Title:
The relations among parent behaviors, authoritative parenting style and child prosocial behavior
Author:
Joelle Shira Zegas
Thesis Advisor:
Beth A. Kotchick
Committee Member:
Frank D. Golom
Committee Member:
Rachel L. Grover
Committee Member:
Stephen E. Fowl
Committee Member:
Carolyn M. Barry
Degree Granting Institution:
Loyola University Maryland--College of Arts and Sciences
Place:
Baltimore (Md.)
Publisher:
Loyola University Maryland
Date Created:
2020
Type of Resource:
text
Genre:
thesis
Language:
eng
Format:
application/pdf
Physical Form:
electronic
Digital Source:
born digital
Abstract:
The purpose of this study was to examine how various parent behaviors and an authoritative parenting style may relate to children’s prosocial behavior. A primary focus of the study was to analyze how the authoritative parenting style may moderate associations between perceived positive parent behaviors and children’s prosocial behavior. The independent variables were measured using self-report measures including the Parent Behavior Inventory (Lovejoy, Weis, O’Hare, and Rubin, 1999) to assess positive and negative parenting behaviors, the Prosocialness Scale for Adults (Caprara, Steca, Zelli, and Capanna, 2005) to assess parents’ own prosocial behavior, and the Parenting Styles and Dimensions Questionnaire (Robinson, Mandleco, Olsen, and Hart, 1995) to measure levels of authoritative parenting style. Children’s prosocial behavior as assessed by parents and teachers was measured using the MacArthur Health and Behavioral Questionnaire – Prosocial Subscale (Armstrong, Goldstein, and The MacArthur Working Group on Outcome Assessment, 2003). Participants also completed demographic questionnaires to determine any variables that needed to be controlled for in analyses. Data were collected from parents (N = 90) and teachers (N = 33) at ten different daycare centers and preschools throughout the Baltimore area. As predicted, children’s prosocial behavior as rated by parents was positively associated with positive parenting behaviors and authoritative parenting style, and was negatively associated with negative parenting behaviors. In contrast with these results, children’s prosocial behavior as rated by teachers was not significantly related to parents’ positive parenting behaviors, negative parenting behaviors, parents’ own prosocial behavior, or authoritative parenting. Furthermore, children’s prosocial behavior as rated by both parents and teachers was not significantly related to parents’ own prosocial behavior and parents’ authoritative parenting style did not moderate the associations between the predictor and outcome variables. These findings suggest that parent training programs that teach positive parenting behaviors and increase parents’ use of an authoritative parenting style would likely benefit children’s development in the early childhood years. Future research may utilize other assessment tools to measure parent behaviors and parenting style in order to alleviate common method variance, increase objectivity, and increase discriminant validity between measures.
Degree:
Doctor of Clinical Psychology
Level:
Doctoral
Discipline:
Psychology
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Identifier:
ZegasJS-20
