Abstract
The present study examined the relative prediction and joint effects of maternal and paternal psychological control on children’s socioemotional development. A total of 325 preschool children between the ages of 34 and 57 months (M = 4 years 2 months) and their parents participated in the study. Fathers and mothers, respectively, reported their levels of psychological control and mothers evaluated the socioemotional development of children using two indicators (i.e., behavioral problems and prosocial behaviors). The results indicated that the relative predictive effects of maternal and paternal psychological control on children’s socioemotional development differed. Specifically, maternal psychological control was a significant predictor of children’s behavioral problems and prosocial behaviors, whereas the levels of paternal psychological control were unrelated to children’s socioemotional development. With regard to the combined effects of maternal and paternal psychological control, the results of ANOVAs and simple slope analysis both indicated that children would be at risk of behavioral problems as long as they had one highly psychologically controlling parent. High levels of paternal psychological control were associated with increased behavioral problems of children only when maternal psychological control was low. However, the association between maternal psychological control and children’s behavioral behaviors was significant, despite paternal psychological control.
Highlights
Parental psychological control refers to a set of intrusive parenting behaviors characterized by manipulation of children’s inner world such as guilt induction, love withdrawal, shaming, constraining children’s expressions, and stifling autonomy (Schaefer, 1965; Barber, 1996; Gao et al, 2016)
There were no differences between the two forms of families
This study examined the predictive power and combined effects of maternal and paternal psychological control on the socioemotional development of preschool children 2–5 years of age in China
Summary
Parental psychological control refers to a set of intrusive parenting behaviors characterized by manipulation of children’s inner world such as guilt induction, love withdrawal, shaming, constraining children’s expressions, and stifling autonomy (Schaefer, 1965; Barber, 1996; Gao et al, 2016). The few studies that have examined the separate effects of maternal and paternal psychological control on children’s socioemotional development have yielded inconsistent results. Laible and Carlo (2004) indicated that low levels of rigid control from mothers were related to children’s sympathy, social competence, and self-worth, whereas paternal control was not a predictor of children’s adjustment Those results were consistent with the understanding that maternal parenting behaviors play the dominant and primary role in children’s development. First was to explore the relative predictive value of maternal and paternal psychological control on the socioemotional development of preschool children aged 2 to 5 in contemporary Chinese families, using the two indicators of behavioral problems and prosocial behaviors. Second was to investigate the joint effects of maternal and paternal psychological control on children’s socioemotional development
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