Prosocial behavior in early childhood is a precursor to later adaptive social functioning. This investigation leveraged mother-reported, physiological, and observational data to examine children's prosocial development from age 2 to age 4 (N = 125). Maternal emotion socialization (ES) strategies and children's parasympathetic regulation have each…

Using a longitudinal, prospective adoption design, the authors of this study examined the effects of the environment (adoptive parents' depressive symptoms and responsiveness) and genetic liability of maternal depression (inferred by birth mothers' major depressive disorder [MDD]) on the development of fussiness in adopted children between 9 and…

To explore the link between interparental hostility and adolescent problem behaviors, the current study examines four important maternal parenting dimensions as potential mediators: acceptance, harshness, inconsistency, and psychological intrusiveness. With a primary sample of 1,893 sixth-grade students, the measures included adolescent and…

The adaptive style theory proposes that given a sustained aversive maternal control experience children will come to adopt one of two perceptual orientations toward evaluative cues. This postulate was tested by exposing 78 late adolescent males to an array of evaluative words which they were told came from a maternal source. As predicted,…

A family doll placement technique was used to study separateness and connectedness within the family as this varies over positive and negative emotional themes. As hypothesized, positive emotional themes were represented by closer doll placements than negative themes. Emotions were also characterized by using certain kinds of groupings and…

The objective of this project was to test the effect of the presence of a mother, compared with the presence of an adult female stranger, upon the apprehensiveness of children confronted with novel stimuli. Subjects were 10 children, 3 1/2 to 5 1/2 years old, who were individually placed in a room containing a toy cash register, a marble-race toy,…

A limited comparative study of undergraduate homosexual males and control males were compared on referral source, therapy referral, academic interest and achievement, ordinal position, perceived relationship with parents, and personality adjustment as measured by the MMPI. Several differences were found and implications for treatment were…

Personality theorists have suggested the critical importance of parenting characteristics on the development of a child's personality. Missildine's (1963) classification of parenting characteristics and their effects on the adult personality were investigated using an experimental measure, the Inner Child Inventory (ICI), to assess perceived…

The Parental Bonding Instrument was used to examine the relationship between parenting styles and the psychological distress and offending patterns of a group of young male offenders in Scotland. High levels of psychological distress were linked with low parental care, but there was no association between psychological distress and parental…

Empirical knowledge of coping usage and coping effectiveness has lagged behind popular interest. To examine the effectiveness of specific coping efforts in a single role area--parenting--panel data from a large metropolitan population were examined. The same coping efforts were assessed using two criteria of effectiveness: the extent to which they…

Describes a study based on the hypothesis that there were consistencies in child-rearing practices such that a regular progression would exist in children's performance of coercive responses. Results suggest that schedules of parental punishment covary with performance rates for children's coercive behaviors. (Author/EJT)

A study that compared abusing mothers (n=17) to nonabusing mothers (n=16) of children with conduct problems, found that the abusing mothers exhibited a greater use of emotion-focused coping strategies and less use of effective problem-focused strategies. Abusing mothers also perceived their coping to be more ineffective than the nonabusing…

Reviews the theory and research on the physiological or genetic origins of parenting behavior, noting that an ethological or evolutionary analysis of parenting behavior supports the idea that primates, including man, have evolved psychological structures which are particularly adapted to respond to cues from young children. (Author/JM)

Studied the effects of maternal employment on mother-child relations and children's psychosocial functioning. Mother-son pairs (N=28) were divided into maternal working versus maternal nonworking groups. Groups were observed at home and in a laboratory. Results indicated no significant main effects or interaction effects for maternal working…

Parallels between the abusive parent and the abusive teacher are drawn, demonstrating problem areas that need to be determined in order to stop the abusive behavior. Problems include parent being abused as a child, failure to understand the child, society's attitude toward abuse, environmental stress, and lack of positive role models. (CT)