Parents' child-rearing style and child's sociometric status.

Abstract

This study examined relationships between parents' child-rearing style, the child's prosocial behavior, and the child's sociometric status. The sample consisted of 112 children (6-11 years of age) and both their parents. Parental behavior in the interaction with the child was observed at home when parents and child worked together in 2 structured tasks. Factor analyses of parental behavior revealed that 2 factors, Authoritative/Democratic and Authoritarian/Restrictive, can be found in the subsamples of mothers and fathers. These 2 dimensions of maternal and paternal behavior appeared to be predictive of both the child's prosocial behavior and sociometric status. Results are discussed in terms of the possible link between parent and peer systems. A child's acceptance by a peer group plays an important role in his or her social and personality development. Peer rejection seems to be a reasonably stable phenomenon (Coie & Dodge, 1983; Rogosch & Newcomb, 1989) and is predictive of later social maladjustment (Cowen, Pederson, Babigian, Izzo, & Trost, 1973; Parker & Asher, 1987). Most of the research concerned with the determinants of a child's sociometric status in the peer group have focused primarily on children's behavioral and social cognitive characteristics. The role that parents may play in the development and maintenance of their child's sociometric status was generally ignored, although it is logical to assume that at least some of a child's social skills necessary for successful interaction with peers are learned through the parent-child interactions (Hartup, 1979). Several studies showed that a child's sociometric status in the peer group is related to socialization factors present in the parent-child system (Finnie & Russell, 1988; MacDonald, 1987; MacDonald & Parke, 1984; Parke et al., 1989; Peery, Jensen, & Adams, 1985; Putallaz & Heflin, 1990; Roopnarine & Adams, 1987). Very few studies, however, examined the mediating link in this relationship. What aspects of social competence do children learn in the parent-child setting that transfer directly or indirectly to their relationship with peers? One possibility that has been examined in recent research is that parent-child interaction influences children's sociometric status by affecting the child's social cognitive (or processing) skills, including social problem solving (Pettit, Dodge, & Brown, 1988; Putallaz, 1987) and the child's expectations of the outcome of social strategies (Hart, Ladd, & Burleson, 1990). However, in the context of the family, the child acquires not only many of the social cognitive skills, but also a behavioral pattern that might be important for a successful adaptation to