foster negative habits, as parents often provide little guidance on moderation. Overall, while children of permissive parents typically possess good self-esteem and decent social skills, they may also be impulsive, demanding, selfish, and struggle with self-regulation. [7] [8]

Uninvolved Parenting

Uninvolved parenting grants children a high degree of freedom, as these parents typically take a hands-off approach. While they may fulfill their child's basic needs, they remain emotionally detached and disengaged from their child's life. Uninvolved parents do not adhere to a specific disciplinary style and maintain limited communication with their children, providing minimal nurturing and having few, if any, expectations.

Children of uninvolved parents often demonstrate resilience and may be more self-sufficient than those raised in other parenting styles. However, these skills are typically developed out of necessity. Additionally, they may struggle with emotional regulation, exhibit less effective coping strategies, face academic challenges, and have difficulty maintaining or nurturing social relationships. [9] [10]

Clinical Significance

A parent's upbringing style can significantly influence a child's behaviors and actions as they age. However, as children grow older, other factors—such as therapy, culture, employment, and social circles—can further shape or alter their conduct. Regarding health outcomes, it is crucial to identify areas of concern linked to a patient's parental upbringing, such as unmonitored snacking habits, and to address these issues accordingly. This approach becomes increasingly important in the context of behavioral and psychological interventions.

Developing cultural competence is a valuable asset for providers caring for pediatric patients. Understanding the family's background, rule-setting practices, and discipline styles enables clinicians to grasp the dynamics of the family unit. Once providers are familiar with parenting techniques, they can more easily identify, manage, or refer families as needed.

Nursing, Allied Health, and Interprofessional Team Interventions

Child interventions may necessitate an understanding of the parent's upbringing style, particularly if there are suspicions of physical or verbal abuse. Gaining insight into the child's home environment can lead to improved patient outcomes by allowing for more personalized approaches to the child's well-being.

Review Questions
Access free multiple choice questions on this topic.
Comment on this article.

Disclosure: Terrence Sanvictores declares no relevant financial relationships with ineligible companies.

Disclosure: Magda Mendez declares no relevant financial relationships with ineligible companies.

This book is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ ), which permits others to distribute the work, provided that the article is not altered or used commercially. You are not required to obtain permission to distribute this article, provided that you credit the author and journal.

Cite this Page Sanvictores T, Mendez MD. Types of Parenting Styles and Effects on Children. [Updated 2022 Sep 18]. In: StatPearls [Internet]. Treasure Island (FL): StatPearls Publishing; 2024 Jan-.

In this Page

Bulk download.

Bulk download StatPearls data from FTP

Related information

PMC PubMed Central citations
PubMed Links to PubMed

Recent Activity

Types of Parenting Styles and Effects on Children - StatPearls Types of Parenting Styles and Effects on Children - StatPearls

Your browsing activity is empty.

Activity recording is turned off.

Turn recording back on

Connect with NLM

National Library of Medicine 8600 Rockville Pike Bethesda, MD 20894

Web Policies FOIA HHS Vulnerability Disclosure

Help Accessibility Careers

ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Parenting styles and parent–adolescent relationships: the mediating roles of behavioral autonomy and parental authority.

$\r\nXinwen Bi$

1 Department of Psychology, Shandong Normal University, Jinan, China
2 Department of Business, Shandong Normal University, Jinan, China
3 Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA, United States

The parent–adolescent relationship has been a classic research topic, and researchers have found that parenting styles (e.g., authoritative, authoritarian) are closely related to various qualities of parent-adolescent relationships (e.g., cohesion, conflict). However, little empirical work has addressed how these variables correlate with each other in mainland China, nor has prior research addressed internal psychological mechanisms. The present study investigated the associations between parenting styles and parent–adolescent relationship factors, examined the mediating effects of adolescents’ expectations of behavioral autonomy and beliefs about parental authority, and explored whether adolescent gender moderated these effects. Results from a sample of 633 Chinese adolescents (7th grade: M age = 13.50 ± 0.62 years, 9th grade: M age = 15.45 ± 0.67 years, 11th grade: M age = 17.30 ± 0.75 years) suggested similar levels of parent–adolescent conflict frequency for all parenting styles. However, for parent–adolescent conflict intensity, youth of neglectful and authoritarian parents reported higher levels compared to those with indulgent parents. The highest levels of cohesion with both parents were reported by adolescents with authoritative parents, followed by indulgent, authoritarian and neglect parenting styles. Cohesion with mothers for youth with authoritative or indulgent mothers was higher for girls than boys. Adolescents’ expectation for behavioral autonomy mediated the links between parenting style and conflict, whereas adolescents’ beliefs about the legitimacy of parental authority mediated the links between parenting style and cohesion; some of these mediating effects differed by gender. Findings highlight the importance of studying potential effects of adolescents’ values and attitudes within the family system in specific cultural contexts.

Introduction

Variations in parenting styles and parent–child relationship qualities are long-standing research topics in developmental and family psychology. Previous research has shown that parenting styles are critical family context factors which are closely related to parent–adolescent relationships ( Shek, 2002 ). Despite the large number of studies on the associations between parenting styles and parent–adolescent relationships, existing research mainly has focused on the direct effects of parenting styles on parent-adolescent relationships, while the underlying mechanisms through which parenting styles are associated with parent–adolescent relationships have seldom been examined. The present study examined the possible mediating effects of adolescents’ expectations for behavioral autonomy and beliefs in the legitimacy of parental authority, on the link between parenting style differences and variability in relationship conflict and cohesion, in a sample of youth from mainland China. We also tested whether the direct and mediated effects differed for girls and boys.

Parenting Styles and Parent–Adolescent Relationships

Parenting style is defined as a constellation of parents’ attitudes and behaviors toward children and an emotional climate in which the parents’ behaviors are expressed ( Darling and Steinberg, 1993 ). In the field of parenting, Maccoby and Martin’s (1983) and Baumrind’s (1991) typological approach of conceptualizing parenting has had a tremendous impact. They classified parenting into four types based on responsiveness and demandingness ( Maccoby and Martin, 1983 ; Baumrind, 1991 ). Authoritative parenting style is characterized as high in responsiveness and demandingness. Authoritative parents provide not only support and warmth, but also clearly defined rules and consistent discipline ( Baumrind, 1991 ). Authoritarian parenting style is characterized as low in responsiveness but high in demandingness. Parents of this style tend to use hostile control or harsh punishment in an arbitrary way to gain compliance, but they seldom provide explanation or allow verbal give-and-take. Indulgent parenting style is characterized as low in demandingness but high in responsiveness. Indulgent parents are responsive to their children and satisfy children’s needs, but they fail to set proper disciplinary, exhibit behavioral control, or make demands for mature behaviors. Finally, neglectful parenting style is characterized as low in responsiveness and demandingness. Neglectful parents are parent-centered and they are seldom engaged in child rearing practices. They neither provide warmth nor set rules for their children.

Adolescence is a critical developmental period that requires parents and youth to renegotiate their relationships ( Laursen and Collins, 2009 ). Existing research has shown that variation in parenting styles is related to differences in parent-adolescent relationship features. Overall, most studies with Western samples have consistently found that authoritative parenting style is associated with higher levels of parent–adolescent cohesion ( Nelson et al., 2011 ) and lower levels of conflict frequency ( Smetana, 1995 ), conflict intensity ( Smetana, 1995 ), and total conflict ( McKinney and Renk, 2011 ). In contrast, an authoritarian parenting style is associated with lower cohesion ( McKinney and Renk, 2011 ) and higher conflict frequency ( Smetana, 1995 ; Sorkhabi and Middaugh, 2014 ), intensity ( Smetana, 1995 ), and total conflict ( McKinney and Renk, 2011 ). For instance, in a sample of American adolescents, Smetana (1995) found that more frequent and intense conflicts were predicted by more authoritarian parenting and less authoritative parenting. Similarly, Sorkhabi and Middaugh (2014) analyzed data from American adolescents who had Asian, Latino, Arab, European or other ethnic background. They found that adolescents of authoritative parents reported less conflict than those with authoritarian parents.

Most previous research on the associations between parenting styles and parent-adolescent conflict and cohesion focused on one or the other (e.g., Smetana, 1995 ; Nelson et al., 2011 ; Sorkhabi and Middaugh, 2014 ). However, conflict is not the opposite of cohesion, nor are increases over time in one necessarily associated with decreases in the other ( Zhang et al., 2006 ). To comprehensively understand the links between parenting styles and these two aspects of the parent-adolescent relationship, both should be examined. Also, most previous research seldom distinguished conflict frequency and intensity or examined them simultaneously. Conflict frequency refers to how often conflict occurs, whereas conflict intensity refers to the magnitude of emotional arousal that occurs during conflict. Prior research on these two aspects of conflict has yielded mixed results. For example, Smetana (1995) found that parenting styles’ links with conflict frequency and intensity were very similar. In contrast, Assadi et al. (2011) reported that frequency was lower for authoritative parents and higher for authoritarian parents—but only authoritative parenting was linked to intensity. Thus, conflict intensity and frequency both should be examined.

Another major gap in the literature is that few of the relevant prior studies examined all four parenting styles. We know of only one American study (of adolescent substance abusers) that examined conflict, cohesion, and all four parenting styles ( Smith and Hall, 2008 ). Actually, it’s also important to explore the relationships between indulgent and neglectful parenting style and parent–adolescent conflict and cohesion. Especially, neglectful parenting style which is characterized as disengaged from child rearing process may be destructive to parent–adolescent relationships. Thus, in light of the gaps in literature identified above, our first major aim was to explore the associations between all four parenting styles and parent–adolescent conflict (frequency and intensity) and cohesion. Based on prior evidence, we hypothesized that conflict (frequency and intensity) would be highest, and cohesion lowest, for youth with authoritarian parents—and conflict lowest and cohesion highest for adolescents with authoritative parents.

Adolescent Autonomy and Beliefs About Parental Authority

In spite of the numerous prior studies of the link between parenting style and parent–adolescent relationship features, there are surprisingly few that have tested mechanisms that might account for the link. We also addressed this gap in the current study. According to Darling and Steinberg’s (1993) integrative model, parenting styles affect adolescents’ outcomes by changing the degree to which adolescents accept their parents’ attempts to socialize them. When parents use specific styles to rear children, adolescents are not just passive social beings, but play an active role in shaping the parent–adolescent relationship and in interpreting parenting behavior, in ways that influence their own outcomes. Particularly important to this psychological process are adolescents’ attitudes about behavioral autonomy and the legitimacy of parental authority ( Darling et al., 2007 ).

Adolescents’ Expectation for Behavioral Autonomy

Autonomy, in contrast to forced behavior, reflects actions that arise from the agency of the self rather than others ( Chen et al., 2013 ). Variations in parenting style are associated with individual differences in adolescents’ autonomy beliefs. Authoritative parenting has been shown to be the most beneficial to youth, with regard to fostering healthy normative development of autonomy ( Baumrind, 1991 ). In contrast, authoritarian parents provided too much strictness and supervision for their children, while indulgent and neglectful parents provided insufficient monitoring and guidance. Adolescents with non-authoritative parents are more likely to desire for more behavioral autonomy which is not satisfied in an appropriate way ( Bush and Peterson, 2013 ). It is important to note, however, that not all studies find authoritative parenting to be optimal for youth autonomy—differences in findings that may be due to the sample characteristics or measures being used (e.g., Darling et al., 2005 ; Chan and Chan, 2009 ).

The development of adolescents’ autonomy, in turn, can have effects on parent–adolescent relationship features. Parents and adolescents expect increasing autonomy with age, but adolescents typically demand autonomy earlier than their parents are ready to grant it ( Jensen and Dost-Gözkan, 2015 ; Pérez et al., 2016 ). Adolescents’ desire for more autonomy than their parents wish to grant them prompts youth to exert more control of their own affairs, and to be more critical of their parents’ control behaviors—a pattern that causes conflict and reduces cohesion ( Fuligni, 1998 ; Zhang and Fuligni, 2006 ).

Adolescents’ Beliefs About Parental Authority

In addition to developmental changes in autonomy, adolescence also is a period of youths’ changes in attitudes about parental authority—specifically, the extent to which parental assertion of control is seen as an appropriate extension of their role ( Darling et al., 2008 ). Compared to other parenting styles, authoritative parents have children and adolescents who are more likely to endorse the legitimacy of parental authority ( Smetana, 1995 ; Darling et al., 2005 ; Trinkner et al., 2012 ). In contrast, authoritarian parents tend to define issues as falling into parental jurisdiction too rigidly, and indulgent and neglectful parents define these too permissively ( Smetana, 1995 ; Baumrind, 2005 ). In those cases, adolescents and parents may be deprived of opportunities to debate and negotiate appropriate boundaries, which in turn can lead youth to question and doubt the legitimacy of parental authority.

Attitudes about legitimacy of authority are also linked with parent–adolescent relationship features. Adolescents’ endorsement of parental authority is associated with greater cohesion and less conflict with parents ( Zhang et al., 2006 ; Jensen and Dost-Gözkan, 2015 )—in one study, a pattern found in Mexican, Chinese, Filipino, and European background families ( Fuligni, 1998 ).

In sum, there are well-established links between parenting style, adolescents’ beliefs (specifically, about autonomy and parental authority), and parent-adolescent relationship qualities. However, these different constructs have not been examined all together in one study. In addition, although previous studies have examined the associations between parenting styles and parent-adolescent relationships, there was no research that examined whether adolescents’ expectation for behavioral autonomy and endorsement of parental authority mediated these associations. Thus, our second aim was to test the hypothesis that expectations for behavioral autonomy and beliefs in the legitimacy of parental authority both would mediate the link between parenting styles and parent-adolescent conflict and cohesion.

The Role of Adolescent Gender

The third and final aim of the current study was to examine potential gender differences in the relationships between parenting styles, parent-adolescent conflict and cohesion, adolescents’ expectation for behavioral autonomy and endorsement of parental authority. There is reason to expect differences to be found, although results may differ depending on the parenting styles and parent-adolescent relationship features in question. For instance, Shek (2002) reported an association between parental negativity and greater parent-adolescent conflict, only for girls. These differences may reflect distinct socialization goals for boys and girls, with girls oriented more toward family relationships and compliance, and boys oriented toward autonomy and self-reliance ( Shek, 2002 ; Zhang et al., 2006 ). Based on previous research, we expected to find stronger associations between parenting style and parent–adolescent relationship features for girls compared to boys. However, given the lack of prior research on beliefs about autonomy and parental authority as mediators, we had no hypotheses regarding gender as moderator of those mediating effects.

Chinese Cultural Context

As a final point, another rationale for the current study was to address the dearth of research on mainland Chinese families published in the international literature. The existing evidence is almost completely dominated by studies of families from Western industrial nations, even though mainland China has the single largest population of children and adolescents in the world—in 2016, 13% or nearly one in eight of the globe’s 0–14-year-olds ( World Bank, 2017 ). We know of only one relevant published study of parenting styles and parent–adolescent relationships, which found that authoritative mothers exhibited the highest levels, and authoritarian mothers the lowest levels, of mother-adolescent cohesion ( Zhang et al., 2017 ). Adding to the literature base to include evidence from non-Western nations such as China, serves to extend and deepen knowledge of parent-adolescent relationship processes.

Studying mainland Chinese families also offers a unique opportunity for examining family processes because its culture is so distinct from Western contexts. Two features in particular stand out. First, China has been unique in the world in its “one child policy” implemented by the government from 1979 until 2016. This led to a significant change in the family, often described as the “4-2-1” family structure (four grandparents, two parents, and one child). In this context, the relationships between parenting styles and parent–adolescent conflict and cohesion in China may be different from those in Western cultures. Second, Chinese culture is rooted in Confucianism, which emphasizes collectivist values such as conforming to social norms, submission to authority, establishing strong relationships with others, and avoiding confrontation ( Peterson et al., 2005 ). In this strict hierarchical framework, individuals’ requests for autonomy and any behaviors that potentially threaten group harmony are discouraged, whereas great respect for parental authority is highly valued ( Fuligni, 1998 ). Furthermore, some research has shown that autonomy and authority beliefs among adolescents covary with family relationship features in different ways depending on cultural context. For example, one study reported that conflict intensity with mothers was greater for adolescents with lower respect for parental authority in African American and Latina, but not European American, families ( Dixon et al., 2008 ). Thus, there is a need to broaden the diversity of samples in this literature, to better understand which aspects of the relevant family processes operate similarity, or differently, in distinct cultural contexts.

In sum, the current study addressed three aims in a mainland China sample of families: (1) to explore the links between four parenting styles and parent-adolescent relationship conflict (frequency and intensity) and cohesion, including testing the hypothesis that conflict would be highest and cohesion lowest for authoritarian parents, conflict lowest and cohesion highest for authoritative parents; (2) to test the hypothesis that the links between parenting style and parent–adolescent relationship features would be statistically mediated by adolescents’ autonomy expectations and beliefs regarding parental authority; and (3) to test the hypothesis that the links between parenting style and relationship features (explored in Aim 1) would be stronger for girls than for boys—and to also explore gender differences in the mediating effects (hypothesized in Aim 2).

Materials and Methods

Participants and procedure.

A total of 633 students (48.5% females, in line with the proportion found in the Chinese population) in the 7th ( M age = 13.50 ± 0.62 years), 9th ( M age = 15.45 ± 0.67 years) and 11th ( M age = 17.30 ± 0.75 years) grades of four schools in Jinan, the capital of Shandong Province in Middle Eastern China, completed self-report questionnaires. Because of the implementation of one child policy in mainland China, 90 percent of them were only children.

Surveys were completed in class through group administration; students were asked not to communicate with each other while completing the survey. Research staff members administered the surveys to the class by introducing the purpose of this study and the voluntary nature of participation, reading instructions and answering any questions that arose during the data collection period. All participants gave written informed consent. Additionally, all parents of participants were notified about the research and were given the opportunity to withdraw their children from study participation. All parents gave written informed consent to allow their children to participate in this study. The Institutional Review Board of Shandong Normal University approved this study procedures.

Parenting Styles

Parenting styles were assessed using the Chinese version of Steinberg et al.’s (1994) parenting styles questionnaire ( Long et al., 2012 ). Two subscales comprise the measure of parenting: acceptance/involvement and strictness/supervision. The acceptance/involvement subscale (α = 0.84) was the average of 15 items that were used to assess responsive, loving and involved parenting (e.g., “I can count on my parents to help me out if I have some kind of problem.”). The strictness/supervision subscale (α = 0.78) was the average of 12 items that was used to assess monitoring and supervision (e.g., “How much do your parents try to know where you go out at night”). The adolescents were required to indicate the strength of endorsement using a 5-point scale ranging from 1 ( completely disagree ) to 5 ( completely agree ) for each item. Confirmatory factor analysis indicated that the measurement of parenting styles (as well as endorsement of parental authority, expectations for behavioral autonomy and parent-adolescent conflict and cohesion) had acceptable construct validity and strong measurement invariance across gender (see Online Supplementary Materials and Supplementary Table S1 ).

Endorsement of Parental Authority

Adolescents’ beliefs about the legitimacy of parental authority were assessed using Chinese version of Smetana’s (1988) questionnaire ( Zhang and Fuligni, 2006 ). Students were presented with a list of 13 topics as individual items such as curfew, choosing clothes, and choosing friends, and were asked whether father or mother could make a rule about each topic. Responses for each topic/item were coded on a 4-point scale ranging from 1 ( It’s not OK ) to 4 ( It’s completely OK ). These were averaged separately for mother (α = 0.84) and father (α = 0.86).

Expectations for Behavioral Autonomy

Adolescents’ expectation for behavioral autonomy was measured based on the questionnaire from Fuligni (1998) . Students were presented with a list of 12 behaviors (e.g., “watch as much TV as you want”). Adolescents then indicated the degree of expectation for each item using a 4-point scale ranging from 1 ( expect heavily ) and 4 ( not expect at all ) (α = 0.86). In order to achieve consistency across all instruments so that a high score would reflect a high level of the variable being measured, these entries were reversed score so that 1 was recoded as 4, 2 as 3, 3 as 2, and 4 as 1.

Parent–Adolescent Conflict

Adolescents’ perceptions of the incidence and intensity of conflict with their mothers and fathers were measured by the Chinese version of Issues Checklist ( Prinz et al., 1979 ; Zhang and Fuligni, 2006 ). Students indicated whether the 16 specific topics (e.g., chores, cursing) were discussed or not with their parents within the past 2 weeks (using a binary scale, yes or no ). Then, for each endorsed topic of discussion, adolescents reported the conflict intensity of the discussion of each topic, using a 5-point scale that varied from 1 ( very calm ) to 5 ( very angry ). To be consistent with previous research (e.g., Fuligni, 1998 ), conflict frequency was computed by summing the number of discussions rated as containing anger (2 or greater on the 5-point scale). Conflict intensity was obtained by averaging adolescents’ rating on those items that were discussed (mother: α = 0.72, father: α = 0.73).

Parent–Adolescent Cohesion

Adolescents completed the cohesion subscale of the Chinese version of Family Adaptation and Cohesion Evaluation Scales (FACES) II inventory separately for each parent ( Olson et al., 1979 ; Zhang and Fuligni, 2006 ). This scale included 10 items (e.g., “My mother [father] and I feel very close to each other”). Students’ perception of cohesion with parents was rated on a 5-point scale ranging from 1 ( almost never ) to 5 ( almost always ), separately for mother (α = 0.82) and father (α = 0.79).

Controlled Variables

Grade and socioeconomic status (SES) were controlled for this study. The SES score was computed by averaging the standardized education and occupation of both parents. Parents’ education was coded as 1 = equal to or below primary school, 2 = junior high school, 3 = senior high school, 4 = some college or above. The occupation was coded as 1 = peasant or jobless, 2 = blue collar, 3 = professional or semiprofessional. In terms of parents’ educational level, approximately 0.8% of the mothers and 0.3% of fathers had completed primary school education or less, and 38.5% of mothers and 57.1% of fathers had a college or university degree. The remainder had either a junior high school education (7.6% of mothers and 5.5% of fathers) or a senior high school education (48.2% of mothers and 31.5% of fathers). The occupational status of mothers and fathers, respectively, was as follows: 6.2 and 2.7% were peasants or jobless, 28.4 and 23.4% had blue collar position, and 64.9 and 73.6% held a professional or semiprofessional occupation.

Descriptive Statistics

We used Harman’s single factor test to check the common method bias. The results showed that 30 factors emerged with eigenvalues greater than 1.0 and the first factor accounted for only 16.53% of total variance. Since more than one factor emerged and the first factor did not account for the majority of the variance ( Podsakoff and Organ, 1986 ), common method bias was not a serious concern in the present study.

Cluster analysis with K-means method was used to identify the four parenting styles. Instead of defining parentings styles a priori based on subjective cut-off scores ( Steinberg et al., 1994 ), in cluster analysis families are grouped according to their scores on various parenting characteristics ( Henry et al., 2005 ). To validate the cluster solution, we reanalyzed the data with a different cluster method — a hierarchical cluster analysis ( Henry et al., 2005 ; Hoeve et al., 2007 ). We repeated the hierarchical cluster analysis ten times, applying the standardized Euclidian Distance method as a distance measure and using Ward’s algorithm. The cross validation procedure ( Mandara, 2003 ) result in moderate agreements ( k = 0.71, range: 0.67–0.75).

To label the four groups, we examined the parenting styles by computing a one-way ANOVA on the standardized scores of parenting dimensions with the clusters serving as the factors. The result revealed that the clustering variables significantly differed between the parenting dimensions [acceptance/involvement: F (3,608) = 472.58, p < 0.001, η 2 = 0.70; strictness/supervision: F (3,608) = 280.35, p < 0.001, η 2 = 0.58]. Authoritative parents were those who scored high on both dimensions (acceptance/involvement: z = 0.95, strictness/supervision: z = 0.76), whereas neglectful parents scored low on both dimensions (acceptance/involvement: z = -1.45, strictness/supervision: z = -1.06). Authoritarian parents scored low on acceptance/involvement ( z = -0.61) but high on strictness/supervision dimension ( z = 0.50), whereas indulgent parents scored high on acceptance/involvement ( z = 0.15) but low on strictness/supervision dimension ( z = -0.77).

Descriptive statistics for study variables are presented in Table 1 , and bivariate correlations are presented in Table 2 . Regarding descriptives, the following frequencies were found for the four parenting styles: 152 (24.0% of total sample) authoritarian; 200 (31.6%) authoritative; 83 (13.1%) neglectful; and 177 (28.0%) indulgent. The average scores of beliefs in parents’ authority and expectation for behavioral autonomy ranged from 2 to 3, which implied that adolescents reported medium level of endorsement of parental authority and autonomy expectations. The average scores of conflict frequency ranged from 2 to 4 and the average scores of conflict intensity ranged from 1 to 2, which suggested that adolescents reported low level of conflict frequency and intensity. Since the cohesion scored larger than 3 (except girls with neglectful parents), adolescents reported medium-high level of cohesion with parents.

TABLE 1. Means and standard deviations of all study variables except parenting styles.

TABLE 2. Correlations for all study variables except parenting styles.

Turning to correlations, although with a few exceptions, overall the adolescents’ higher expectation for behavioral autonomy was associated with greater frequency and intensity of conflict, and less cohesion. Adolescents’ stronger endorsement of the legitimacy of parental authority was associated with greater cohesion, but less frequent and intense conflict.

Links With Parenting Styles

A series of 4 (parenting styles) × 2 (child gender) analyses of covariance was conducted to explore the links between four parenting styles and parent–adolescent relationships. At the same time, we also explored if adolescents’ expectation for behavior autonomy and endorsement of parental authority differed as a function of adolescents’ gender and parenting styles. SES and grade served as covariables.

For adolescents’ expectation for behavior autonomy, the main effect of parenting styles was significant [ F (3,597) = 8.74, p < 0.001]. Bonferroni post hoc t -tests indicated that adolescents of authoritative parents reported the lower level of expectation for behavioral autonomy ( M = 2.18, SD = 0.60) than adolescents of neglectful [ M = 2.70, SD = 0.64, t (278) = 4.66, p < 0.001], indulgent [ M = 2.48, SD = 0.62, t (371) = 3.75, p < 0.01] and authoritarian parents [ M = 2.43, SD = 0.66, t (344) = 2.79, p < 0.05].

For legitimacy of parental authority, the main effect of parenting styles was significant [mother: F (3,597) = 30.26, father: F (3,597) = 29.62, p s < 0.001]. Adolescents of authoritative parents reported the highest endorsement of parental authority (mother: M = 2.73, SD = 0.53; father: M = 2.71, SD = 0.56), whereas adolescents of neglectful parents reported the lowest endorsement of parental authority (mother: M = 2.06, SD = 0.47; father: M = 1.98, SD = 0.54). Adolescents raised by authoritarian (mother: M = 2.42, SD = 0.59; father: M = 2.38, SD = 0.62) and indulgent parents (mother: M = 2.26, SD = 0.51; father: M = 2.25, SD = 0.55) reported endorsements of parental authority that were between the other two groups (mother: t > 2.86, p < 0.05; father: t > 3.52, p < 0.01). The interaction between gender and parenting styles also was significant [mother: F (3,597) = 2.53, p = 0.056; father: F (3,597) = 3.03, p < 0.05]. Post hoc probing revealed no gender difference for youth with authoritative, authoritarian and neglectful parents. In contrast, for youth with indulgent parents, boys reported greater endorsement of parental authority (mother: M = 2.37, SD = 0.56; father: M = 2.39, SD = 0.60) than did girls [mother: M = 2.16, SD = 0.44, t (171) = 2.62, p < 0.01; father: M = 2.12, SD = 0.46, t (171) = 3.52, p < 0.01].

Turning to intensity of conflict with parents, the main effect of parenting styles was significant [mother: F (3,595) = 7.49, p < 0.001; father: F (3,583) = 3.90, p < 0.01]. Adolescents of neglectful [mother: M = 1.74, SD = 0.62, t (253) = 3.99, p < 0.001; father: M = 1.73, SD = 0.81, t (245) = 2.58, p = 0.06] and authoritarian parents [mother: M = 1.63, SD = 0.54, t (320) = 3.01, p < 0.05; father: M = 1.63, SD = 0.75, t (313) = 2.49, p = 0.08] reported more intense conflict than those of indulgent parents (mother: M = 1.46, SD = 0.43; father: M = 1.45, SD = 0.46). In addition, adolescents of neglectful parenting also reported more intense conflict with mothers than those of authoritative parenting [ M = 1.49, SD = 0.47, t (276) = 3.61, p < 0.01]. As for the frequency of conflict with parents, none of the effects was significant.

For cohesion, gender was significantly related to mother–child cohesion [ F (1,597) = 9.07, p < 0.01], with greater cohesion found for daughters than sons (girls: M = 3.70, SD = 0.66; boys: M = 3.42, SD = 0.59). For mothers and fathers alike, there was a main effect of parenting styles [mother: F (3,597) = 37.53, father: F (3,597) = 26.49, p s < 0.001]. Adolescents of authoritative parents reported the highest level of cohesion (mother: M = 3.85, SD = 0.58; father: M = 3.77, SD = 0.63), followed by indulgent [mother: M = 3.59, SD = 0.52, t (371) = 4.20, p < 0.001; father: M = 3.55, SD = 0.63, t (371) = 3.15, p < 0.05], authoritarian [mother: M = 3.41, SD = 0.60, t (320) = 2.62, p = 0.05; father: M = 3.29, SD = 0.72, t (320) = 3.33, p < 0.01] and neglectful parents [mother: M = 3.05, SD = 0.67, t (227) = 4.78, p < 0.001; father: M = 3.02, SD = 0.75, t (227) = 2.94, p < 0.05]. Finally, the parenting style main effect for mothers was moderated by child gender [ F (3,597) = 1.34, p < 0.01]. Cohesion was higher for girls than boys, only in authoritative [girls: M = 4.03, SD = 0.55; boys: M = 3.64, SD = 0.56, t (195) = 4.77, p < 0.001] and indulgent homes [girls: M = 3.70, SD = 0.50; boys: M = 3.48, SD = 0.50, t (171) = 2.61, p < 0.01].

Mediating Effects

To test our second hypothesis that expectations for behavioral autonomy and beliefs in the legitimacy of parental authority would mediate the links between parenting style and parent-adolescent conflict and cohesion, we used structural equation modeling in Mplus 7.4 (Figures 1 – 3 , for the analyses of conflict frequency, conflict intensity, and cohesion, respectively). SES and grade were included as covariables. The categorical parenting style variable was represented as three dummy-coded variables with authoritative parenting as the reference category. Because the autonomy expectations scale had many items, we used a common parceling technique to estimate a highly reliable latent construct for that variable by randomly assigning items into four nearly equal-sized sets of indicators ( Little et al., 2002 ). Finally, latent variables were constructed (using mother and father scales as indicators) for the conflict and cohesion variables, as well as the attitudes about legitimate parental authority variable. All models showed good fit with the data [conflict frequency: χ 2 = 160.99, df = 56, CFI = 0.96, TLI = 0.95, RMSEA = 0.055; conflict intensity: χ 2 = 167.23, df = 56, CFI = 0.96, TLI = 0.94, RMSEA = 0.058; cohesion: χ 2 = 192.55, df = 56, CFI = 0.95, TLI = 0.93, RMSEA = 0.063).

FIGURE 1. Adolescents’ expectation for autonomy and beliefs about parental authority as mediators between parenting styles and the frequency of parent-adolescent conflict. Standardized path coefficients are presented in the model. ∗ p < 0.05; ∗∗ p < 0.01; ∗∗∗ p < 0.001.

In all three models, adolescents raised in neglectful, indulgent and authoritarian homes (compared to authoritative) reported lower level of beliefs about parental authority and higher expectations for behavior autonomy. Regarding frequency (Figure 1 ) and intensity (Figure 2 ) of conflict, greater expectation of autonomy was linked with more frequent and intense conflict, whereas regarding parent–adolescent cohesion (Figure 3 ), greater endorsement of authority was linked with greater relationship cohesion. Also, conflict intensity was lower for youth with indulgent parents and cohesion was lower for youth with neglectful, indulgent or authoritarian (compared to authoritative) parents.

FIGURE 2. Adolescents’ expectation for autonomy and beliefs about parental authority as mediators between parenting styles and the intensity of parent–adolescent conflict. Standardized path coefficients are presented in the model. ∗ p < 0.05; ∗∗ p < 0.01; ∗∗∗ p < 0.001.

FIGURE 3. Adolescents’ expectation for autonomy and beliefs about parental authority as mediators between parenting styles and parent-adolescent cohesion. Standardized path coefficients are presented in the model. ∗ p < 0.05; ∗∗ p < 0.01; ∗∗∗ p < 0.001.

Significance of indirect effects was computed using bootstrapping with 1000 resamples. A bias-corrected bootstrapped 95% confidence interval (CI) showed significant indirect effects from neglectful, indulgent and authoritarian parenting style to the frequency and the intensity of parent-adolescent conflict via adolescents’ expectation for behavior autonomy. For conflict frequency, 95% CIs were [0.033,0.126], [0.022,0.102], and [0.014,0.092] for neglectful, indulgent and authoritarian parents, respectively. For intensity of conflict, 95% CIs were [0.042,0.131] [0.027,0.105], and [0.019,0.097] for neglectful, indulgent and authoritarian parents, respectively. There also were significant indirect effects to cohesion via adolescents’ beliefs in the legitimacy of parental authority. The 95% CIs were [-0.202, -0.081], [-0.185, -0.071], and [-0.128, -0.0341] for neglectful, indulgent and authoritarian parents, respectively.

Moderating Effect of Adolescents’ Gender

Given possible gender differences in paths, we conducted multiple-group analyses. We had hypothesized that the links between parenting style and parent-adolescent conflict and cohesion would be stronger for girls than boys; we did not have hypotheses regarding the mediators however. Chi-square difference statistic (Δχ 2 ) were used to compare fit between models. All structural paths were constrained to be equal for boys and girls and the overall model fit was compared to a model without any constraint. For conflict frequency and intensity, the unconstrained and fully constrained models were not significantly different—suggesting no gender moderation [Δχ 2 (11) = 14.88, Δχ 2 (11) = 14.96, p s > 0.05]. In contrast, for cohesion, the unconstrained model provided a significantly better fit than the constrained model [Δχ 2 (11) = 23.45, p < 0.05]. To interpret this, we compared path coefficients for boys and girls one by one (see Figure 4 ). The negative prediction of cohesion from neglectful and authoritarian parenting (relative to authoritative parenting) was stronger for girls than boys; this was consistent with our hypothesis. As for the exploration of gender differences in the mediation paths, we found that the negative link between indulgent parenting style and parental authority was stronger for girls than boys, whereas the positive link between endorsement of parental authority and cohesion was stronger for boys than girls.

FIGURE 4. Results of multiple-group structural equation model evaluating the relationships of adolescents’ expectation for behavioral autonomy, their endorsement of parental authority and parent–adolescent cohesion across genders. Standardized path coefficients are presented in the model. Covariances, correlations and residuals are not shown. Solid lines indicate the pathway parameters are different between male sample and female sample. Dotted lines indicate the pathway parameters are similar between male sample and female sample. ∗ p < 0.05; ∗∗ p < 0.01; ∗∗∗ p < 0.001.

In the current study, we tested the associations between parenting styles and parent-adolescent relationships (Aim 1), examined the mediating effects of adolescents’ expectation for behavior autonomy and their endorsement of parental authority on these associations (Aim 2), and also explored the moderating effect of adolescents’ gender (Aim 3) in a sample of adolescents from mainland China.

Parenting Styles and Relationships With Adolescents

In studies of Western families, parenting styles are recognized as having predictable associations with parent-adolescent conflict and cohesion. Previous studies have reported that adolescents of authoritative parents have lower conflict frequency and intensity and higher cohesion than those of authoritarian parents ( Smetana, 1995 ; Assadi et al., 2011 ; Nelson et al., 2011 ; Sorkhabi and Middaugh, 2014 ). In contrast to previous research, the present study showed that adolescents reported similar levels of parent-adolescent conflict frequency regardless of parenting style. This result may be attributed to the traditional Chinese culture, which places emphasis on keeping harmonious relationships and avoiding confrontation ( Peterson et al., 2005 ). This unique cultural context may alleviate any links between parenting and frequency of conflict because Chinese adolescents may avoid conflict with their parents.

However, conflict intensity did show associations with parenting style. Compared with indulgent parenting styles, adolescents of neglectful and authoritarian parents experienced greater intensity of conflict. Indulgent parents place relatively few demands on the adolescents’ behavior, giving them high degree of freedom to act as they wish. In contrast, neglectful parents are characterized as lacking warmth and guidance, whereas authoritarian parents place a high value on obedience and conformity and allow less verbal give-and-take. Conflict may be more intense in neglectful parenting style because the adolescent is making demands on a parent who otherwise is withdrawn and minimizing of the youth’s needs. Also, adolescents may be dissatisfied with authoritarian parents’ setting broad rules without emotional support, which leads to more intense conflict when it occurs. Other variables might also explain the effect. For instance, adolescents with neglectful parents are more likely to engage in delinquent behaviors ( You and Lim, 2015 ), which itself may lead to more intense conflict.

In addition, the current study found that adolescents raised in authoritative and authoritarian parenting style reported similar levels of conflict intensity with parents. This is inconsistent with previous findings, which showed that Western adolescents raised in authoritarian parenting homes reported more intense parent–adolescent conflict than those raised in authoritative parenting homes ( Smetana, 1995 ). One explanation for this difference in results may be that in Chinese culture, similar to training and tiger parenting, the motivation and intention of authoritarian parenting is to supervise children and promote optimal development, instead of simply controlling them ( Chao, 1994 ; Kim et al., 2013 ). And Chinese adolescents may perceive positively the parents’ intention to supervise their development, resulting in no direct association between levels of parental control and conflict intensity.

With regard to parent–adolescent relationship cohesion, the current study showed that adolescents with authoritative parents reported the highest levels of cohesion. This result extends previously published work in various cultural groups showing greater cohesion for authoritative parenting (e.g., Nelson et al., 2011 ). Authoritative parenting is characterized by a high degree of warmth and acceptance as well as supervision, but also including the granting of adolescent autonomy ( Baumrind, 2005 ). In Chinese and Western cultures today, adolescents seek greater independence along with support (compared to children)—a balance of youth and parent goals that is best met in authoritative households that promote close relationships. In contrast, neglectful parents’ lack of warmth and supervision, which may be interpreted as irresponsibility, may hinder the establishment of cohesive relationships. Indulgent and authoritarian parents provided either limited guidelines or limited support for their children. All these characteristics were likely to reduce parent–adolescent cohesion.

Expectation for Behavioral Autonomy

Our second aim was, in part, to identify potential mediating effects of adolescents’ expectations for autonomy. Results showed that adolescents’ autonomy expectations mediated the links between parenting styles and both the frequency and intensity of parent–adolescent conflict. Specifically, compared to adolescents in authoritative homes, those in neglect, indulgent, and authoritarian homes reported stronger expectations for autonomy, which in turn were linked with more frequent and intense parent-adolescent conflict. This result was consistent with other studies which explored the relationships between parenting styles, adolescents’ expectation for behavioral autonomy and parent-adolescent conflict ( Baumrind, 1991 ; Bush and Peterson, 2013 ).

Adolescents in authoritative families reported the lowest expectation for behavioral autonomy. This result may be due to that adolescents with authoritative parents have achieved appropriate autonomy, therefore, their desire to acquire more autonomy is not so strong. The salutary effect of authoritative parenting style on adolescents’ behavioral autonomy likely reflects the successful attainment of a socialization goal among authoritative parents: to facilitate autonomy and promote self-reliance. This socialization goal is accomplished by respecting their children’s needs and recognizing that adolescents legitimately have the right to control some aspects of their lives ( Bush and Peterson, 2013 ).

Compared with authoritative parenting style, non-authoritative parenting styles have some characteristics that are thought to hinder the development of adolescents’ behavioral autonomy. Authoritarian parents are characterized as using hostile control or harsh punishment in an arbitrary manner to gain obedience and conformity ( Bush and Peterson, 2013 ). At the same time, authoritarian parents provide limited warmth and responsiveness. In that context, adolescents are more likely to seek greater behavioral autonomy because it is not available to them. Also, indulgent and neglect parents provide few if any rules or discipline. Without sufficient firm control in the form of parental monitoring and guidance, adolescents raised in indulgent and neglect parenting families are more likely to experience high levels of independence before they can manage it themselves ( Bush and Peterson, 2013 ). Also, adolescents in neglectful families lack parental supportiveness and those in indulgent homes are simply spoiled. Such adolescents may have high levels of autonomy, but it is not likely to have been developed through a healthy developmental process with their parents in a way that balances their growing self-determination and connectedness with their parents.

In agreement with previous research ( Laursen and Collins, 2009 ), the current results revealed that adolescents’ expectation for behavioral autonomy statistically predicted greater parent–adolescent conflict—perhaps because parents favor less autonomy than do their teenage children. This parent-youth discrepancy has been found in individualistic and collectivist cultural groups within the United States and in other countries ( Smetana, 1988 ; Pérez et al., 2016 ). Researchers have interpreted the discrepancy as a developmental phenomenon, in which adolescents’ need for autonomy exceeds parental concerns with maintaining order and protecting their children from harm ( Jensen and Dost-Gözkan, 2015 ).

Legitimacy of Parental Authority

The second mediating effect that was tested involved adolescents’ beliefs in the legitimacy of parental authority; results suggested some evidence for this effect. Compared with authoritative parenting, non-authoritative parenting was negatively associated with adolescents’ beliefs in the legitimacy of parental authority, which in turn were positively related to parent-adolescent cohesion. This finding is consistent with previous research ( Fuligni, 1998 ; Darling et al., 2005 ; Assadi et al., 2011 ; Trinkner et al., 2012 ). Our interpretation is that with increasingly adult-like social cognitions and relationships, adolescents increasing question parental authority as they shift from unquestioning compliance to rational assessment with conditional obedience. Compared to other types of parents, authoritative parents, are more successful with continually renegotiating parental authority as their children “grow up,” because they use reasoning and explanations and are responsive to adolescents’ perspectives. This ongoing negotiation provides a context for parents and children to articulate and discuss divergent perspectives, which helps legitimize the parents’ authority by rationally justifying the boundaries of adolescents’ personal jurisdiction.

In contrast, authoritarian parents exert strict and sometimes arbitrary punishment without explanation. Also, they construct the boundaries of parental authority much more broadly than authoritative parents, which promotes resistance in adolescence ( Smetana, 1995 ; Baumrind, 2005 ). In this context, adolescents struggle to internalize the legitimacy of parental authority. Also, in contrast to authoritative parents, indulgent and neglectful parents provide little information about boundaries or appropriate behavior. Such lax control can undermine parental authority, so that youth increasingly regard parents as not playing an authority role.

Parents who exercise their authority are satisfied when their adolescent children respect them, which helps maintain harmonious relationships in the family ( Zhang et al., 2006 ; Jensen and Dost-Gözkan, 2015 ). As child-rearing agents, providers of information and rules, and primary sources of support for their children, parents need to establish their authority to better play their parenting roles. However, this occurs in a relationship context with adolescent, and the teenager’s endorsement of parents’ authority helps the adults meet their psychological needs as well. In such families, parents and youth consider each other’s boundaries and areas of control through negotiation and mutual respect, which builds more cohesive relationships.

In the current study, although adolescents’ expectations for behavioral autonomy and beliefs in the legitimacy of parental authority are both critical attitude domains, their mediating effects were different: autonomy expectations mediated the effect of parenting style on parent-adolescent conflict, but authority legitimacy mediated the effect of parenting style on parent-adolescent cohesion. Certainly, although they are correlated, conflict and cohesion delineate different aspects of parent–adolescent relationships ( Zhang et al., 2006 )—and, each may be affected differently by levels of parental authority and adolescent autonomy. The distinction may be particularly strong in Chinese culture which emphasizes conformity and obedience ( Peterson et al., 2005 ). Parent-adolescent conflict was more likely to be linked with adolescents’ higher expectations for behavioral autonomy which runs against cultural norms, but cohesion was more likely to be linked with adolescents’ greater endorsement of parental authority which is consistent with cultural norms.

Adolescent Gender

Our final aim was to test the hypothesis that the direct link between parenting style and relationship qualities would be stronger for girls than boys—and, to also explore whether there were gender differences in the mediating effects via adolescent autonomy and authority attitudes. The results indicated only a few such effects. Briefly, girls in authoritative and indulgent homes reported more cohesion with mothers than boys, and girls of neglect and authoritarian parenting reported lower level of parent–adolescent cohesion than boys. This may be due to that girls are more responsive and sensitive to social bonds than boys, and that cohesion and parenting style both reflects emotional atmosphere. Therefore, the relationships between parenting styles and cohesion were stronger for girls. Besides, girls of indulgent parents were less likely to endorse parental authority than boys, while endorsement of parental authority had greater effect on parent-adolescent cohesion for boys than girls. To the extent that parents normally set more rules and expect greater obedience of parental authority for girls than boys ( Darling et al., 2005 ; Zhang and Fuligni, 2006 ), and consequently girls of indulgent parents may be more likely to feel that their parents did not shoulder the responsibility of cultivating them or establish the authority, given indulgent parents did not provide enough supervision and rules. Therefore, girls of indulgent parents endorsed lower level of parental authority. At the same time, since parents expected less conformity and obedience for boys, their endorsement of parental authority was more likely to live up to parents’ expectation, which may improve relationships with parents.

Although gender moderated a few paths in the direct and mediating models, overall, the majority of paths were not significantly different for boys and girls across all of the models that were tested. This may be due to that, with the implementation of the one child policy, Chinese parenting styles and socialization practices are becoming increasingly similar for their sole children ( Lu and Chang, 2013 ), resulting in more similar associations between parenting styles and parent–adolescent relationships and also the mediating effects of autonomy and authority for these relationships for boys and girls.

Limitations and Conclusions

Several limitations of this study should be noted. First, the participants were urban adolescents in mainland China which is characterized as collectivist culture, so generalizing the results to other cultures or groups should be done with caution. Second, the correlational design does not permit causal inferences. Longitudinal experimental data are necessary to identify causal relationships among the variables. Finally, we relied on adolescents’ self-reports. Previous research found that there were discrepancies between parents’ and youth’s perceptions on these variables (e.g., Jensen and Dost-Gözkan, 2015 ), so our findings may not represent what would be found using parents’ reports or observers’ ratings.

Despite these limitations, the current study has important implications. To our knowledge, this is the first study to examine the mediating effects of adolescents’ expectations for behavioral autonomy and beliefs in the legitimacy of parental authority, on the links between parenting styles and parent-adolescent conflict and cohesion. The findings of this study extend existing research and suggest that prevention and intervention efforts are needed to primarily target the reduction of non-authoritative parenting styles, and the promotion of acquiring appropriate levels of autonomy expectations and endorsement of parental authority. Future research should examine other possible mediating paths and sample a wider range of cultural contexts to explore adolescent development and family functioning.

Ethics Statement

This study was carried out in accordance with the recommendations of the Institutional Review Board of Shandong Normal University. All subjects gave written informed consent in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. The protocol was approved by the Institutional Review Board of Shandong Normal University.

Author Contributions

XB conducted the analysis and drafted the manuscript. YY and HL helped in performing the statistical analysis. MW coordinated the data collection and helped in the statistical analysis. WZ conceived and coordinated the study and helped to draft the manuscript. KD-D helped to draft the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript and the byline order of authors.

This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31671156).

Conflict of Interest Statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Supplementary Material

The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02187/full#supplementary-material

Assadi, S. M., Smetana, J., Shahmansouri, N., and Mohammadi, M. (2011). Beliefs about parental authority, parenting styles, and parent-adolescent conflict among iranian mothers of middle adolescents. Int. J. Behav. Dev. 35, 424–431. doi: 10.1177/0165025411409121

CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar

Baumrind, D. (1991). The influence of parenting style on adolescent competence and substance use. J. Early Adolesc. 11, 56–95. doi: 10.1177/0272431691111004

Baumrind, D. (2005). Patterns of parental authority and adolescent autonomy. New Dir. Child Adolesc. Dev. 2005, 61–69. doi: 10.1002/cd.128

Bush, K. R., and Peterson, G. W. (2013). “Parent-child relationships in diverse contexts,” in Handbook of Marriage and the Family , 3rd edn. Eds G. W. Peterson and K. R. Bush (New York, NY: Springer), 275–302. doi: 10.1007/978-1-4614-3987-5_13

Chan, K. W., and Chan, S. M. (2009). Emotional autonomy and perceived parenting styles: relational analysis in the Hong Kong cultural context. Asia Pac. Educ. Rev. 10, 433–443. doi: 10.1007/s12564-009-9050-z

Chao, R. K. (1994). Beyond parental control and authoritarian parenting style: understanding Chinese parenting through the cultural notion of training. Child Dev. 65, 1111–1119. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8624.1994.tb00806.x

PubMed Abstract | CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar

Chen, B., Vansteenkiste, M., Beyers, W., Soenens, B., and Petegem, S. V. (2013). Autonomy in family decision making for Chinese adolescents: disentangling the dual meaning of autonomy. J. Cross Cult. Psychol. 44, 1184–1209. doi: 10.1177/0022022113480038

Darling, N., Cumsille, P., and Martínez, M. L. (2007). Adolescents’ as active agents in the socialization process: legitimacy of parental authority and obligation to obey as predictors of obedience. J. Adolesc. 30, 297–311. doi: 10.1016/j.adolescence.2006.03.003

Darling, N., Cumsille, P., and Martínez, M. L. (2008). Individual differences in adolescents’ beliefs about the legitimacy of parental authority and their own obligation to obey: a longitudinal investigation. Child Dev. 79, 1103–1118. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8624.2008.01178.x

Darling, N., Cumsille, P., and Peña-Alampay, L. (2005). Rules, legitimacy of parental authority, and obligation to obey in chile, the philippines, and the United States. New Dir. Child Adolesc. Dev. 2005, 47–60. doi: 10.1002/cd.127

Darling, N., and Steinberg, L. (1993). Parenting style as context: an integrative model. Psychol. Bull. 113, 487–496. doi: 10.1037/0033-2909.113.3.487

Dixon, S. V., Graber, J. A., and Brooks-Gunn, J. (2008). The roles of respect for parental authority and parenting practices in parent-child conflict among African American, Latino, and European American families. J. Fam. Psychol. 22, 1–10. doi: 10.1037/0893-3200.22.1.1

Fuligni, A. J. (1998). Authority, autonomy, and parent-adolescent conflict and cohesion: a study of adolescents from Mexican, Chinese, Filipino, and European backgrounds. Dev. Psychol. 34, 782–792. doi: 10.1037/0012-1649.34.4.782

Henry, D. B., Tolan, P. H., and Gormansmith, D. (2005). Cluster analysis in family psychology research. J. Fam. Psychol. 19, 121–132. doi: 10.1037/0893-3200.19.1.121

Hoeve, M., Blokland, A. A. J., Semon-Dubas, J., Loeber, R., Gerris, J. R. M., and Van der Laan, P. (2007). Trajectories of delinquency and parenting styles. J. Abnorm. Child Psychol. 36, 223–235. doi: 10.1007/s10802-007-9172-x

Jensen, L. A., and Dost-Gözkan, A. (2015). Adolescent-parent relations in Asian Indian and Salvadoran immigrant families: a cultural-developmental analysis of autonomy, authority, conflict, and cohesion. J. Res. Adolesc. 25, 340–351. doi: 10.1111/jora.12116

Kim, S. Y., Wang, Y., Orozco-Lapray, D., Shen, Y., and Murtuza, M. (2013). Does “tiger parenting” exist? Parenting profiles of Chinese Americans and adolescent developmental outcomes. Asian Am. J. Psychol. 4, 7–18. doi: 10.1037/a0030612

Laursen, B., and Collins, W. A. (2009). “Parent-child relationships during adolescence,” in Handbook of Adolescent Psychology , eds R. M. Lerner and L. Steinberg (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley).

Google Scholar

Little, T. D., Cunningham, W. A., Shahar, G., and Widaman, K. F. (2002). To parcel or not to parcel: exploring the question, weighing the merits. Struct. Equ. Model. 9, 151–173. doi: 10.1207/S15328007SEM0902-1

Long, R. H., Huang, D., and Zhang. J. X. (2012). Evaluating on reliability and validity of steinberg scale, Chinese version. Chin. J. Public Health 28, 439–441.

Lu, H. J., and Chang, L. (2013). Parenting and socialization of only children in urban China: an example of authoritative parenting. J. Genet. Psychol. 174, 335–343. doi: 10.1080/00221325.2012.681325

Maccoby, E., and Martin, J. (1983). “Socialization in the context of the family: parent-child interaction”, in Handbook of Child Psychology Socialization, Personality, and Social Development , Vol. 4, eds. E. M. Hetherington and P. H. Mussen (New York, NY: Wiley), 1–101

Mandara, J. (2003). The typological approach in child and family psychology: a review of theory, methods, and research. Clin. Child Fam. Psychol. Rev. 6, 129–146. doi: 10.1023/A:1023734627624

McKinney, C., and Renk, K. (2011). A multivariate model of parent-adolescent relationship variables in early adolescence. Child Psychiatr. Hum. Dev. 42, 442–462. doi: 10.1007/s10578-011-0228-3

Nelson, L. J., Padilla-Walker, L. M., Christensen, K. J., Evans, C. A., and Carroll, J. S. (2011). Parenting in emerging adulthood: an examination of parenting clusters and correlates. J. Youth Adolesc. 40, 730–743. doi: 10.1007/s10964-010-9584-8

Olson, D. H., Sprenkle, D. H., and Russell, C. S. (1979). Circumplex model of marital and family systems: i. Cohesion and adaptability dimensions, family types, and clinical applications. Fam. Process 18, 3–28. doi: 10.1111/j.1545-5300.1979.00003.x

Pérez, J. C., Cumsille, P., and Martínez, M. L. (2016). Brief report: agreement between parent and adolescent autonomy expectations and its relationship to adolescent adjustment. J. Adolesc. 53, 10–15. doi: 10.1016/j.adolescence.2016.08.010

Peterson, G. W., Steinmetz, S. K., and Wilson, S. M. (eds). (2005). Parent-Youth Relations: Cultural and Cross-Cultural Perspectives . New York, NY: Hawthorn Press.

Podsakoff, P. M., and Organ, D. W. (1986). Self-reports in organizational research: problems and prospects. J. Manag. 12, 531–544. doi: 10.1177/014920638601200408

Prinz, R. J., Foster, S., Kent, R. N., and O’Leary, K. D. (1979). Multivariate assessment of conflict in distressed and nondistressed mother-adolescent dyads. J. Appl. Behav. Anal. 12, 691–700. doi: 10.1901/jaba.1979.12-691

Shek, D. T. (2002). Parenting characteristics and parent-adolescent conflict: a longitudinal study in the Chinese culture. J. Fam. Issues 23, 189–208. doi: 10.1177/0192513X02023002002

Smetana, J. G. (1988). Adolescents’ and parents’ conceptions of parental authority. Child Dev. 59, 321–335. doi: 10.2307/1130313

Smetana, J. G. (1995). Parenting styles and conceptions of parental authority during adolescence. Child Dev. 66, 299–316. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8624.1995.tb00872.x

Smith, D. C., and Hall, J. A. (2008). Parenting style and adolescent clinical severity: findings from two substance abuse treatment studies. J. Soc. Work Pract. Addict. 8, 440–463. doi: 10.1080/15332560802341073

Sorkhabi, N., and Middaugh, E. (2014). How variations in parents’ use of confrontive and coercive control relate to variations in parent-adolescent conflict, adolescent disclosure, and parental knowledge: adolescents’ perspective. J. Child Fam. Stud. 23, 1227–1241. doi: 10.1007/s10826-013-9783-5

Steinberg, L., Lamborn, S. D., Darling, N., Mounts, N. S., and Dornbusch, S. M. (1994). Over-time changes in adjustment and competence among adolescents from authoritative, authoritarian, indulgent, and neglectful families. Child Dev. 65, 754–770.

PubMed Abstract | Google Scholar

Trinkner, R., Cohn, E. S., Rebellon, C. J., and Van Gundy, K. (2012). Don’t trust anyone over 30: parental legitimacy as a mediator between parenting style and changes in delinquent behavior over time. J. Adolesc. 35, 119–132. doi: 10.1016/j.adolescence.2011.05.003

World Bank. (2017). Population, Ages 0-14, Total . Available at: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.0014.TO?end=2016andstart=1960andview=chart

You, S., and Lim, S. A. (2015). Development pathways from abusive parenting to delinquency: the mediating role of depression and aggression. Child Abuse Negl. 46, 152–162. doi: 10.1016/j.chiabu.2015.05.009

Zhang, W. X., and Fuligni, A. J. (2006). Authority, autonomy, and family relationships among adolescents in urban and rural China. J. Res. Adolesc. 16, 527–537. doi: 10.1111/j.1532-7795.2006.00506.x

Zhang, W. X., Wang, M. P., and Fuligni, A. J. (2006). Expectations for autonomy, beliefs about parental authority, and parent-adolescent conflict and cohesion. Acta Psychol. Sin. 38, 868–876.

Zhang, W., Wei, X., Ji, L., Chen, L., and Deater-Deckard, K. (2017). Reconsidering parenting in Chinese culture: subtypes, stability, and change of maternal parenting style during early adolescence. J. Youth Adolesc. 46, 1117–1136. doi: 10.1007/s10964-017-0664-x

Keywords : parenting style, parent–adolescent relationship, behavioral autonomy, parental authority, gender

Citation: Bi X, Yang Y, Li H, Wang M, Zhang W and Deater-Deckard K (2018) Parenting Styles and Parent–Adolescent Relationships: The Mediating Roles of Behavioral Autonomy and Parental Authority. Front. Psychol. 9:2187. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02187

Received: 08 August 2018; Accepted: 23 October 2018; Published: 13 November 2018.

Reviewed by:

Copyright © 2018 Bi, Yang, Li, Wang, Zhang and Deater-Deckard. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Wenxin Zhang, [email protected]

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Types of Parenting Styles and Effects on Children

Affiliations.

1 Touro University, Nevada
2 Lincoln Medical Center/Weil Cornell
PMID: 33760502
Bookshelf ID: NBK568743

Definition/Introduction
Issues of Concern
Clinical Significance
Nursing, Allied Health, and Interprofessional Team Interventions
Review Questions

Publication types

Study Guide

An official website of the United States government

Official websites use .gov A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS A lock ( Lock Locked padlock icon ) or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Publications
Account settings
Advanced Search
Journal List

Comparison of Personality among Mothers with Different Parenting Styles

Bita bahrami, behrooz dolatshahi, abbas pourshahbaz, parvaneh mohammadkhani.

Author information
Article notes
Copyright and License information

Corresponding Author: Address: Department of Clinical Psychology, University of Social Welfare and Rehabilitation Sciences, Kodakyar Ave., Daneshjo Blvd., Evin, Post Code: 1985713834, Tehran, Iran. Tel: 98-2122180045, Fax: 98-2122180045, Email: [email protected]

Received 2017 Jul 10; Revised 2018 May 12; Accepted 2018 May 26.

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ ) which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Objective: Mothers have an important role in child- rearing, and maternal personality has theoretically been considered as the most inﬂuential factor determining the parenting style, because it is thought to affect parental behavior. However, the influence of personality on parenting styles has received surprisingly little attention. The aim of the present study was to compare personality components among mothers with authoritative, authoritarian, and permissive parenting styles.

Method : Using a multistage random cluster sampling method, we selected 8 kindergartens in Tehran. The sample consisted of 270 mothers with preschool children aged 4 to 6 who completed the NEO and Parental Authority Style Questionnaire.

Results: Results revealed significant differences among the authoritative, authoritarian, and permissive styles in personality characteristics. There were significant differences between groups in extraversion (f(2,267) = 151.65, p≤0.0001 ), agreeableness (f(2,267)=215.23, p≤0.0001 ), conscientiousness (f(2,267)=336.016, p≤0.0001 ), neuroticism (f(2,267)=1151.1, p≤0.0001 ), and openness to experience (f(2,267)=110.8, p≤0.0001 ).

Conclusion: This study revealed the significant role of personality in parenting style.

Key Words: Authoritarian , Authoritative , Parenting , Parenting Style , Personality , Permissive

Parenting styles are patterns for children's training that are created by the normative interaction of parents and how they response to children's behavior ( 1 , 2 ). Psychologists have identified 4 major parenting styles: authoritative, authoritarian, neglectful/uninvolved, and permissive. Authoritative parenting is a parenting style characterized by high affection and moderate demands of parents. Authoritarian parenting is a strict parenting style characterized by high demands but low responsiveness of parents. They immediately react to misbehaviors of children. ( 3 , 4 ).

Permissive parents show much affection, responsiveness, and support to their children, but little control ( 5 ). However, neglectful parents provide neither support nor control to their children ( 6 ).

Researchers have shown that parenting styles are associated with child development outcomes ( 3 , 4 ).

Authoritative parenting has been linked to a number of positive outcomes in children, for example: secure parent-child attachment ( 7 , 8 ), fewer behavior problems ( 9 ), more prosocial behaviors ( 10 ), and more positive peer relationships ( 11 ).

Children of authoritarian parenting are apt to possess poor decision- making and low self-esteem, poor social skills and academic competence ( 12 , 13 ), low creativity level, and mental problems such as depression ( 14 ) and behavioral issues ( 15 ), fear of failure, emotional suppression, and, difficulty in handling negative emotions ( 16 ). One of the consequences of permissive parenting for children is a lack of self-control and the development of egocentric behavior ( 5 ). Neglectful parenting often leads to more antisocial behavior in children ( 6 ).

In the past few decades, Belsky ( 17 ) presented a process model for research on the determinants of parenting style. According to this model, parenting behavior is determined by the interplay of 3 different domains: the personal characteristics of the parent (e.g., personality traits and attachment style), the personal characteristics of the child (e.g., temperament), and the social contextual inﬂuences of stress and support (e.g., social support, marital satisfaction) ( 18 ). In accordance with Belsky’s model, parental personality was considered the most theoretically substantial cause of parenting because it is thought to affect parental behavior both directly and indirectly ( 19 , 20 ).

Baumrind and Black ( 21 ) found that parents who were controlling, demanding, loving, and communicative had preschool children who were self-controlled, self-reliant, and assertive. They also found that parents who were controlling but detached had unhappy and disaffiliated preschool children, while parents who were relatively warm, but non-controlling and non-demanding had the least self-reliant and self-controlled group of preschool children. Also, some studies have described the relationship between parents’ personality and specific child problem behaviors such as antisocial behaviors and depression ( 22 - 25 ).

Despite the presumed importance of parental personality and its effect on children’s development and adjustment, its contribution to the quality of parenting has received little attention in empirical research ( 19 , 20 ). Also, the literature on the associations between personality and parenting styles has not produced the same picture of how personality components relate to parenting behavior, and the results of these researches are incongruent. For example, Losoya et al. ( 26 ) found that openness (one component of personality) was associated with more positive support and less negative control, reported by parents, however, Clark et al. ( 27 ) found that openness to experience was not associated with observed responsiveness or power assertion with toddlers. Moreover, the literature has examined links between personality and parenting. However, more studies are needed to evaluate how variations in the personality of the nonclinical population relate to differences in parenting ( 28 , 29 ). Thus, the main aim of the present study was to compare personality components among mothers with different parenting styles in Iran.

Materials and Methods

This was a cross-sectional study. The statistic community of this study was all mothers in Tehran that had preschool children aged 4 to 6 years old. Based on Cochran’s sample size formula (Variance = 0.5, confidence interval: 0.90%, d = 0.05, Z0.05 = 1.64), a sample size of 270 participants was required. In this study, participants were recruited from 8 kindergartens from 22 districts of Tehran, Iran using multistage random cluster sampling method during 6 months (spring and autumn 2016). Mothers of preschoolers were given verbal and written information about the study. The questionnaires were administered and data were analyzed using SPSS software Version 19 and MANOVA test.

This was a causal-comparative study. A total of 8 kindergartens were selected from all kindergartens in Tehran using a multistage sampling method (stratified random cluster) in which each region in Tehran was considered as a stratum and each kindergarten as a cluster. The research questionnaires were distributed among almost 500 mothers of preschool children and 270 were returned, indicating a participation rate of 54%. The study was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the University of Social Welfare and Rehabilitation Sciences (via approval No.USWR.REC. Dated July 2015), Tehran, Iran.

Trained researcher (first author) explained the purpose and significance of the study to each mother. All participants were informed that participation was voluntary and that their responses would be confidential. After obtaining informed written consent, the research questionnaires package was given to the mothers who agreed to participate in the study. All participants completed the research questionnaires in the presence of researchers, and any questions that they had were answered.

Measurements

The NEO-Five Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI) ( 30 )

The NEO five-factor inventory (NEO-FFI) was developed by Costa & McCrae ( 30 ) in Maryland in 1985. This questionnaire consists of 60 questions with five-point Likert scaling (1 = strongly disagree, 2 = disagree, 3 = neutral, 4 = agree, and 5 = strongly agree) and examines 5 scopes of personality traits including openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. The content validity of NEO Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI) was confirmed by Costa & McCrae ( 30 ), and the reliability of neuroticism, extraversion and openness to experience, agreeableness, and conscientiousness was found to be 0.90, 0.78, 0.76, 0.86 and 0.90, respectively. In Iran, the five-factor structure of this questionnaire was generally confirmed by Garousi Farshi et al. ( 31 ), and the internal consistency reliability coefficients were reported to be 0.86, 0.73, 0.56, 0.68 and 0.87, respectively, by the measure of Cronbach’s alpha. Agreeableness, neuroticism, conscientiousness, openness to experience, and extraversion had acceptable Cronbach’s alpha coefficients in this study (0.7, 0.87, 0.85, 0.96 and 0.75).

Parental Authority Questionnaire (PAQ) ( 32 )

In this study, we used a questionnaire relying upon Buri’s ( 32 ) PAQ (Parental Authority Questionnaire) developed to measure the parenting styles according to Baumrind’s ( 21 ) conceptualization (permissive, authoritarian, authoritative). Buri’s questionnaire consists of 30 items, 10 dedicated to each parenting style. The questionnaire was translated into Persian and validated by Esfandiyari et al. (1995). Reliability and validity of the questionnaire have been confirmed ( 32 ). The internal consistency reliability using Cronbach coefficient alpha formula was 0.82 for the authoritarian style. The parental authority scale was based on Likert scale, ranging from 1 (completely disagree) to 5 (completely agree). This grade is calculated by adding the scores of respective questions related to each style. The score for each parenting type can range from 10 to 50. Higher scores in each type indicate that parents are more likely to practice that parenting style with their children. The Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient for permissive, authoritarian, and authoritative styles was 0.85, 0.92 and 0.96, respectively.

The data were analyzed by SPSS 19. The results of parenting styles analyses showed that 46 mothers had a permissive parenting style (17%), 67 had an authoritarian parenting (24.8%) style, and 157 had an authoritative parenting (58.1%) style. The mean age of mothers was 35.29, SD = 4.46, and it was 5.03, SD =.86 for children.

Also, descriptive analyzes and MANOVA test were used to examine the hypothesis. The result of Descriptive analyzes data presented in table 1 and the other one at table 2 and 3 .

Means and Standard Deviations for Maternal Personality Components in 3 Parenting Styles

According to Table 1 , authoritative mothers had the lowest mean in neuroticism and the highest in extraversion, openness to experience, and agreeableness. The authoritarian mothers had the lowest mean in extraversion, openness to experience, and agreeableness and the highest mean in neuroticism and conscientiousness.

MANOVA test for Comparison of Maternal Personality Components in 3 Parenting Styles

According to Table 2 , there were significant differences between groups in extraversion (f(2,267) = 151.65, p≤0.0001 ), agreeableness (f(2,267)=215.23, p≤0.0001 ), conscientiousness (f(2,267)=336.016, p≤0.0001 ), neuroticism (f(2,267)=1151.1, p≤0.0001 ), and openness to experience (f(2,267)=110.8, p≤0.0001 ). The Bonferroni test was administered to make dyadic comparisons.

Dyadic Comparisons of Groups in Personality Components (Bonferroni Test)

According to this table, the differences between groups were significant (p≤0.0001) in all the personality components, except for the differences between the permissive and authoritarian styles in extraversion (MD =.61, P>0.05), openness to new experience (MD = -.22, P>0.05), and agreeableness (MD=-1.59, P>0.05).

The present study examined the role of parents’ personality in parenting style by comparing personality characteristics in Iranian mothers who had different parenting styles. Findings supported the effect of personality on parenting styles. Our finding showed that authoritative mothers had high scores in extraversion, openness to experience, and conscientiousness, and a low score in neuroticism, but authoritarian and permissive mothers had high scores in neuroticism.

Previous studies indicated that mothers who were high in authoritarian and permissive parenting had high scores in neuroticism. Neuroticism has received the most attention in the literature with regards to parenting manners ( 33 ). People high in neuroticism tend to become easily nervous, tense, anxious, and lack emotional stability. These characteristics are likely to interfere with sensitive parenting because parents high in neuroticism may become focused on themselves, which may not allow them to be sensitive to their children’s needs. The result of the present study showed that authoritative parents have a low score on this characteristic. So, they can have a moderate control over their children.

Also, there was a significant difference between groups in extraversion. Authoritative mothers had a high score in extraversion, but permissive and authoritarian mothers obtained low scores. Mothers high on extraversion may be expected to be more sensitive to their toddlers’ cues because people high on extraversion tend to be energetic, affectionate, talkative, and optimistic. Extraverted individuals love social interactions, which could include interactions with children. Smith et al. ( 9 ) found that extraversion was correlated with parental reports of positive emotional expressiveness towards their 24-month old children ( 34 ).

Rothbart, Ahadi, and Evans ( 35 ) found that individuals high in extraversion were high in adult temperament factors including activity level, pleasure reactivity, sociability, and high-intensity pleasure. The results of the present study showed that authoritative parents have a high score on this characteristic. So, they can show more affection and love to their children.

Another finding of this study indicated that agreeableness is higher in authoritative mothers than in permissive and authoritarian ones. Agreeableness is the desire to maintain positive social relationships and act in ways that promote those relationships. Graziano et al. have found that students and adolescents high in agreeableness were less competitive and more likely to do techniques focused on the agreement. These findings support the opinion that the personality dimension of agreeableness develops behaviors to support and enhance social interactions. Individuals with higher levels of agreeableness would exhibit more sensitive and less intrusive parenting, as they are better able to follow the cues of others and seek to sustain welcome interactions with their children. This has been substantiated in the research, as mothers with higher levels of agreeableness were found to show more sensitive parenting behaviors and more positive emotional expressions during free play with their 18-month old toddlers ( 9 ). Agreeableness was negatively correlated with parental reports of negative mood and observed negative affect with toddlers. Researchers have found that disagreeableness was positively correlated with power assertion and detachment and negatively correlated with sensitivity and warmth, as assessed using videotaped interaction ( 28 ). In addition, it has been found that mothers who reported lower levels of agreeableness were observed to be more detached from their 9-month old infants ( 19 ). Additionally, empathy may be a facet of agreeableness ( 36 ) and could facilitate a parent’s ability to perceive children’s signals and respond sensitively ( 34 ). Inconsistent with these findings, our authoritative mothers in the sample group with high agreeableness could maintain positive relationships with their preschool children.

Also, the results revealed that openness was higher in authoritative mothers than in permissive and authoritarian ones. In general, those people who are open to experience are high on imagination, intellectual interests, and enjoyment of new experiences. People who are open to experience may be more sensitive as parents. Inconsistent with this study’s finding, Losoya et al. ( 26 ) found that openness to experience was related to more positive support and less negative control in parents of school-aged children. Also, Prinzie et al. ( 37 ) found positive relationships between openness and non-intrusive parenting, sensitivity, and warmth. It was thought that parents higher in openness are likely to view the autonomy of their children in a positive light rather than an offense to parental authority ( 34 , 37 ). According to these explanations, our finding on the high score of authoritative mothers in openness to experience was not surprising.

Finally, findings revealed that authoritarian and authoritative mothers had the highest and a high scores in conscientiousness, respectively. Conscientious people have a high score in constraint, control, responsibility, dependability, and adhering to rules and norms. Clark ( 27 ) found that high conscientiousness was associated with more maternal responsiveness and support. Also, high levels of conscientiousness have been found to be associated with more positive support and less negative control reported by parents of children. These findings support the opinion that organized and purposeful personality traits may facilitate authoritative parenting. Whereas extremely high levels of conscientiousness may place too many demands on young children because it develops standards in parenting rules ( 33 ), and thus may be linked with intrusive or over-controlling behaviors in authoritarian parents.

First, there are many factors such as attachment style, social support, marital satisfaction, work stress, child’s temperament, family socio economic status (SES), and ethnicity ( 7 ) that can affect parenting style. Although the present study could not investigate them, they should be investigated further. Second, this study was administered to mothers only, and conducting a similar study on fathers is also recommended. Also, we solely used self-report measures, and thus future studies should include information gathered via multiple methods (for example, observational methods) to ensure the validity of the study. Finally, small sample size and not controlling the sample’s social class could restrict the generalization of our findings, so replicating this study with larger sample sizes from different social class groups is highly suggested.

This study revealed the significant role of personality in parenting style. Our study improves the understanding of the relationship between personality and parenting styles. According to our finding, the most beneficial parent (with authoritative parenting) would be one who is high in extraversion, openness to experience, and conscientiousness, and low in neuroticism.

Acknowledgment

We express our appreciation to the parents and children who participated in the study and to the principals of the kindergartens and research assistants who contributed to this study.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

1. Diane S Kaplan, Xiaoru Liu, Howard B Kaplan. Family Structure and Parental Involvement in the Intergenerational Parallelism of School Adversity. Pages 235-244, published online: 01 Apr 2010. [ Google Scholar ]
2. Desjardins J, Zelenski JM, Coplan RJ. an investigation of maternal personality, Parenting styles and subjective well-being. Person. & Individual Diff. 2008;44:587–597. [ Google Scholar ]
3. Sherr L, Macedo A, Cluver L, Meinck F, Skeen S, Hensels I, et al. Parenting, the other oldest profession in the world–a cross-sectional study of parenting and child outcomes in South Africa and Malawi. Health Psychology and Behavioral Medicine. 2017;5:145–165. doi: 10.1080/21642850.2016.1276459. [ DOI ] [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
4. Haan Md. Parenting in Malawi: An ethnographic study of the parenting attitudes and behaviors of parents in Malawi. 2017. [ Google Scholar ]
5. Parenting styles and adolescents. Informally published manuscript, Cooperative Extension, Cornell University, Ithaca. Kopko, K: 2007. [ Google Scholar ]
6. Knutson JF1, DeGarmo D, Koeppl G, Reid JB. Care neglect, supervisory neglect, and harsh parenting in the development of children's aggression: a replication and extension. Child Maltreat. 2005;10:92–107. doi: 10.1177/1077559504273684. [ DOI ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
7. Ainsworth MD, Blehar MC, Waters E, Wall S. Patterns of attachment: A psychological study of the strange situation. Hillsdale NJ: Erlbaum; 1978. [ Google Scholar ]
8. De Wolff MS, van Ijzendoorn MH. Sensitivity and attachment: A meta-analysis on parental antecedents of infant attachment. Child Dev. 1997;68:571–91. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
9. Smith CL, Calkins SD, Keane SP, Anastopoulos AD, Shelton TL. Predicting stability and change in toddler behavior problems: Contributions of maternal behavior and child gender. Developmental Psychology. 2004;40:29–42. doi: 10.1037/0012-1649.40.1.29. [ DOI ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
10. Janssens J M AM, Dekovic M. Child rearing, prosocial moral reasoning, and prosocial behaviour. International Journal of Behavioral Development. 1997;20:509–527. [ Google Scholar ]
11. Mize J1, Pettit GS. Mothers’ social coaching, mother-child relationship style and children’s peer competence: Is the medium the message? Child Dev. 1997;68:312–332. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
12. Cohen DA, Rice J. Parenting styles, adolescent substance use, and academic achievement. J Drug Educ. 1997;27:199–211. doi: 10.2190/QPQQ-6Q1G-UF7D-5UTJ. [ DOI ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
13. Leung K, Lau S, Lam W-L. Parenting styles and academic achievement: A cross-cultural study. 1998;Merrill-Palmer Quarterly:157–172. [ Google Scholar ]
14. King KA, Vidourek RA, Merianos AL. Authoritarian parenting and youth depression: Results from a national study. J Prev Interv Community. 2016;44:130–139. doi: 10.1080/10852352.2016.1132870. [ DOI ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
15. Thompson A, Hollis C, Richards D. Authoritarian parenting attitudes as a risk for conduct problems. European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. 2003;12:84–91. doi: 10.1007/s00787-003-0324-4. [ DOI ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
16. Uji M, Sakamoto A, Adachi K, Kitamura T. The impact of authoritative, authoritarian, and permissive parenting styles on children’s later mental health in Japan: Focusing on parent and child gender. J Child Fam Stud. 2014;23:293–302. [ Google Scholar ]
17. Belsky J. The determinants of parenting: A process model. Child Dev. 1984;55:83–96. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8624.1984.tb00275.x. [ DOI ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
18. Sevigny PR, Loutzenhiser L. Predictors of parenting self‐efficacy in mothers and fathers of toddlers. Child Care Health Dev. 2010;36:179–189. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2214.2009.00980.x. [ DOI ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
19. Belsky J, Crnic K, Woodworth S. Personality and parenting: Exploring the mediating role of transient mood and daily hassles. J Pers. 1995;63:905–929. [ Google Scholar ]
20. Van Bakel HJA, Riksen-Walraven JMA. Parenting and development of one-year-olds: Links with parental, contextual, and child characteristics. Child Development. 2002;73:256–273. doi: 10.1111/1467-8624.00404. [ DOI ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
21. Baumrind D. Child Care Practices Anteceding Three Patterns of Preschool Behavior. Genet Psychol Monogr. 1967;75:43–88. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
22. Bates JE, Pettit GS, Dodge KA, Ridge B, McCord J. Coercion and punishment in long-term perspectives. New York: Cambridge University Press; 1995. Family and child factors in stability and change in children’s aggressiveness in elementary school. [ Google Scholar ]
23. Brenning K, Soenens B, Braet C, Bosmans G. The role of depressogenic personality and attachment in the intergenerational similarity of depressive symptoms: a study with early adolescents and their mothers. Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2011;37:284–297. doi: 10.1177/0146167210393533. [ DOI ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
24. Levy MB, Davis KE. Lovestyles and attachment styles compared: Their relations to each other and to various relationship characteristics. Journal of social and Personal Relationships. 1988;5:439–471. [ Google Scholar ]
25. Lee SJ, Cloninger CR, Hyun Park S, Chae H. The association of parental temperament and character on their children’s behavior problems. PeerJ. 2015;3:e1464. doi: 10.7717/peerj.1464. [ DOI ] [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
26. Losoya SH, Callor S, Rowe DC, Goldsmith HH. Origins of familial similarity in parenting: A study of twins and adoptive siblings. Dev Psychol. 1997;33:1012–1023. doi: 10.1037//0012-1649.33.6.1012. [ DOI ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
27. Clark LA, Kochanska G, Ready R. Mothers’ personality and its interaction with child temperament as predictors of parenting behavior. J Pers Soc Psychol. 2000;79:274–285. doi: 10.1037//0022-3514.79.2.274. [ DOI ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
28. Kochanska G, Friesenborg AE, Lange LA, Martel MM, Kochanska G. Parents’ personality and infants’ temperament as contributors to their emerging relationship. J Pers Soc Psychol. 2004;86:744–759. doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.86.5.744. [ DOI ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
29. Bornstein MH, Hahn C-S, Haynes OM. Maternal personality, parenting cognitions, and parenting practices. Dev Psychol. 2011;47:658–675. doi: 10.1037/a0023181. [ DOI ] [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
30. Costa PT Jr, McCrae RR. Longitudinal stability of adult personality. In: R. Hogan R, Johnson J, Briggs S., editors. Handbook of personality psychology. New York: Academic Press; 1997. [ Google Scholar ]
31. Garousi Farshi M, Mehriar A, Ghazi Tabatabai M. [The use of neo personality test and analysis of features and its factor structure among Iranian university students (In Persain)] J Humanities Res Alzahra. 2001;11:173–198. [ Google Scholar ]
32. Buri JR. Parental authority questionnaire. J Pers Assess. 1991;57:110–119. doi: 10.1207/s15327752jpa5701_13. [ DOI ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
33. Belsky J, Barends N. Personality and parenting. In: Bornstein MH, editor. Handbook of parenting: Vol. 3. Being and becoming a parent. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates; 2002. [ Google Scholar ]
34. Haddad, Diana. "Maternal Personality, Stress, and Parenting Behaviors". ETD Collection for Pace University; 2015. AAI3662950. [ Google Scholar ]
35. Rothbart M, Ahadi S, Hershey K, Fisher P. Investigations of temperament at 3-7 years: The Children7s Behavior Questionnaire. Child Dev. 2001;72:1394–1408. doi: 10.1111/1467-8624.00355. [ DOI ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
36. Watson D, Wiese D, Vaidya J, Tellegen A. The two general activation systems of affect: Structural findings, evolutionary considerations, and psychobiological evidence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 1999;76:820–838. [ Google Scholar ]
37. Prinzie P, Stams GJ, Deković M, Reijntjes AH, Belsky J. The relations between parents' Big Five personality factors and parenting: a meta-analytic review. J Pers Soc Psychol. 2009;97:351–362. doi: 10.1037/a0015823. [ DOI ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
PDF (465.5 KB)
Collections

Add to Collections

Parenting Styles and Child Well-Being

Reference work entry
pp 2173–2196
Cite this reference work entry

María José Rodrigo 5 ,
Sonia Byrne 5 &
Beatriz Rodríguez 5

1485 Accesses

4 Citations

The main objective of this chapter is to examine the changing views of socialization as they shape the task of parenting and define the standards of child well-being. Socialization is defined as the process by which children acquire the social, emotional, and cognitive skills needed to function in the social community. In turn, well-being is defined as a form of cognitive, affective, and social growth during human development that leads to a positive adjustment to given societal circumstances (e.g., rules, norms, and societal expectations). In this sense, well-being involves self-regulatory processes that help maintain and regain our normal level of subjective well-being in the face of developmental challenges. The chapter begins with the description of classical models of socialization that see children as being shaped by unidirectional influences from significant caregivers. Then it reviews a number of critical considerations that place the traditional models under more transcultural grounds and provides some extensions to the notion of parental control. Next, the chapter discusses the bidirectional models in parent-child relationships that underscore the influence of children’s views and actions on their parents and describes a new integrative account on parenting styles and child outcomes. The chapter ends by illustrating how recent family policies converge with the new socialization approaches proposed by scholars in the field. It seems that laymen, researchers, and policy-makers are, at last, endorsing a view of positive parenting that places the focus on the development of parent-child relationships to optimize the child’s development and well-being.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Subscribe and save.

Get 10 units per month
Download Article/Chapter or eBook
1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
Cancel anytime
Available as PDF
Read on any device
Instant download
Own it forever
Available as EPUB and PDF
Durable hardcover edition
Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Future Directions for Research, Policy, and Practice

The importance of parenting in influencing the lives of children.

Universal ingredients to parenting teens: parental warmth and autonomy support promote adolescent well-being in most families

Baldwin, A. L. (1955). Behavior and development in childhood . New York: Dryden Press.

Google Scholar

Barber, B. K. (1996). Parental psychological control: Revisiting a neglected construct. Child Development, 67 , 3296–3319.

Article Google Scholar

Barber, B. K. (2002). Reintroducing parental psychological control. In B. K. Barber (Ed.), Intrusive parenting: How psychological control affects children and adolescents (pp. 3–13). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Chapter Google Scholar

Barber, B. K., & Harmon, E. L. (2002). Violating the self: Parental psychological control of children and adolescents. In B. K. Barber (Ed.), Intrusive parenting: How psychological control affects children and adolescents (pp. 15–52). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Barber, B. K., Olsen, J. E., & Shagle, S. C. (1994). Associations between parental psychological and behavioral control and youth internalized and externalized behaviors. Child Development, 65 , 1120–1136.

Barber, B. K., Stoltz, H. E., & Olsen, J. A. (2005). Parental support, psychological control, and behavioral control: assessing relevance across time, culture, and method. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 70 , 1–137.

Barnett, M. A., Quackenbush, S. W., & Sinisi, C. S. (1996). Factors affecting children’s, adolescents’, and young adults’ perceptions of parental discipline. Journal of Genetic Psychology, 157 , 411–424.

Baumrind, D. (1967). Child-care practices anteceding three patterns of preschool behavior. Genetic Psychology Monographs, 75 , 43–88.

Baumrind, D. (1971). Current patterns of parental authority. Developmental Psychology, 4 , 1–103.

Baumrind, D. (1989). Rearing competent children. In W. Damon (Ed.), Child development today and tomorrow (pp. 349–378). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Baumrind, D. (1991). The influence of parenting style on adolescent competence and substance use. Journal of Early Adolescence, 11 , 56–95.

Baumrind, D. (1996). The discipline controversy revisited. Family Relations, 45 , 405–414.

Becker, W. C. (1964). Consequences of different kinds of parental discipline. In M. L. Hoffman & L. W. Hoffman (Eds.), Review of child development research (pp. 169–208). New York: Russell Sage.

Bugental, D. B. (2000). Acquisition of the algorithms of social life: A domain-based approach. Psychological Bulletin, 26 , 187–209.

Bugental D.B., & Grusec, J.E. (2006). Socialization theory. In N. Eisenberg (Vol. Ed.), Handbook of child psychology: Vol. 3. Social, emotional, and personality development (pp. 366–428). New York: Wiley.

Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe: Recommendation 19 (2006). Available from http://www.coe.int/t/dg3/youthfamily .

Crouter, A. C., & Head, M. R. (2002). Parental monitoring and knowledge of children. In M. H. Bornstein (Ed.), Handbook of parenting (Being and becoming a parent 2nd ed., Vol. 3, pp. 461–483). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Daly, M. (2007). Parenting in contemporary Europe: A positive approach . Strasbourg: Council of Europe.

Darling, N., & Steinberg, L. (1993). Parenting style as context: An integrative model. Psychological Bulletin, 113 , 487–496.

Darling, N., Cumsille, P., Caldwell, L. L., & Dowdy, B. (2006). Predictors of adolescents’ disclosure strategies and perceptions of parental knowledge. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 35 , 667–678.

Daro, D., & Dodge, K. (2009). Creating community responsibility for child protection: Possibilities and challenges. The Future of Children, 19 , 67–94.

Davidov, M., & Grusec, J. E. (2006). Untangling the links of parental responsiveness to distress and warmth to child outcomes. Child Development, 77 , 44–58.

Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (1985). The general causality orientations scale: Self-determination in personality. Journal of Research in Personality, 19 , 109–134.

DeMause, L. (2002). The emotional life of nations . New York: Karnac.

Dusek, J. B., & Danko, M. (1994). Adolescent coping styles and perceptions of parental child rearing. Journal of Adolescent Research, 9 , 412–426.

Eisenberg, N., Wentzel, N. M., & Harris, J. D. (1998). The role of emotionality and regulation in empathy-related responding. School Psychology Review, 27 , 506–521.

Fiese, B. H., Tomcho, T., Douglas, M., Josephs, K., Poltrock, S., & Baker, T. (2002). Fifty years of research on naturally occurring rituals: Cause for celebration? Journal of Family Psychology, 16 , 381–390.

Finkenauer, C., Frijns, T., Engels, R. C. M. E., & Kerkhof, P. (2005). Perceiving concealment in relationships between parents and adolescents: Links with parental behavior. Personal Relationships, 12 , 387–406.

Fletcher, A. C., Darling, N. E., Steinberg, L., & Dornbusch, S. (1995). The company they keep: Relation of adolescents’ adjustment and behavior to their friends’ perceptions of authoritative parenting in the social network. Developmental Psychology, 31 , 300–310.

Furstenberg, F. F., Jr., Cook, T. D., Eccles, J., Elder, G. H., Jr., & Sameroff, A. (1999). Managing to make it: Urban families and adolescent success . Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Galambos, N. L., Barker, E. T., & Almeida, D. M. (2003). Parents do matter: Trajectories of change in externalizing and internalizing problems in early adolescence. Child Development, 74 , 578–594.

Gauvain, M., & Pérez, S. M. (2007). The socialization of cognition. In J. Grusec & P. Hastings (Eds.), Handbook of socialization: Theory and research (pp. 588–613). New York: Guilford.

Gershoff, E. T. (2002). Corporal punishment by parents and associated child behaviors and experiences: A meta-analytic and theoretical review. Psychological Bulletin, 128 , 539–579.

Gray, M. R., & Steinberg, L. (1999). Unpacking authoritative parenting: Reassessing a multidimensional construct. Journal of Marriage & the Family, 61 , 574–587.

Grolnick, W., Benjet, C., Kurowski, C., & Apostoleris, N. (1997). Predictors of parent involvement in children’s schooling. Journal of Educational Psychology, 89 , 538–548.

Grolnick, W. S., Price, C. E., Beiswenger, K., & Sauck, C. C. (2007). Evaluative pressure in parents: Effects of situation, maternal, and child characteristics on autonomy-supportive versus controlling behavior. Developmental Psychology, 43 , 991–1002.

Grusec, J. E., & Davidov, M. (2010). Integrating different perspectives on socialization theory and research: A domain-specific approach. Child Development, 81 , 687–709.

Grusec, J. E., & Goodnow, J. J. (1994). Impact of parental discipline methods on the child’s internalization of values: A reconceptualization of current points of view. Developmental Psychology, 30 , 4–19.

Halpenny, A. M., Nixon, E., & Watson, D. (2009). Parents’ Perspectives on parenting styles and disciplining children . Dublin: Office of the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs.

Harkness, S., & Super, C. M. (1992). Parental ethnotheories in action. In I. Sigel, A. V. McGillicuddy-DeLisi, & J. J. Goodnow (Eds.), Parental belief systems: The psychological consequences for children (pp. 373–392). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Harkness, S., & Super, C. M. (2005). Themes and variations: Parental ethnotheories in western cultures. In K. H. Rubin & O. Chung (Eds.), Parental beliefs, parenting, and child development in cross-cultural perspective (pp. 61–79). New York: Psychology Press.

Harkness, S., Super, C. M., Moscardino, U., Rha, J., Blom, M. J., Huitrón, B., Johnston, C. A., Sutherland, M., Hyun, O., Axia, G., & Palacios, J. (2007). Cultural models and developmental agendas: implications for arousal and self-regulation in early infancy. Journal of Developmental Processes, 2 , 5–39.

Harkness, S., Super, C. M., Barry, O., Zeitlin, M., Long, J., & Sow, S. (2009). Assessing the environment of children’s learning: The developmental niche in Africa. In E. Grigorenko (Ed.), Assessment of abilities and competencies in the era of globalization (pp. 133–155). New York: Springer.

Hoffman, M. L. (1960). Power assertion by the parent and its impact on the child. Child Development, 34 , 129–143.

Hoffman, M. L. (1963). Parent discipline and the child’s consideration for others. Child Development, 34 , 573–588.

Hoffman, M. L. (1970). Moral development. In P. H. Mussen (Ed.), Carmichael’s manual of child psychology (3rd ed., Vol. 2, pp. 261–359). New York: Wiley.

Hoffman, M. L. (1984). Parental discipline, moral internalization, and development of prosocial motivation. In E. Staub, D. Bar-Tal, J. J. Karylowski, & J. J. Reykowski (Eds.), Development and maintenance of prosocial behavior (pp. 117–137). New York: Plenum Press.

Hoffman, M. L. (1988). Moral development. In M. Bornstein & M. Lamb (Eds.), Developmental psychology: An advanced textbook (pp. 497–548). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Hoffman, M. L. (2000). Empathy and moral development: implications for caring and justice . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Book Google Scholar

Kerr, M., & Stattin, H. (2000). What parents know, how they know it, and several forms of adolescent adjustment: further support for a reinterpretation of monitoring. Developmental Psychology, 36 , 366–380.

Kerr, M., Stattin, H., & Trost, K. (1999). To know you is to trust you: Parents’ trust is rooted in child disclosure of information. Journal of Adolescence, 22 , 737–752.

Kerr, M., Stattin, H., Biesecker, G., & Ferrer-Wreder, L. (2003). Relationships with parents and peers in adolescence. In R. M. Lerner, M. A. Easterbrooks, & J. Mistry (Eds.), Handbook of psychology (Developmental psychology, Vol. 6, pp. 395–422). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

Kuczynski, L., & Parkin, C. M. (2007). Agency and bidirectionality in socialization: Interactions, transactions, and relational dialectics. In J. E. Grusec & P. Hanstings (Eds.), Handbook of socialization (pp. 259–283). New York: Guilford Press.

Lamborn, S. D., Mounts, N. S., Steinberg, L., & Dornbusch, S. M. (1991). Patterns of competence and adjustment among adolescents from authoritative, authoritarian, indulgent, and neglectful families. Child Development, 62 , 1049–1065.

Lamborn, S. D., Dornbusch, S. M., & Steinberg, L. D. (1996). Ethnicity and community context as moderators of the relations between family decision making and adolescent adjustment. Child Development, 67 , 283–301.

Maccoby, E. E. (2007). Historical overview of socialization research and theory. In J. E. Grusec & P. D. Hastings (Eds.), Handbook of socialization: Theory and research (pp. 13–41). New York: Guilford Press.

Maccoby, E. E., & Martin, J. A. (1983). Socialization in the context of the family: Parent–child interaction. In P. H. Mussen & E. M. Hetherington (Eds.), Handbook of child psychology (Socialization, personality, and social development 4th ed., Vol. 4, pp. 1–101). New York: Wiley.

Magnus, K. B., Cowen, E. L., Wyman, P. A., Fagen, D. B., & Work, W. C. (1999). Correlates of resilient outcomes among highly stressed African-American and white urban children. Journal of Community Psychology, 27 , 473–488.

Mason, C. A., Walker-Barnes, C. J., Tu, S., Simons, J., & Martinez-Arrue, R. (2004). Ethnic differences in the affective meaning of parental control behaviors. Journal of Primary Prevention, 25 , 59–79.

Moreno, C., Ramos, P., Rivera, F., Jimenez-Iglesias, A., Garcia-Moya, I., & Sanchez-Queija, I. (2011). Las conductas relacionadas con la salud y el desarrollo de los adolescentes españoles. Resultados del Estudio HBSC-2010 con chicos y chicas españoles de 11 a 17 años . Madrid: Ministerio de Sanidad, Política Social e Igualdad.

Morrow, V. (2010). Measuring children’s wellbeing: Some problems and possibilities. In A. Morgan, M. Davies, & E. Ziglio (Eds.), Health assets in a global context: Theory methods action (pp. 145–164). New York: Springer.

Rodrigo, M. J. (2010). Promoting positive parenting in Europe: New challenges for the European Society of Developmental Psychology. The European Journal of Developmental Psychology, 7 , 281–294.

Rodrigo, M. J., Janssens, J. M. A. M., & Ceballos, E. (1999). Do children’s perceptions and attributions mediate the effects of mothers’ child-rearing actions? Journal of Family Psychology, 13 , 508–522.

Rodrigo, M. J., Byrne, S., & Álvarez, M. (2012). Preventing child maltreatment through parenting programs implemented at the local social services level. The European Journal of Developmental Psychology, 9 , 89–103.

Rodríguez, G., Rodrigo, M. J., Janssens, J. M. A. M., & Triana, B. (2011). Maternal conceptions of the parenting role and mother–child collaborative behaviors in at-risk context. The European Journal of Developmental Psychology, 8 , 389–402.

Rogoff, B. (1990). Apprenticeship in thinking: Cognitive development in social context . New York: Oxford University Press.

Rubin, K. H., & Coplan, R. J. (2004). Paying attention to and not neglecting social withdrawal and social isolation. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 50 , 506–534.

Schaefer, E. S. (1959). A circumplex model for maternal behavior. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 59 , 226–235.

Sears, R. R., Maccoby, E. E., & Levin, H. (1957). Patterns of child rearing . Oxford, UK: Row, Peterson and Co.

Siegal, M., & Cowen, J. (1984). Appraisals of intervention: The mother’s versus the culprit’s behavior as determinants of children’s evaluations of discipline techniques. Child Development, 55 , 1760–1766.

Smetana, J. G. (1995). Morality in context: Abstractions, ambiguities and applications. In R. Vasta (Ed.), Annals of child development: A research annual (Vol. 10, pp. 83–130). London: Jessica Kingsley.

Smetana, J. G. (2000). Middle-class African American adolescents’ and parents’ conceptions of parental authority and parenting practices: A longitudinal investigation. Child Development, 71 , 1672–1686.

Smetana, J. G., Villalobos, M., Tasopoulos-Chan, M., Gettman, D. C., & Campione-Barr, N. (2009). Early and middle adolescents’ disclosure to parents about their activities in different domains. Journal of Adolescence, 32 , 693–713.

Soenens, B., Vansteenkiste, M., Luyten, P., Duriez, B., & Goossens, L. (2005). Maladaptive perfectionistic self-representations: The mediational link between psychological control and adjustment. Personality and Individual Differences, 38 , 487–498.

Soenens, B., Vansteenkiste, M., Luyckx, K., & Goossens, L. (2006). Parenting and adolescent problem behaviors: An integrated model with adolescent self-disclosure and perceived parental knowledge as intervening variables. Developmental Psychology, 42 , 305–318.

Sorbring, E., Deater-Deckard, K., & Palmérus, K. (2006). Girls’ and boys’ perception of mother’s intention in using physical punishment and reasoning as discipline methods. The European Journal of Developmental Psychology, 3 (2), 142–162.

Stattin, H., & Kerr, M. (2000). Parental monitoring: A reinterpretation. Child Development, 71 , 1070–1083.

Staudinger, U. M., & Kunzmann, U. (2005). Positive adult personality development: Adjustment and/or growth? European Psychologist, 10 , 320–329.

Steinberg, L. (2001). We know some things: Adolescent–parent relationships in retrospect and prospect. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 11 , 1–19.

Steinberg, L., Dornbusch, S. M., & Brown, B. B. (1992). Ethnic differences in adolescent achievement: An ecological perspective. American Psychologist, 47 (6), 723–729.

Steinberg, L., Darling, N., & Fletcher, A. C. (1995). Authoritative parenting and adolescent adjustment: An ecological journey. In P. Moen, G. H. Elder Jr., & K. Luscher (Eds.), Examining lives in context: Perspectives on the ecology of human development (pp. 423–466). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Super, C. M., & Harkness, S. (1986). The developmental niche: A conceptualization at the interface of child and culture. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 9 , 545–569.

Super, C. M., & Harkness, S. (2002). Culture structures the environment for development. Human Development, 45 , 270–274.

Tangney, J. P. (2002). Humility. In C. R. Snyder & S. J. Lopez (Eds.), Handbook of positive psychology (pp. 411–419). New York: Oxford University Press.

Vendlinski, M., Silk, J. S., Shaw, D. S., & Lane, T. J. (2006). Ethnic differences in relations between family process and child internalizing problems. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 47 , 960–969.

Wigfield, A., Eccles, J.S., Schiefele, U., Roeser, R., & Davis-Kean, P. (2006). Development of achievement motivation. In W. Damon (Series Ed.) & N. Eisenberg (Vol. Ed.), Handbook of child psychology: Vol. 3. Social, emotional, and personality development (6th ed., pp. 933–1002). New York: John Wiley.

Zabriskie, R. B., & McCormick, B. P. (2001). The influences of family leisure patterns on perceptions of family functioning. Family Relations: Interdisciplinary Journal of Applied Family Studies, 50 , 66–74.

Download references

Acknowledgment

The elaboration of the chapter was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (TRA2009_0145) and by the Canarian Agency for Research, Innovation and Society of Information (SolSubC200801000089).

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

University of La Laguna, La Laguna, Spain

Prof. María José Rodrigo, Sonia Byrne & Dr. Beatriz Rodríguez ( Facultad de Psicología Campus de Guajara )

You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to María José Rodrigo .

Editor information

Editors and affiliations.

Paul Baerwald School of Social Work and The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel

Asher Ben-Arieh

Research Institute of Quality of Life, University of Girona, Girona, Spain

Ferran Casas

Department of Sociology and Human Geography, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway

Ivar Frønes

Department of Anthropology, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, USA

Jill E. Korbin

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

About this entry

Cite this entry.

Rodrigo, M.J., Byrne, S., Rodríguez, B. (2014). Parenting Styles and Child Well-Being. In: Ben-Arieh, A., Casas, F., Frønes, I., Korbin, J. (eds) Handbook of Child Well-Being. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-9063-8_86

Download citation

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-9063-8_86

Publisher Name : Springer, Dordrecht

Print ISBN : 978-90-481-9062-1

Online ISBN : 978-90-481-9063-8

eBook Packages : Humanities, Social Sciences and Law Reference Module Humanities and Social Sciences Reference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences

Share this entry

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Find a journal
Track your research

IMAGES

(PDF) Effect of Parenting Styles on Students' Academic Achievement at
Parenting Styles Concept Comprehensive Study
(PDF) Parenting Styles as Perceived by Parents and Children
What are the Four Types of Parenting Styles? (Hint: One is Best)
⇉Parenting Styles Have an Effect on Children Essay Example
Parenting Styles Research Paper Example

VIDEO

From Gen X to Gen Z, parenting styles compared #shorts
5 Parenting Styles and Their Effects on Life
Differences Between Research Paper, Research Article and Term Paper

COMMENTS

(PDF) Exploring Parenting Styles and Their Impact on ...
Abstract. This research explores the relationship between parenting styles and child development in the community context. It delves into the various parenting styles, including authoritarian ...
Types of Parenting Styles and Effects on Children
Parenting varies widely across families, with cultural backgrounds having a significant role in shaping family dynamics and child-rearing practices. Over the past several years, the demographic makeup of the United States has shifted, driven by immigration, socioeconomic changes, and the rise of single-parent households, all of which influence parenting styles. These changes bring diverse ...
How Parenting Style Influences Children: A Review of Controlling
guiding parenting style is the most effective parenting style, research has neglected to describe where the line is drawn between controlling parenting and guiding parenting, and between guiding parenting and permitting parenting (Baumrind, 1971; Baumrind, 1991; Ishak et al., 2012; Maccoby & Martin, 1983; Milevsky, Schlechter, Netter, & Keehn ...
Parenting Styles: A Closer Look at a Well-Known Concept
Although parenting styles constitute a well-known concept in parenting research, two issues have largely been overlooked in existing studies. In particular, the psychological control dimension has rarely been explicitly modelled and there is limited insight into joint parenting styles that simultaneously characterize maternal and paternal practices and their impact on child development.
PDF Current research on parenting styles, dimensions, and beliefs
Dimensional approaches. In response to the cultural critiques of parenting styles, current research focuses on discrete dimensions of par-enting, providing greater specificity in understanding parenting effects. For instance, behavioral control has been distinguished from psychological control and paren-tal knowledge.
Parenting Styles: A Closer Look at a Well-Known Concept
Although parenting styles constitute a well-known concept in parenting research, two issues have largely been overlooked in existing studies. In particular, the psychological control dimension has ...
Current research on parenting styles, dimensions, and beliefs
Baumrind's influential model of parenting styles describes parenting as a gestalt of integrated parenting practices, best studied using pattern-based approaches [1, 2].Her original description of the authoritative, authoritarian, and permissive parenting styles has been reconceptualized in terms of two orthogonal dimensions of demandingness and responsiveness, leading to the addition of a ...
Parenting styles revisited: A longitudinal person-oriented assessment
The three behavioral pillars of parenting subsume a number of related constructs. Support encompasses behaviors that promote emotional well-being, foster identity development, and cultivate close interpersonal ties between parent and child. Support includes nurturing behaviors that express emotional warmth and psychological acceptance, and reassuring behaviors that encourage individuation and ...
PDF Parenting Styles: A Closer Look at a Well-Known Concept
She introduced a typology with three parenting styles to describe differences in normal parenting behaviors: the authoritarian, author-itative and permissive parenting style. Baumrind (1971) suggested that authoritarian parents try to shape, control, and evaluate their childrens behavior based on the absolute set. '.
Parenting Styles and Parent-Adolescent Relationships: The Mediating
Variations in parenting styles and parent-child relationship qualities are long-standing research topics in developmental and family psychology. Previous research has shown that parenting styles are critical family context factors which are closely related to parent-adolescent relationships . Despite the large number of studies on the ...
Types of Parenting Styles and Effects on Children
Over the past several years, the demographic makeup of the United States has shifted, driven by immigration, socioeconomic changes, and the rise of single-parent households, all of which influence parenting styles. These changes bring diverse cultural, ethnic, and spiritual ideologies into play. According to 2014 US Census Bureau data, 1 ...
Review Parenting styles and Big Five personality traits among
Abstract. The present meta-analysis tested the associations between parenting styles and Big Five personality traits; N = 11,061 adolescents in 28 studies were included. The results provided evidence that authoritative parenting style was positively associated with openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, and agreeableness and ...
Intellectual Structure of Parenting Style Research: A Bibliometric
Abstract. The role of parents in child socialization has been an inquisitive subject of inquiry. Parenting style forms one of the widely adopted lenses through which child-rearing patterns have been conceptualized. Though well-researched, gaps persist in comprehending the core works in the parenting style-child socialization relationship domain ...
(PDF) Parenting styles and its impact on children
Parenting styles and its impact on children -a cross cultural. review with a focus on India. B. R. Sahithya , S. M. Manohari and Raman Vijaya. Department of Psychiatry, St. John 's Medical ...
Comparison of Personality among Mothers with Different Parenting Styles
Results. The data were analyzed by SPSS 19. The results of parenting styles analyses showed that 46 mothers had a permissive parenting style (17%), 67 had an authoritarian parenting (24.8%) style, and 157 had an authoritative parenting (58.1%) style. The mean age of mothers was 35.29, SD = 4.46, and it was 5.03, SD =.86 for children.
Parenting styles: A closer look at a well-known concept.
Although parenting styles constitute a well-known concept in parenting research, two issues have largely been overlooked in existing studies. In particular, the psychological control dimension has rarely been explicitly modelled and there is limited insight into joint parenting styles that simultaneously characterize maternal and paternal practices and their impact on child development. Using ...
Parenting Styles and Their Effect on Child Development and Outcome
Abstract and Figures. Parenting is one of the primary influences on child development. There is extensive research investigating the association between parenting style and child outcome, from ...
Parenting Styles and Child Well-Being
Research based on this model has shown that parenting styles have a significant impact on children's and adolescents' development in many domains (Baumrind 1991, 1996; Dusek and Danko 1994; Fletcher et al. 1995; Gray and Steinberg 1999; Lamborn et al. 1991; Maccoby and Martin 1983; Steinberg 2001). Authoritative parenting has consistently ...
A Qualitative Insight into Parental Styles and Their Outcomes: A
The purpose of this study was to examine the existing trends in research on parenting styles (PS) published in selected professional sources during the period of 2008-2017. Content analysis was ...
(PDF) Parenting Styles
Brittany Olivarez). Using various methods like naturalistic observation, parenting interviews, and many. other, Baumrind identified the following four parenting styles: Authoritative Parenting ...
Nurturing Self-Esteem: Understanding the Role of Parenting Styles
Future research should be undertaken in developing and under-developed countries and should focus on mixed modes of research and examine the direct influence of parenting styles on aggressive ...

StatPearls [Internet].

Affiliations

In this Page

Related information

Similar articles in PubMed

Recent Activity

ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Introduction

Parenting Styles and Parent–Adolescent Relationships

Adolescent Autonomy and Beliefs About Parental Authority

Adolescents’ Expectation for Behavioral Autonomy

Adolescents’ Beliefs About Parental Authority

The Role of Adolescent Gender

Chinese Cultural Context

Materials and Methods

Parenting Styles

Endorsement of Parental Authority

Expectations for Behavioral Autonomy

Parent–Adolescent Conflict

Parent–Adolescent Cohesion

Controlled Variables

Descriptive Statistics

Links With Parenting Styles

Mediating Effects

Moderating Effect of Adolescents’ Gender

Parenting Styles and Relationships With Adolescents

Expectation for Behavioral Autonomy

Legitimacy of Parental Authority

Adolescent Gender

Limitations and Conclusions

Ethics Statement

Author Contributions

Conflict of Interest Statement

Supplementary Material

Types of Parenting Styles and Effects on Children

Publication types

Comparison of Personality among Mothers with Different Parenting Styles

Materials and Methods

Acknowledgment

Conflict of Interest

Similar articles

Add to Collections

Parenting Styles and Child Well-Being

Access this chapter

Similar content being viewed by others

Future Directions for Research, Policy, and Practice

Universal ingredients to parenting teens: parental warmth and autonomy support promote adolescent well-being in most families

Acknowledgment

Author information

Corresponding author

Editor information

Rights and permissions

Copyright information

About this entry

Download citation

Share this entry

IMAGES

VIDEO

COMMENTS