The Parenting Styles and Dimensions Questionnaire (PSDQ PDF

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See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/284239814 The Parenting Styles and Dimensions Questionnaire (PSDQ) Article · January 2001 CITATIONS READS 79 4,607 4 authors, including: Clyde C. Robinson Susanne Olsen Roper Brigham Young U...

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The Parenting Styles and Dimensions Questionnaire (PSDQ) Article · January 2001

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Psycholo gical Repo rts, 1995, 7 7, 819-8 30.

AUTHORITATIVE, AUTHORITARIAN, AND PERMISSIVE PARENTING PRACTICES: DEVELOPMENT OF A NEW MEASURE1 CLYDE C. ROBINSON, BARBARA MANDLECO, SUSANNE FROST OLSEN, AND CRAIG H. HART Brigham Young University

Summ ary. -- A 133-item parenting questionnaire was completed by 1251 parents of preschool and school-age children. Items in this measure were reduced using principle axes factor analyses followed by varimax rotation. Three global parenting dimensions emerged consistent with Baumrind’s authoritative, authoritarian, and permissive typologies. Internal consistency reliability was assessed with Cronbach alpha and additional items were deleted. A 62-item instrument was retained, and the global parenting dimensions were subsequently analyzed to determine their internal structures using principle axes factor analyses followed by oblique rotation. For each of the three global dimensions a number of specific factors were identified.

Baumrind’s Contribution Baumrind’s (1971) authoritative, authoritarian, and permissive typologies are currently widely employed models of parenting styles. Baumrind originally conceptualized eight types of parents including rejecting-neglecting, nonconforming, authoritative nonconforming, authoritarian-rejecting-neglecting, etc. Baumrind (1991) later discusses sex-role traditional as an additional type of parent. For the purposes of this paper we address the three main types of parenting styles commonly studied (authoritative, authoritarian, permissive). Over the past two decades, research in the United States based on Baumrind’s three major prototypes has yielded a consistent picture of the types of parenting thought to enhance or mitigate the successful socialization of middle-class children. For example, authoritative parenting style has been shown to assist young children and adolescents develop instrumental competence which is characterized by psychosocial maturity, cooperation with peers and adults, responsible independence, and academic success (for reviews, see Baumrind, 1971, 1989, 1991). Many methodological strategies currently used to derive Baumrind’s three main typologies are limited in many respects. The purpose of this report is to introduce findings regarding a new measure designed to assess empirically these typologies for parents of preschool and school-age children. Methodological Strategies and Limitations Baumrind’s conceptualization encompasses parents’ attitudes and values about parenting, their beliefs about the nature of children as well as the specific practices they employ to socialize their children. Baumrind used a multimethod approach to assess parenting styles that included 1

Requests for reprints should be sent to Clyde C. Robinson, Department of Marriage, Family, and Human Development, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT 84604.

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parent rating scales, psychologists’ Q-sorts, and behavioral observations. For research on socialization , however, Baumrind’s approach has several disadvantages. For example, because observations and interviewing are extensive, fewer subjects can be included in studies. In addition, the cost for the approach is high in terms of special training required for data-gathering personnel and the time required for collecting data. A common strategy in assessing Baumrind’s three main typologies has been to obtain adolescents’ reports of parents’ parenting styles (e.g., Buri, 1991; Dornbusch, Ritter, Leiderman, Roberts, & Fraleigh, 1987; Greenberger, 1988; Steinberg, Elmen, & Mounts, 1989; Steinberg, Lamborn, Dornbusch, & Darling, 1992; Steinberg, Mounts, Lamborn, & Dornbusch, 1991). These indirect parenting measures, completed by adolescents and used in assessing adolescent outcomes, eliminate several disadvantages of Baumrind’s approach; however, these particular methods may be unsatisfactory for use with younger children since they are designed particularly for adolescents reporting on how they were parented and academic-related content is often used in the questionnaire items. Specifically, the challenge for preadolescent children is that they may not assess accurately their parents’ parenting practices. Thus, a widely used parenting practices instrument, developed for parents of young children, has been Block’s (1965) Child-rearing Practices Report, a 91-item Q-sort. Disadvantages of this report are that it (a) contains a large number of determined factors (28 to 33) with moderate to low reliabilities, (b) it does not adequately tap Baumrind’s typology, and (c) it is comprised of many items which may be outdated or inconsistent with the current literature. Also, items which tap the parental belief domain, e.g., ?I believe that a child should be seen and not heard”, and items which tap the parental practice domain, e.g., ?I don’t go out if I have to leave my child with a stranger,” are incorporated into Block’s report without distinguishing between the two domains. In addition, few items in Block’s report describe inductive reasoning, and few items can be classified into Baumrind’s conceptualizations of authoritative parental behavior of child-centeredness versus parent-centeredness. Only one item addresses the issue of democratic give and take. Rickel and Biasatti (1982) showed that Block’s report can be revised into a questionnaire in which a 6-point scale is employed without decreasing reliability or affecting the factor structure. Some attempts have been made by researchers interested in socialization (Kochanska, Kuczynski, & Radke-Yarrow, 1989; Trickett & Susman, 1988) to reduce the number of factors in the Block report and make them more consistent with Baumrind’s conceptualizations (Chao, 1994). In constructing their measure Kochanska, et al. (1989) incorporated from the Block original solutions only those factors which they deemed to be congruent with authoritarian and authoritative child-rearing patterns. However, a limitation with this strategy was that they used conceptual guidelines rather than empirical derivations. The authoritative pattern consisted of the factors, expression of affection, e.g., ?I feel a child should be given comfort and understanding when he/she is scared or upset”, rational guidance, e.g., ?I make sure my child knows that I appreciate what he/she tries or accomplishes”, encouragement of independence, e.g., ?If my child gets into trouble, I expect him/her to handle the problem mostly by him/herself”. The authoritarian pattern consisted of the factors authoritarian control, e.g., ?I believe children

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should not have secrets from their parents”, supervision of the child, e.g., ?I believe it is unwise to let children play a lot by themselves without supervision from grown-ups”, and control by anxiety induction, e.g., ? I teach my child that in one way or another punishment will find him/her when he/she is bad.” Unfortunately, the reliabilities of these two conceptual scales were not reported. Trickett and Susman (1988) also conceptually grouped Block’s original factors into three scales of enjoyment of child and parental role, encouragement of autonomy, and authoritarian control. In examining these items the conceptual basis for these scales is not clear. In addition to concerns about conceptually derived inventories, another issue in developing measures to assess parenting typologies for young children lies in empirically identifying practices that comprise the typologies (Darling & Steinberg, 1993). For example, Buri and Greenberger’s adolescent instruments have been modified for parents of younger children to complete; however, these measures are mainly designed to assess Baumrind’s main global typologies. As Smetana (1994) pointed out, global typologies may give little information about ways specific parenting practices are related to children’s behavior. For instance, within the authoritative typology, it would be reasonable to assume that inductive practices would be related more to children’s adaptive social cognitions and that parental warmth and involvement would have stronger linkages with children’s prosocial behavior, e.g., helping, sharing, comforting. As Darling and Steinberg (1993) suggest, different parenting practices within a typology would be more or less important to investigate depending on the specific developmental outcome of interest. Therefore, the purpose of this study was not only to develop an empirical means of assessing global typologies consistent with Baumrind’s main conceptualizations for parents of preadolescent children but also to identify specific parenting practices that occur within the context of the typologies (cf. Darling & Steinberg, 1993). Factor and reliability analyses were conducted to achieve these aims. METHOD Initially, 133 questionnaire items with a 5-point scale anchored by never (1) and always (5) was developed using 80 items from Block’s report and 53 new items. The new items were constructed based on conceptualizations of authoritative, authoritarian, and permissive typologies drawn from the current literature that appeared to have face validity. Items reflecting Baumrind’s other typologies were not included in this instrument. The parenting practices questionnaire was completed by 1,251 volunteer parents (534 fathers and 717 mothers) residing in communities located in Utah. Of these participants, 32% were parents of preschool-age children from university/Head Start preschools and 68% were parents of school-age children from parochial and public elementary schools. Fathers had a mean age of 37.9 yr. (ranging from 22 to 63) and mothers had a mean age of 35.6 yr. (ranging from 20 to 57). Fathers had completed a mean of 15.3 yr. of schooling (ranging from 8 to 23), and mothers had completed a mean of 14.6 yr. of schooling (also ranging from 8 to 23). The majority of the participants were Caucasian from twoparent families whose median family income was approximately $30,000.

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RESULTS The study’s design consisted of two phases. For the first phase we planned to extract from the 133-item questionnaire three factors deemed to theoretically correspond with Baumrind’s authoritative, authoritarian, and permissive typologies. Initial reductions in number of items were accomplished by a series of principle axes factor analyses followed by varimax rotations. Items were retained if they (a) had a loading near or over .30 (see Tabachnick & Fidell, 1989), (b) loaded for both fathers and mothers, and (c) loaded for parents of both preschool- and school-age children. Seventy-seven items met this criterion. Additional items were eliminated if their correlations with the total factor score were less than .25. This resulted in 62 questions retained: the Authoritative Items consisting of 27 questions with a Cronbach alpha of .91, the Authoritarian Items consisting of 20 questions with a Cronbach alpha of .86, and the Permissive Items consisting of 15 questions with a Cronbach alpha of .75. This 62-item measure included 19 items (31%) retained from Block’s report and 43 new items (69%). For the second phase of the study’s design we intended to determine the dimensions and internal structures within the Authoritative Items, Authoritarian Items, and Permissive Items that may reflect specific parenting practices. Each set of items within the three global typologies were analyzed using principle axes factor analysis followed by oblimin rotation. Four factors with eigenvalues greater than one were extracted from the Authoritative Items accounting for 47.4% of the variance. These factors were labeled (a) Warmth and Involvement with 11 items, (b) Reasoning/Induction with 7 items, (c) Democratic Participation with 5 items; and (d) Good Natured/Easy Going with 4 items. Four factors with eigenvalues greater than one were extracted from the Authoritarian Items accounting for 46.8% of the variance. These factors were labeled (a) Verbal Hostility with 4 items, (b) Corporal Punishment with 6 items, (c) Nonreasoning, Punitive Strategies with 6 items, and (d) Directiveness with 4 items. Three factors with eigenvalues greater than one were extracted from the Permissive Items accounting for 40.3% of the variance. These factors were labeled (a) Lack of Follow Through with 6 items, (b) Ignoring Misbehavior with 4 items, and (c) Self-confidence with 5 items. Table 1 presents the means, standard deviations, factor loadings, and descriptions of items within each global typology. These results suggest that parenting questions consistent with Baumrind’s three main typologies can be empirically derived. Also, a number of conceptually coherent factors identified within each typology may prove to be useful in predicting differential developmental outcomes (cf. Darling & Steinberg, 1993). This measure can be used with both mothers and fathers who are parents of preschool and/or school-age children. A sample of the mothers’ form of the instrument is found in the Appendix. The fathers’ form is the same except for pronoun changes. This instrument can also be modified for intergenerational studies. Adults report on how they were parented by their mothers and/or fathers as children. Researchers must investigate the correlations of the factors with both child and family outcome measures to assess the validity of the inventory.

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TABLE 1 Parenting Practices Questionnaire Constructs Authoritative Items1 Item 3f 33f 5a 12c 35c 9e 27a 21f 1d 46c 39h

M 4.08 4.18

58h 25h 62h 29h

SD .99 .87 .73 .77 .79 .77 .76 .73 .93 .89

Load .72 .68 .59 .59 .58 .57 .53 .53 .57 .44 .42

3.81 3.95 3.85 3.67

.83 .84 .91 .97

.76 .76 .75 .65

53h 42a 16h

3.93 3.75 3.49

.86 .88 .99

.65 .51 .47

Factor 2 (Reasoning/Induction) Explains the consequences of the child’s behavior. Gives child reasons why rules should be obeyed. Emphasizes the reasons for rules. Helps child to understand the impact of behavior by encouraging child to talk about the consequences of (his)(her) own actions. Explains how we feel about his/her good and bad behavior. Talks it over and reasons with child when the child misbehaves. Tells ch ild ou r expect ations regard ing beh avior b efore th e child engages in an activity.

55b 22h 31f 48h 60h

3.56 .88 3.40 1.05 3.30 .91 3.28 1.04 2.99 .94

.73 .64 .59 .33 .31

Factor 3 (Democratic Participation) Takes into account child’s preferences in making family plans. Allows child to give input into family rules. Takes child’s desires in to account before aski ng the child to do something. Encourages child to freely express (himself)(herself) even when disagreeing with parents. Channels child’s mis behavi or into a more acceptable activity.

4.29 4.21 4.41 4.23 4.28 4.10 4.03 3.83 3.79 1.02

14c 3.82 3.62 18g 7c 3.90 51b 3.95 1 Alpha = .91

Factor 1 (Warmth & Involvement) Knows the names of child’s friends. Aware of problems or concerns about child in school. Gives praise when child is good. Gives comfort and understanding when child is upset. Expresses affection by hugging, kissing, and holding child. Show sympathy when child is hurt or frustrated. Tells child we appreciate what the child tries or accomplishes. Responsive to child’s feelings or needs. Encourages child to talk about the child’s troubles. Has warm and intimate times together with child. Apologizes to child when making a mistake in parentin g.

Factor 4 (Good Natu red/Easy Going) .80 .68 Is easy going and relaxed with child. .71 .58 Shows patience with child. .85 .57 Jokes and plays with child. .76 .37 Shows resp ect for chil d’s opin ions by encouraging child to e xpress them. (27 Items), Sample = 1251 (continued on next page)

*Reverse scoring. , a Block’s Q-sort - Rational Guidance, b Block’s Q-sort - Encouragement of Independence, cBlock’s Q-sort Expression of Affect, d Block’s Q-sort - Openness to Experience, enew Demonstration of Affect, fnew Child-centered Behavior, g new Parenting Confidence, hnew Authoritative Pattern, iBlock’s Q-sort - Control, jBlock’s Q-sort - Nonphysical Punishment, k new Authoritarian Pattern,l Block’s Q-sort - Inconsistency, mBlock’s Q-sort - Investment in Child, nnew Permissive Pattern, o new Parent Centered Behavior.

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TABLE 1 (Cont’d) Parenting Practices Questionnaire Constructs

Authorit arian Items 2 Item 32e 13k 23e 44o

M 2.07 2.72 2.25 2.45

37i 6k Item 43k 19k 2k 61k

1.89

10j 28j 54k 47k 26o 56k

1.55

40o 59k 17i 50k 2

1.87 M 1.54 2.19 2.05 1.30

1.58 1.59 2.20 1.93 2.18

SD .75 .90 .79 .64

Load .74 .72 .71 .32

.72 .75 SD .62 .91 .82 .60

.88 .85 Load 74 51 .39 .30

.77 .81 .75 .93 .79 .88

.78 .73 .58 .48 .41 .40

.88

.69 .67 .64 .51

3.22 2.83 1.02 1.93 .86 2.50 .96

Factor 1 (Verb al Hostility) Explodes in anger towards child. Yells or shouts when child misbehaves. Argues with child. Disagrees with child. Factor 2 (Corporal Punishment) Uses physical punishment as a way of disciplining our child. Spanks when our child is disobedient. Slaps child when the child misbehaves. Grabs child when being disobedient. Guides child by punishment more than by reason. Shoves child when the child is disobedient. Factor 3 (Non-Reasoning, Punitive Strategies) Punishes by taking privileges away from child with little if any explanations. Punishes by putting child off somewhere alone with little if any explanations . Uses threats as punishment with little or no justification. When two children are fighting, disciplines children first and asks questions later. Appears to be more concerned with own feelings than with child’s feelings. When child asks why (he)(she) has to conform, states: because I said so, or I am your parent and I want you to. Factor 4 (Directiveness) Tells child what to do. Demands that child does/do things. Sc...