The Link Between Parental Discipline and Social Behavior Among Abused and Comparison Children: Moderating Influences of Nurturing Parenting Style and Child Gender

Abstract

Children's social behavior is an important indicator of children's present and future adjustment, and as such there has been an extensive amount of research conducted on factors associated with positive and negative child social behavior. Parenting style and discipline have been postulated as being related to children's social behavior. The aim of this study was to examine the relations among nurturing parenting style, children's physical discipline experiences, and children's prosocial and aggressive behavior. The sample included 137 African American and European American parent-child dyads, half with substantiated child abuse and half with non-abusive parent-child histories. A multi-method assessment of constructs was employed, including observations and self-reports of parenting and observations and teacher reports of child social adjustment. The relationship between physical discipline and child social behavior (both prosocial and aggressive) was hypothesized to be moderated by nurturing parenting style and child gender. In addition, ethnicity was investigated as a potential moderator of the relationship between physical discipline and child social behavior. A series of regression models was computed to test the hypotheses. There was partial support for the moderating role of both parenting style and ethnicity but there was no support for moderation by child gender. Implications of these findings along with suggestions for future research are discussed.