Psychology 3260: Personality & Social Development

1. Psychology 3260: Personality & Social Development Don Hartmann Autumn 2003 Lecture 24: Families: Parenting

2. # Topic Handout WEB Date Date 10/26 37. Lect. #20 (Agg.: Bullying) ------ 10/29 38. Lect. #23a (Agg.: General) ------ 11/03 39. Study Guide #10 (chpt. 9) ------ 11/04 40. Lect. #21(Prosocial Beh.) ------ 11/04 41. Study Guide #11 (chpt. 10) ------ 11/10 42. Lect. #22 (Piaget) ------ 11/12 43. Study Guide #12 (chpt. 11) ------ 11/30 44. Lect. #14 (Emotions & School) ------ 11/18 45. Study Guide #13 (chpt. 12) ------ 11/27 46. Lect. #24 (Families) ____ 12/01 Handout Summary

3. WEB Discussions CV. Family Conflict & Divorce. Validity Threats. Summary due Wednesday, Dec. 3rd. Jamie and Jane fight a lot and are very unhappy but consider staying together for the good of their two children. As an expert in family studies and child development, what would you have to say about their thinking? DV. Super Psychers. Parental Styles. Summary due Wednesday, Dec. 3rd. Even though no one pattern of parenting behaviors is optimal for people in all cultures or subcultures, there are some general principles that can assist any parent to promote adaptive developmental outcomes. What might you tell a parent who asks you for some general guidelines for effective parenting?

4. References • Collins, W. A., Maccoby, E. E., Steinberg, L., Hetherington, E. M., Bornstein,M. H. (2003). Contemporary research on parenting: The case for nature and nurture. In E. A. Farber & M. E. Hertzig (Eds.) Annual progress in child psychiatry and child development: 2000-2001 (pp.125-153). New York: Brunner-Routledge. • Parke, R. D., & Buriel, R. (1998). Socialization in the family: Ethnic and ecological perspective. In W. Damon (Series Ed.) & N. Eisenberg (Vol. Ed.), Handbook of child psychology: Vol. 3. Social, emotional, and personality development (5th ed., pp. 463-552). New York: Wiley.

5. Overview: Parenting • INTRODUCTION • Methodology & Biases • CONCEPTUALIZING THE FAMILY • THE CHANGING AMERICAN FAMILY • DISCIPLINARY PRACTICES • Parenting techniques, parental style, and parental values • Why we must be cautious

7. Introduction • Is the family important? • What does the culture tell us? • The family is the primary repository of the culture and subculture • And all of these currents and cross-currents affect how the family socializes its children—think Bronfenbrenner.

8. Methods of Study; Biases • Methods: Interview and observations of naturally occurring & simulated (analogue) events • Problems with analogues: How many of the characteristics of the family ‑‑ and which family ‑‑ were preserved in the analogue? • Biases: • ethnocentric bias • one‑way causation, from parent to child

9. The Family As A Social System: Bidirectional Causation

11. The Family As A Social System: Developmental Stages • Certain fairly predictable developmental periods and accompanying issues. E.g., when children in adolescence: • Parents concerned about educational costs and perhaps, empty nests • Mothers concerned about loosing their beauty and stamina • Fathers concerned with meeting their ambitions, and hearing the footsteps getting closer and closer of the next generation of workers • Both parents, perhaps saying the words of the old Peggy Lee song: “Is that all there is?”

12. The Changing American Family (1) What is the nuclear family? • working dad, homemaker mom, and 2 kids living in family composes, at most, 12% of families • 50% of children will spend part of their time in a single‑parent family • In general, we have a great deal of diversity in family structure

13. The Changing American Family (2) The role of fathers: • According to 1971 study by Rebelsky & Hanks, with 2 week to 3 month old children, fathers spend 2.7 interactions with a total of 40 seconds daily • The thoroughly modern father?

14. Discipline • Introduction • Aspects of parenting: • disciplinary technique: power assertion, love withdrawal, & reasoning • parenting style a la Baumrind: authoritative, authoritarian, permissive, & (sometimes) indifferent—defined by 2 x 2 table

15. Baumrind’s Classification EMOTIONAL CLIMATE: EXPECT- Warm Cold ATIONS: Substant. Minimal

17. Discipline • Aspects of parental behavior (continued): • parental values: education? baton twirling? Skilled thievery? power? • Any discussion of the impact of parenting that does not take all three aspects into account must be flawed!

18. Interdependence of “Aspects of Parental Behavior:” 1 To talk about the affects of each aspect independent of the other factors might assume, for example, that • that the kind of discipline is far more important than the behaviors which are disciplined (value) • Nevertheless, there is evidence that induction produces better child outcomes than does power assertion or love withdrawal • Extrinsic rewards can under- mind behaviors (Mark Lepper)

19. Interdependence of “Aspects of Parental Behavior:” 2 • that all parents discipline the same behaviors (values) so that the only thing that differs between parents is the form of their discipline • Remember the story about the father who encouraged his son to kill birds!

20. Interdependence of “Aspects of Parental Behavior:” 3 • that parents are consistent across behaviors in how they discipline, rather than somehow matching the discipline with the transgression • NO: Study by Grusec and Kuczynski (Dev. Psych., 1980, 16 (1), 1-9. Mothers reported using different disciplinary techniques for different child (mis)behaviors.

21. Summary of Parenting Lecture • METHODOLOGY & BIASES • THE CHANGING AMERICAN FAMILY • DISCIPLINARY PRACTICES: Why we must be cautious when discussing parenting techniques, parental style, and parental values • GO IN PEACE