News Release

Family stress, beliefs about parenting and cognitive and emotional reactions to children's misbehavior can lead to harsh discipline, says new study

Peer-Reviewed Publication

American Psychological Association

WASHINGTON -- Low-income parents tend to endorse much harsher discipline, according to a new study, in part because they hold stronger beliefs about the value of spanking and experience higher levels of stress. And even though a parent's ethnicity didn't have a direct affect on discipline responses, African American parents did report higher levels of stress and used harsher discipline when their children misbehaved. These findings are reported on in the September issue of the American Psychological Association's (APA) Journal of Family Psychology.

Contemporary society can make being a member of a minority group stressful, said psychologist Ellen E. Pinderhughes, Ph.D., of Vanderbilt University and colleagues, and African American parents may experience more family stress and respond more harshly to their children because of this stress. "Our findings show that parents who are from a lower SES and/or from an ethnic group experience more stress. Because they are more stressed, they have more intense cognitive and emotional reactions to their child's misbehavior, and thus use harsher discipline. So, the harsh discipline is linked to low SES and/or minority ethnic status through high levels of stress and parents' intense reactions to child misbehavior," said the authors.

In a study of 978 parents (59% were mothers, 82% were European Americans and 16% were African Americans) with 585 kindergarten-aged children, the authors examined how a parents' SES and ethnicity influenced their discipline approaches. They also examined whether parenting beliefs, family stress, parents' perception of the child's behavior and the parents' cognitive and emotional state also played a role in parents' disciplining responses.

Parents were first asked about their beliefs in the effectiveness of spanking and whether their child should be aggressive in resolving conflict with another child. Second, the amount and level of stress the parent was experiencing was determined by a parent's marital status, number of children living with the parents, having an unplanned pregnancy, living in an unsafe neighborhood or having conflict in a romantic relationship. Third, the parents were asked if they felt positively or negatively towards their child and also asked how well they could describe their child as an individual.

Finally, the parents were asked to respond to multiple hypothetical vignettes involving children misbehaving to see how they would discipline their children. In deciding how the parents disciplined their children, their cognitive and emotional states were assessed. This included whether they blamed the child or the misbehavior, how angry the parents became when the child misbehaved, how concerned they were about the future implications of their child's misbehavior and whether they could think of alternative ways to discipline the child. Parents' use of harsh discipline was determined by asking parents how severely they would discipline the child and how frequently they used harsh discipline.

It seems that when highly stressed parents get into a pattern when their children misbehave, say the authors, "they assume their children intentionally misbehaved. They also get very upset and start worrying about their children's future. These parents don't see alternative ways to discipline their children and choose physical and severe punishment as the only option."

Any parent experiencing these intense cognitive-emotional processes may benefit from interventions targeted to reduce their intensity, say the authors, and learning about alternative discipline strategies may help make discipline decisions less reactive and harsh. "In addition, programs that reduce external stress on parents can help low income parents to reduce their intense cognitive and emotional reactions to misbehavior, and thus be more open to different discipline strategies."

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Article: "Discipline Responses: Influences of Parents' Socioeconomic Status, Ethnicity, Beliefs About Parenting, Stress, and Cognitive-Emotional Process," Ellen E. Pinderhughes, Ph.D., Vanderbilt University; Kenneth A. Dodge, Ph.D., and Arnaldo Zelli, Ph.D., Duke University; John E. Bates, Ph.D., New York University; and Gregory S. Pettit, Ph.D., Auburn University; Journal of Family Psychology, Vol. 14, No. 3

Full text of the article is available from the APA Public Affairs Office or at http://www.apa.org/journals/fam/fam143380.html

Ellen E. Pinderhughes, Ph.D., can be reached by telephone at (615) 322-8345 or by email at ellen.e.pinderhughes@vanderbilt.edu

The American Psychological Association (APA), in Washington, DC, is the largest scientific and professional organization representing psychology in the United States and is the world's largest association of psychologists. APA's membership includes more than 159,000 researchers, educators, clinicians, consultants and students. Through its divisions in 53 subfields of psychology and affiliations with 59 state, territorial and Canadian provincial associations, APA works to advance psychology as a science, as a profession and as a means of promoting human welfare.



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