PSY 220 Chapter Notes - Chapter 12: Parenting Styles, Risky Sexual Behavior
26 May 2019
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Chapter 12 Part 1 – The Family
- China’s one-child-per-family rule
- Can be used to study how structure of family affects children’s development
- Results: no differences
NATURE AND FUNCTIONS OF FAMILY:
- Family structure: number of and relationships among people living in a household
- Functions of family:
- Ensure survival of offspring by providing for their needs
- Family serves as an economic function by providing the means for children to acquire the skills and other
resources to be economically productive as adults
- Family provides cultural training by teaching children basic values of culture
- Family dynamics: how a family operates as a whole determines to a large extent how well a family fulfills its basic
child-rearing functions
- Conclusions:
▪ Family members all influence each other, directly and indirectly
▪ Family functioning is influenced by social support family receives from sociocultural context,
including extended family members and institutions (i.e. churches)
▪ Family dynamics must be examined developmentally because dynamics change as children reach
different ages
- May also be altered by:
▪ Changes in parents and in relationships of other family members
▪ Gradual and abrupt changes in family structure
- Biological characteristics of:
▪ Children contribute to parent-child interactions
▪ Family members affect family interactions
- Adolescents and parents:
▪ Adolescents and their parents generally argue over mundane matters (i.e. hair style)
• Little increase in reported child-parent conflicts between grades 6-10
• Minority of families experience hotter and deeper conflicts involving sex, drugs and
children’s choice of friends
▪ Feelings of support between parents and their children decline during adolescence, esp. at the
beginning of puberty
• Why: adolescents’ desire for autonomy and interest in activities outside the home
INFLUENCE OF PARENTAL SOCIALIZATION:
- Socialization: process through which children acquire the values, standards, skills, knowledge, and behaviors that
are regarded as appropriate to their present and future roles in their particular culture
- Parents can influence children’s development through socialization in 3 ways:
▪ Direct instructors: explicitly teach their children skills, rules and strategies and provide advice
▪ Indirect socializers: transmit skills, rules and attitudes in course of everyday interactions w/ child
▪ Providers and controllers of opportunities: manage their children’s experiences and social lives
- Discipline: strategies and behaviors parents use to teach children how to properly behave
▪ Is effective when child stops engaging in undesirable misbehavior and engages in preferred
behavior (NEEDS TO BE A PERMANENT CHANGE)
▪ Internalization: leads to permanent change in child’s behavior b/c child has learned and accepted
the desired behavior
• Other-oriented induction:
o Reasoning focused on effects of a behavior on others
o Effective at promoting internalization
o Teaches children empathy for others (fundamental for children to act prosocially
towards others)
o Example: if parent emphasizes that being hit hurts the other child’s body and their
feelings, the child will begin to understand why it is better not to engage in the
original behavior
• Reasoning + other-oriented induction = greater social competence in children
• Internalization works best if parents apply the right amount of psychological pressure on
the child
o Too little pressure = child discounts parents’ message and do what they want
o Too much = child may comply only b/c they feel forced to; compliance is attributed
to an external force; children will likely act in desirable ways only when they know
there is the risk of getting caught by parents
- Punishment: negative stimulus that follows a behavior to reduce its occurrence
▪ Do not teach child how to behave in the future
▪ Mild punishments (i.e. time-out, taking away privileges): provides minimally sufficient pressure
needed for internalization
• Sometimes you only need a raised voice or disapproving look
▪ Spanking is not effective and is linked with unintended negative consequences
▪ Yelling, time-out, taking away privileges, love withdrawal (withholding affection from a child b/c of
their behavior) are ineffective and linked to negative outcomes
PARENTING STYLES:
- Parenting styles: parenting behaviors and attitudes that set emotional climate of parent-child interactions
▪ Children more likely to view punishment as justified and indicating serious misbehavior from an
authoritative parent vs. one who is punitive and hostile
▪ Children more likely to listen to and care about their parents’ preferences and demands IF parents are
generally supportive and reasonable vs. if they’re distant, neglectful
- Dimensions of parenting style:
1. Degree of parental warmth, support and acceptance VS. parental rejection and non-responsiveness
2. Degree of parental control (extent to which parents monitor and manage their children’s behavior through
rules and consequences) and demandingness (expectation of conformance to parents’ desire and low
tolerance for children’s own interest and desires)
- Baumrind’s 4 parenting styles:
Supportive
(Parent is accepting and child-centered)
Unsupportive: parent is rejecting and
parent-centered
Demanding
Authoritative Parenting:
Authoritarian Parenting:
Document Summary
Can be used to study how structure of family affects children"s development. Family structure: number of and relationships among people living in a household. Ensure survival of offspring by providing for their needs. Family serves as an economic function by providing the means for children to acquire the skills and other resources to be economically productive as adults. Family provides cultural training by teaching children basic values of culture. Family dynamics: how a family operates as a whole determines to a large extent how well a family fulfills its basic child-rearing functions. May also be altered by: changes in parents and in relationships of other family members, gradual and abrupt changes in family structure. Biological characteristics of: children contribute to parent-child interactions, family members affect family interactions. Adolescents and parents: adolescents and their parents generally argue over mundane matters (i. e. hair style)
