Perspectives on parent discipline and child outcomes

Abstract

Effective discipline involves the use of negative consequences, including reasoning as well as modest levels of power assertion, to discourage unacceptable behavior. A brief history of changing views of discipline is presented and recent positions outlined. Successful discipline requires the imposition of clear and consistent rules, autonomy support, perspective-taking, and acceptance rather than rejection of the child. There are different kinds of negative consequences that are evaluated differently by children as well as having different effects on their behavior. In addition, there are individual differences in how children react to a specific form of discipline, and parents need to be aware of what those differences are. Cultural research underlines the fact that the meaning children assign to specific parenting actions is crucial in determining discipline success. When discipline is seen as normative, fair, and a sign of caring its form, within limits, is less important.

Keywords

antisocial behavior childrearing practices discipline externalizing behavior parental control

A major challenge facing parents is helping children fit into society at large. Parents have many goals in this process. These include the promotion of moral values and actions such as inhibition of aggressive behavior and honesty, as well as more active moral values and actions such as concern and consideration for others, helping, and generosity. Values also include outcomes such as achievement, social skills, and maximizing the child’s potential. This article focuses on discipline as a way of achieving children’s willing compliance with these goals and values. By discipline we mean the use of consequences to assist children in learning rules and values. These consequences include reasoning (especially reasoning that focuses on the impact of a misdeed on others), as well as power-assertive interventions such as verbal disapproval, guilt induction, shame, withdrawal of love, withdrawal of privileges, withdrawal of material rewards, and physical punishment. By willing compliance, we mean conformity with values that is freely given rather than coerced. Willing compliance is a more desirable end-state than coerced compliance, at least in part because it occurs even in the absence of surveillance and is therefore, presumably, the result of an internalized norm or belief. Moreover, it satisfies children’s need for autonomy and competence (Ryan & Deci, 2017). Coerced compliance is more likely to be associated with antisocial behavior, that is, externalizing problems.

Parents are not always focused on their children’s internalization of values but may be content with simply obtaining immediate compliance with their requests. Hastings and Grusec (1997), for example, found that teaching of values was the most frequently cited goal parents reported in response to their child’s misdeeds. However, they also reported wanting to get their children to comply and wanting to strengthen the parent–child relationship. The long-term goal of teaching values was more frequently associated with reasoning, the short-term goal of immediate compliance with power assertion, and relationship goals with warmth and a willingness to negotiate or compromise. In this article, we will be concerned primarily with the long-term goal of teaching values. We will also focus on the impact of discipline on child behavior, rather than vice versa. We will emphasize, therefore, the importance of longitudinal studies in helping to recognize the direction of effect in the discipline process.

A brief history of the study of discipline

Interest in discipline dates back to psychoanalytic theorists who suggested that children experience feelings of hostility toward their parents when they are frustrated by rules, but repress these feelings to avoid parental abandonment and rejection. Repression allows them to comply with parental rules in order to obtain approval, as well as leads to the development of a motive to emulate their parents. In this way, they internalize parental discipline in the form of guilt, thereby ensuring compliance (Hoffman, 1970).

Social learning theorists (e.g. Sears, Whiting, Nowlis, & Sears, 1953) suggested that reproduction of parental behavior was secondarily reinforcing because of its association with primary drives such as reduction of hunger or thirst. They argued that a generalized drive to become like one’s parent subsequently develops, and that this includes the adoption or internalization of the parent’s standards of behavior and values. In support of this suggestion, Sears, Maccoby, and Levin (1957), in a study of 379 families, differentiated withdrawal of love from other power-assertive interventions and found withdrawal of love (expressions of disappointment and social isolation) from warm mothers to be a significant correlate of children’s conscience development. Sears et al. suggested that withdrawal of love, unlike power assertive techniques such as withdrawal of material reward and physical punishment, encourages children to reproduce parental behavior, including their standards of behavior, as a way of replacing the withdrawn reinforcement. Thus, parental standards are internalized. In the case of parents who are low in warmth, of course, there is no withdrawn reinforcement to replace.

Hoffman (1970, 1982) added reasoning to the mix of power assertive and love-oriented approaches to discipline. He noted that power-assertive techniques threatened children’s autonomy and even promoted reactance, as well as requiring continued surveillance by the socializing agent. Withdrawal of love, although more effective, had the unfortunate side-effect of neurotic guilt arising from fear of abandonment. For Hoffman, reasoning was central, particularly reasoning that involved an emphasis on the negative effects of noncompliance on others. This “other-oriented” reasoning arouses a child’s feelings of empathy and its negative impact can be neutralized if the child makes some kind of restitution for the harm caused or shows greater consideration in the future.

Later analyses (e.g. Grusec, 1983; Lepper, 1983) considered the kinds of attributions, that is, explanations concerning the causes of their behavior, that children make for compliance with parental dictates. In the case of power assertion, it was hypothesized that attributions would focus on threats of punishment or rejection and, therefore, acceptable behavior would be externally motivated. Reasoning, with some moderate degree of power assertion in order to gain the child’s attention (Hoffman, 1982), would be more likely to lead to internal attributions for positive behavior and, therefore, to an internalized value or belief. Closely related is the approach of self-determination theorists (Joussemet, Landry, & Koestner, 2008; Ryan & Deci, 2017) who argue that effective discipline involves parenting that supports a child’s autonomy by not being coercive or intrusive, thereby leading to value internalization.

Core skills in the administration of discipline

Several features of parent behavior have been identified as critical in the administration of discipline. They include consistency, autonomy support, perspective-taking, and acceptance.

Consistency

For discipline to be effective, the nature of desired behaviors must be clearly spelled out and consequences for violation of rules and requirements consistently applied. There is considerable evidence from longitudinal studies that inconsistent discipline at an earlier age predicts behavior problems at a later time (Loeber, Green, Keenan, & Lahey, 1995; Manongdo & Ramírez García, 2011; Tildesley & Andrews, 2008). In a study of children from sixth through to eighth grade, Halgunseth, Perkins, Lippold, and Nix (2013) reported that children’s positive attitudes toward delinquent behavior mediated the relation between inconsistent discipline and both antisocial and less socially competent behaviors. They suggest that inconsistency on the part of parents indicates to their children that standards of conduct are ambiguous. As well, this inconsistency may help children to morally disengage from antisocial behavior by applying self-exonerating justifications or reconstructing antisocial acts so they seem less wrong (Bandura, 1999). Finally of course, parental inconsistency may simply encourage children to engage in an antisocial act with the hope and reasonable expectation that they will not be punished.

Autonomy support

When agents of socialization act in a way that supports children’s autonomy—providing meaningful rationales for limits and demands, giving choice and opportunities for initiative-taking within those limits, and acknowledging children’s feelings—they set the stage for internalization of values. On the other hand, intrusive, pressuring, and coercive control involving guilt induction, threats of punishment, and conditional regard, has been associated with internalizing and externalizing problems in both children and adolescents (Joussemet et al., 2008). Coercive control also leads to reactance—the desire to do just the opposite of what is requested (Brehm & Brehm, 1981). In a series of studies of coercive control, Van Petegem, Soenens, Vansteenkiste, and Beyers (2015) found that parental control was associated with frustration of autonomy needs which, in turn, predicted reactance, with reactance then being a predictor of externalizing problems and noncompliance with parental requests. Reactance was also associated with internalizing problems because, the researchers suggest, feeling compelled to do the opposite of what is requested is also a challenge to autonomous action and therefore produces negative affect in the form of anxiety and depression. Importantly, parental rule-setting was unrelated to autonomy need frustration, reactance, or problem behaviors. This finding accords with the argument of self-determination theorists that rule-setting is orthogonal to autonomy support because it does not threaten a child’s feelings of autonomy (Vansteenkiste, Soenens, Van Petegem, & Duriez, 2014). Rules can be followed happily so long as they are not presented in an intrusive and coercive manner.

Perspective-taking

Parents who take the perspective of their children have a better chance of identifying misunderstandings or reasons for misbehavior and, therefore, a better chance of engaging in interventions that will facilitate compliance. Mothers of young adolescents who reported that they took the perspective of their adolescent, for example, increased their autonomy supportive behavior over the course of 2 years (Mageau, Sherman, Grusec, Koestner, & Bureau, in press). Lundell, Grusec, McShane, and Davidov (2008), asked adolescents to talk about recent disagreements they had had with their mothers and to say what they had hoped to accomplish during the disagreement. Those whose mothers scored high on perspective-taking were more likely to cite goals involving the achievement of a mutually acceptable outcome and less likely to say they wanted to get their mother to change her mind or to make her feel bad. Perspective-taking was also a negative predictor of the intensity of the conflict reported by the dad. These studies suggest, then, that maternal perspective-taking is associated with more optimal approaches to discipline as well as a more positive climate in which socialization can take place.

Acceptance vs. rejection

The context in which discipline is administered is central to its effectiveness. Parenting styles, for example, have an impact on the way in which a particular disciplinary action is interpreted (Darling & Steinberg, 1993). The practices of parents who are warm and responsive have a different meaning from the same practices administered by parents who are cold and rejecting. Accordingly, for example, the correlation between physical punishment and externalizing problems is greater when mothers are low in warmth than when they are high in warmth (McLoyd & Smith, 2002; Simons, Wu, Lin, Gordon, & Conger, 2000). It should be noted that this finding is not simply the result of genetic similarity between parent and child given that it holds for both biologically-related and adoptive children and their mothers (Deater-Deckard, Ivy, & Petrill, 2006). Moderation of the relation between discipline and externalizing problems by warmth and hostility fits well with research showing that maladjustment is more frequent among individuals who see their parenting as rejecting rather than as accepting (Rohner & Britner, 2002).

Successful socialization involves accurate perception of values and their acceptance

Grusec and Goodnow (1994) argued that values are internalized when the child has accurately perceived them and accepted them. Consistency clearly contributes to the child’s accurate knowledge with respect to rules whereas autonomy support and warmth facilitate acceptance. Perspective-taking may do both by making it clearer to the parent when a value is either not accurately perceived or not accepted, thereby enabling an appropriate reparative response.

Refinements of thinking about discipline

The idea that minimally necessary levels of power assertion accompanied by discussion and responsiveness is the effective approach to socialization remains the base of understanding with respect to discipline and socialization (Baumrind, 2012). Nevertheless, there are a number of refinements to this position.

There are different forms of power assertion and they are not equivalent in their impact

Considerable attention has been paid to physical punishment and its effect on children’s socialization. Not only has it been deemed to be ineffective but, additionally, as having negative effects on children’s positive social behavior. A recent meta-analysis, which included a large number of longitudinal studies and which carefully distinguished between physical punishment (spanking or hitting on the buttocks or extremities with an open hand) and physical abuse provides strong support for the conclusion that physical punishment leads to children’s externalizing problems (Gershoff & Grogan-Kaylor, 2016). In a comparison of other forms of power assertion across six different countries, Lansford et al. (2010) found that, in addition to physical punishment, yelling, scolding, and the expression of disappointment were also linked to children’s aggression. In contrast, time-out, teaching about good and bad behavior, getting children to apologize, taking away privileges, shaming, withdrawing love, threatening punishment, and promising treats or privileges were not linked with aggression, either positively or negatively. In addition, Lansford et al. (2010) found that physical punishment, expressing disappointment, time-out, and shaming were linked to children’s internalizing behaviors.

In addition to the impact on behavior, researchers have also considered the way in which children assess or think about different forms of power assertion. For example, Helwig, To, Wang, Liu, and Yang (2014) found that Canadian and Chinese children evaluated reasoning more positively than shaming or love withdrawal, although this effect became stronger with age as we note below. Padilla-Walker and Carlo (2004) reported that adolescents rate yelling as less fair than talking. These evaluations of different forms of discipline, presumably, are connected with the impact of the form of discipline on actual behavior.

There are different forms of reasoning and they are not equivalent in their impact

Other-oriented reasoning is effective presumably because it arouses empathy which, in turn, arouses the motivation to avoid harming others (Eisenberg, Fabes, & Spinrad, 2006; Hoffman, 1970). Thus, children respond better when they are told sharing will make the recipient happy than when they are told it is good to share (Eisenberg-Berg & Geisheker, 1979). However, physical or psychological harm to others, that is, moral transgression, is only one set of possible misdeeds. In addition, there are social conventional transgressions—violations of practices that ensure smooth social interaction; and prudential transgressions—misdeeds that cause harm to perpetrators themselves (Smetana, 2011; Turiel, 1983). Not surprisingly, reasons need to be appropriate to the domain of the misdeed they follow (Killen, Breton, Ferguson, & Handler, 1994; Nucci, 1984). Failing to raise one’s hand in the classroom before speaking, or stepping out of line, is better addressed by discussions about maintaining order than discussions about how such actions might affect the welfare of others. There also comes a point in development where, in some situations, no reason is effective. As they age, for example, children come to believe that certain issues, such as the friends they have, the clothes they wear, or the music they listen to, are no longer appropriately under the jurisdiction of their parents (Smetana, 2011).

Reactions to different forms of discipline change with child characteristics

A number of child characteristics have been shown to affect reactions to discipline. Two of these are age and temperament. Although, in their meta-analysis, Gershoff and Grogan-Kaylor (2016) found that physical punishment was associated with externalizing problems across all age groups, there are clearly age differences in how it is evaluated. Accordingly, although physical punishment is viewed more negatively than reasoning by adolescents (Padilla-Walker & Carlo, 2004), preschoolers and school-aged children rate it as favorably as reasoning (Siegal & Cowen, 1984). Helwig et al. (2014) also found that physical punishment was viewed more positively by younger children than by older ones, and that reasoning became more positively evaluated with age. Older children were also more likely than younger ones to disapprove of love withdrawal. Helwig et al. suggest that one reason for these age changes is that younger children in their study were more oriented toward the importance of short-term compliance as opposed to longer-term goals that were emphasized more by the older children. The latter were also more sophisticated with regard to their understanding of the benefits and negative effects of various discipline techniques.

With respect to temperament, several studies have shown that it moderates the relation between discipline and child outcomes. In a summary of recent research, both cross-sectional and longitudinal, Bates and Pettit (2015) suggest that harsh and strict parenting predicts children’s externalizing problems, but especially in the case of fearful children as opposed to fearless ones. Fearless children, on the other hand, are more affected by levels of parental warmth than are fearful ones. Cornell and Frick (2007) found that inconsistent discipline predicted low levels of empathy, an important component of positive social behavior, but only for fearless and not for fearful children. In a longitudinal study of adolescents, Chaparro and Grusec (2016) also found that inconsistent discipline predicted empathy for fearless but not for fearful individuals.

The fact that children react differently to the same discipline intervention provides a challenge to parents, because it requires them to have something more than a general knowledge of discipline effects. They also need to know their individual child. Accordingly, Grusec, Goodnow, and Kuczynski (2000) argued that effective discipline depends on such variables as what requests the child is likely to accommodate more willingly or what forms of discipline are more likely to be effective or what a child might see as intrusive rather than autonomy supportive. Armed with this knowledge, socialization agents can then tailor their interventions in a more effective way. In support of this argument, Davidov and Grusec (2006) found that mothers who were more knowledgeable about their children’s evaluations of different discipline interventions were more likely to have children who, after initial noncompliance, complied with a request to clean up a playroom (Davidov & Grusec, 2006).

Discipline and failures to be prosocial

To this point, the reviewed research has been focused primarily on discipline and externalizing or antisocial behaviors. But what about prosocial actions such as helping and comforting? In fact, parents are reluctant to use discipline when their children fail to spontaneously engage in prosocial action (in contrast to requests for such action) (Grusec, 1991; Grusec, Dix, & Mills, 1982). In keeping with this observation, Vinik (2015) asked young adults to write narratives about a time when they learned an important value or lesson from their parents. The majority of the narratives produced involved times when they had misbehaved—told a lie, broke an object, stole money, been rude—and were disciplined. Almost none of these narratives concerning misbehavior, however, involved a failure to initiate prosocial or helpful behavior. Instead, these values were learned in other domains of socialization including discussion or teaching and observational learning.

Discipline in cultural context

Strict or strongly power-assertive parenting appears to have uniformly negative consequences when administered in middle-class families from industrialized Western countries. In lower SES contexts and many other parts of the world, however, the outcomes of harsh power assertion are less negative (Bugental & Grusec, 2006). In spite of the fact that such parenting violates some of the apparent basic principles of good discipline—listening and responding to the child’s point of view and allowing choice, compromise, and negotiation, it seems less harmful in these different contexts. Explanations for this effect involve consideration of the thoughts, emotions, and goals parents have when they discipline in a strict way as well as how children interpret their parents’ strictness.

It has been suggested that lower SES parents tend to use more controlling forms of discipline because they and their children live in high-risk environments where strict obedience often becomes a matter of the child’s safety (Kelley, Power, & Wimbush, 1992). Presumably knowledge that strict parenting is a manifestation of care and support inclines the child toward greater compliance than if it were perceived to be an outcome of rejection and anger. With respect to power-assertive parenting in broader cultural contexts, it has been argued that agents of socialization have different goals and values that are a reflection of the independent or interdependent nature of the culture in which they live (for a review, see Bugental & Grusec, 2006). For independent cultures that emphasize autonomy and self-reliance, strict parenting has a negative meaning because it violates principles of individual choice and some degree of separation from others. For interdependent cultures that emphasize group needs and discourage expressions of self-interest, lack of autonomy support may have a much less negative effect.

Power assertion: Associated affect and cognition

If discipline is beneficial when it accords with cultural goals, then power assertion should have fewer negative correlates in interdependent cultures than in cultures where choice and compromise are more highly valued. Rudy and Grusec (2001) found that, for both Egyptian- and Anglo-Canadian parents, the best predictor of strict rules, close supervision, and control through anxiety induction was a collectivist orientation. For Anglo-Canadian parents only, lack of warmth was also a predictor. In addition, Rudy and Grusec (2006) found associations for authoritarian parenting between anger and negative thinking about their children for Anglo-Canadian parents but not Middle-Eastern-Canadian parents. Presumably parenting associated with negative affect and cognition is not likely to be seen by the child as fair or well-intentioned and therefore less likely to be effective than that interpreted as reflecting care (Grusec & Goodnow, 1994).

Power assertion: The case of physical punishment

One variable shown to play a significant role in the outcomes of physical punishment is its normativeness: if this form of discipline is considered acceptable and constructive, it may more likely be delivered in a positive teaching context than in one that involves anger and negative thinking. Lansford, Deater-Deckard, Dodge, Bates, and Pettit (2004), for example, reported that early physical punishment was a predictor of later externalizing behaviors for European-American but not African-American adolescents, a finding they attributed to physical punishment being more normative or expected by African-Americans than European-Americans.

Lansford et al. (2005) investigated the use of physical punishment in countries that varied in its usage. They found that perceptions of physical punishment’s normativeness moderated the relation between it and behavior problems, with the relation being weaker, although still present, when children perceived physical punishment to be more normative or usual. Although positive evaluations of parental intent and caring may be more likely when physical punishment is perceived as a common practice, the fact that the association between physical punishment and behavior problems was still present underlines its continued harmfulness by, presumably, providing a model of aggressive behavior for children to imitate. Of note, normativeness also moderated the negative effects of yelling and scolding, but not other forms of discipline such as taking away privileges, shaming, love withdrawal, encouraging restitution, and teaching about good and bad behavior (Gershoff et al., 2010). Lansford et al. (2010) further found that children’s perceptions of parental hostility mediated between physical and harsh verbal punishment and children’s externalizing problems.

Power assertion: Message content

It is not only perceptions of caring and rejection that influence the meaning of discipline. The importance of the value or message parents are trying to impart can also affect the impact of strict and controlling discipline. In a comparison of native-born Israelis with Israeli immigrants from the former USSR, for example, Davidov and Atzaba-Poria (2016) assessed strict and controlling parenting of the two groups in general, as well as with respect to school achievement, an outcome of greater importance, on average, to the parents from the former USSR than to the native-born parents. Although they found the usual positive relation between strict parenting and externalizing problems, they also found that punitive parenting, specifically in response to academic transgressions, was associated with externalizing problems in the native Israeli group but not the Soviet cultural group, a finding they attribute to the greater valuing of achievement by the latter. This finding, then, implies that strict parenting may be more acceptable when the child perceives the value being transmitted as one of particular importance to the parent.

Discipline and meaning

Studies that focus on cultural differences in the correlates and effects of discipline underline the importance of the meaning children attach to the discipline encounter. If discipline is seen to be normative, appropriate and fair, and a reflection of parental caring and parental efforts to teach a culture’s values, then its effects are generally positive, often regardless of the form it might take. Of course there are some forms of discipline that can never be seen as appropriate or fair or that do not allow benign interpretation (Soenens, Vansteenkiste, & Van Petegem, 2015). Similarly, some parenting practices, such as the use of physical punishment, even if they are seen as fair and well-intentioned, have the unfortunate side-effect of providing models for conflict resolution that involve physical aggression. In that way they run counter to the universal moral value of refraining from physical harm to others.

Conclusion

Discipline is a challenging socialization strategy that requires considerable care in its administration. There are alternative socialization strategies where mistakes are less easily made, where messages are more easily transmitted, and where unintended outcomes are less likely to occur (Grusec & Davidov, 2010). These include the development of a secure attachment relationship which facilitates compliance with the wishes of a trusted adult, as well as of a mutually compliant relationship which increases the probability of willing compliance. Talking about values and positive social behavior in a supportive and responsive way as well as providing models of prosocial action are additional ways of promoting value internalization. The relation between the use of these socialization strategies and the use of discipline is an important topic for future investigation.

Footnotes

Funding

The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

References

Bandura

(1999). Moral disengagement in the perpetration of inhumanities. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 3, 193–209.

Bates

J. E.

Pettit

G. S.

(2015). Temperament, parenting, and social development. In Grusec

J. E.

Hastings

P. D.

(Eds.), Handbook of socialization: Theory and research (2nd ed., pp. 372–397). New York: Guilford Press.

Baumrind

(2012). Differentiating between confrontive and coercive kinds of parental power-assertive disciplinary practices. Human Development, 55, 35–51.

Brehm

S. S.

Brehm

J. W.

(1981). Psychological reactance: A theory of freedom and control. London, UK: Academic Press.

Bugental

D. B.

Grusec

J. E.

(2006). Socialization processes. In Eisenberg

Damon

Lerner

R. M.

(Eds.), Handbook of child psychology: Vol. 3, social, emotional, and personality development (6th ed., pp. 366–428). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons Inc.

Chaparro

M. P.

Grusec

J. E.

(2016). Neuroticism moderates the relation between parenting and empathy and between empathy and prosocial behavior. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 62, 105–128.

Cornell

A. H.

Frick

P. J.

(2007). The moderating effects of parenting styles in the association between behavioral inhibition and parent-reported guilt and empathy in preschool children. Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, 36, 305–318.

Darling

Steinberg

(1993). Parenting style as context: An integrative model. Psychological Bulletin, 113, 487–496.

Davidov

Atzaba-Poria

(2016). Maternal discipline and children’s adjustment: The role of the cultural and situational context. Social Development, 25, 99–119.

10.

Davidov

Grusec

J. E.

(2006). Multiple pathways to compliance: Mothers’ willingness to cooperate and knowledge of their children’s reactions to discipline. Journal of Family Psychology, 20, 705–708.

11.

Deater-Deckard

Ivy

Petrill

S. A.

(2006). Maternal warmth moderates the link between physical punishment and child externalizing problems: A parent-offspring behavior genetic analysis. Parenting: Science and Practice, 6, 59–78.

12.

Eisenberg

Fabes

R. A.

Spinrad

T. L.

(2006). Prosocial development. In Damon

Lerner

R. M.

(Eds.), Handbook of child psychology: Vol. 3, social, emotional, and personality development (6th ed., pp. 646–718). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons Inc.

13.

Eisenberg-Berg

Geisheker

(1979). Content of preachings and power of the model/preacher: The effect on children’s generosity. Developmental Psychology, 15, 168–175.

14.

Gershoff

E. T.

Grogan-Kaylor

Lansford

J. E.

Chang

Zelli

Deater-Deckard

Dodge

K. A.

(2010). Parent discipline practices in an international sample: Associations with child behaviors and moderation by perceived normativeness. Child Development, 81, 487–502.

15.

Gershoff

E. T.

Grogan-Kaylor

(2016). Spanking and child outcomes: Old controversies and new meta-analyses. Journal of Family Psychology, 30, 453–469

16.

Grusec

J. E.

(1983). The internalization of altruistic dispositions: A cognitive analysis. In Higgins

E. T.

Ruble

D. N.

Hartup

W. W.

(Eds.), Social cognition and social development (pp. 275–293). New York: Cambridge University Press.

17.

Grusec

J. E.

(1991). Socializing concern for others in the home. Developmental Psychology, 27, 338–342.

18.

Grusec

J. E.

Dix

Mills

(1982). The effects of type, severity, and victim of children’s transgressions on maternal discipline. Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science, 14, 276–289.

19.

Grusec

J. E.

Davidov

(2010). Integrating different perspectives on socialization theory and research: A domain-specific approach. Child Development, 81, 687–709.

20.

Grusec

J. E.

Goodnow

J. J.

(1994). Impact of parental discipline methods on the child’s internalization of values: A reconceptualization of current points of view. Developmental Psychology, 30, 4–19.

21.

Grusec

J. E.

Goodnow

J. J.

Kuczynski

(2000). New directions in analyses of parenting contributions to children’s acquisition of values. Child Development, 71, 205–211.

22.

Halgunseth

L. C.

Perkins

D. F.

Lippold

M. A.

Nix

R. L.

(2013). Delinquent-oriented attitudes mediate the relation between parental inconsistent discipline and early adolescent behavior. Journal of Family Psychology, 27, 293–302.

23.

Hastings

P. D.

Grusec

J. E.

(1998). Parenting goals as organizers of responses to parent-child disagreement. Developmental Psychology, 34, 465–479.

24.

Helwig

C. C.

Wang

Liu

Yang

(2014). Judgments and reasoning about parental discipline involving induction and psychological control in China and Canada. Child Development, 85, 1150–1167.

25.

Hoffman

M. L.

(1970). Moral development. Carmichael’s Manual of Child Psychology, 2, 261–359.

26.

Hoffman

M. L.

(1982). Affect and moral development. New Directions for Child Development, 16, 83–103.

27.

Joussemet

Landry

Koestner

(2008). A self-determination theory perspective on parenting. Canadian Psychology, 49, 194–200.

28.

Kelley

M. L.

Power

T. G.

Wimbush

D. D.

(1992). Determinants of disciplinary practices in low-income Black mothers. Child Development, 63, 573–582.

29.

Killen

Breton

Ferguson

Handler

(1994). Preschoolers’ evaluations of teacher methods of intervention in social transgressions. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 40, 399–415.

30.

Lansford

J. E.

Chang

Dodge

K. A.

Malone

P. S.

Oburu

Palmérus

… Zelli

(2005). Physical discipline and children’s adjustment: Cultural normativeness as a moderator. Child Development, 76, 1234–1246.

31.

Lansford

J. E.

Deater-Deckard

Dodge

K. A.

Bates

J. E.

Pettit

G. S.

(2004). Ethnic differences in the link between physical discipline and later adolescent externalizing behaviors. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 45, 801–812.

32.

Lansford

J. E.

Malone

P. S.

Dodge

K. A.

Chang

Chaudhary

Tapanya

… Deater-Deckard

(2010). Children’s perceptions of maternal hostility as a mediator of the link between discipline and children’s adjustment in four countries. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 34, 452–461.

33.

Lepper

(1983). Social control processes, attributions of motivation, and the internalization of social values. In Higgins

E.T.

Ruble

D. N.

Hartup

W. W.

(Eds.), Social cognition and social development: A sociocultural perspective (pp. 294–330). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

34.

Loeber

Green

S. M.

Keenan

Lahey

B. B.

(1995). Which boys will fare worse? Early predictors of the onset of conduct disorder in a six-year longitudinal study. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 34, 499–509.

35.

Lundell

L. J.

Grusec

J. E.

McShane

K. E.

Davidov

(2008). Mother–adolescent conflict: Adolescent goals, maternal perspective-taking, and conflict intensity. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 18, 555–571.

36.

Mageau

G. A.

Sherman

Grusec

J. E.

Koestner

Bureau

J. S.

(in press). Different ways of knowing a child and their relations to maternal autonomy support. Social Development.

37.

Manongdo

J. A.

Ramírez García

J. I.

(2011). Maternal parenting and mental health of Mexican American youth: A bidirectional and prospective approach. Journal of Family Psychology, 25, 261–270.

38.

McLoyd

V. C.

Smith

(2002). Physical discipline and behavior problems in African American, European American, and Hispanic children: Emotional support as a moderator. Journal of Marriage and Family, 64, 40–53.

39.

Nucci

L. P.

(1984). Evaluating teachers as social agents: Students’ ratings of domain appropriate and domain inappropriate teacher responses to transgressions. American Educational Research Journal, 21, 367–378.

40.

Padilla-Walker

L. M.

Carlo

(2004). “It’s not fair!” Adolescents’ constructions of appropriateness of parental reactions. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 33, 389–401.

41.

Rohner

R. P.

Britner

P. A.

(2002). Worldwide mental health correlates of parental acceptance-rejection: Review of cross-cultural and intracultural evidence. Cross-Cultural Research: The Journal of Comparative Social Science, 36, 16–47.

42.

Rudy

Grusec

J. E.

(2001). Correlates of authoritarian parenting in individualist and collectivist cultures and implications for understanding the transmission of values. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 32, 202–212.

43.

Rudy

Grusec

J. E.

(2006). Authoritarian parenting in individualist and collectivist groups: Associations with maternal emotion and cognition and children’s self-esteem. Journal of Family Psychology, 20, 68–78.

44.

Ryan

R. M.

Deci

E. L.

(2017). Self-determination theory. New York: Guilford Press.

45.

Sears

R. R.

Maccoby

E. E.

Levin

(1957). Patterns of child rearing. Oxford, UK: Row, Peterson and Co.

46.

Sears

R. R.

Whiting

J. W. M.

Nowlis

Sears

P. S.

(1953). Some child-rearing antecedents of aggression and dependency in young children. Genetic Psychology Monographs, 47, 135–236.

47.

Siegal

Cowen

(1984). Appraisals of intervention: The mother’s versus the culprit’s behavior as determinants of children’s evaluations of discipline techniques. Child Development, 55(5), 1760–1766.

48.

Simons

R. L.

Lin

Gordon

Conger

R. D.

(2000). A cross-cultural examination of the link between corporal punishment and adolescent antisocial behavior. Criminology, 38, 47–80.

49.

Smetana

J. G.

(2011). Adolescents, families, and social development: How teens construct their worlds. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.

50.

Soenens

Vansteenkiste

Van Petegem

(2015). Let us not throw out the baby with the bathwater: Applying the principle of universalism without uniformity to autonomy-supportive and controlling parenting. Child Development Perspectives, 9, 44–49.

51.

Tildesley

E. A.

Andrews

J. A.

(2008). The development of children’s intentions to use alcohol: Direct and indirect effects of parent alcohol use and parenting behaviors. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, 22, 326–339.

52.

Turiel

(1983). The development of social knowledge: Morality and convention. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

53.

Van Petegem

Soenens

Vansteenkiste

Beyers

(2015). Rebels with a cause? adolescent defiance from the perspective of reactance theory and Self-Determination theory. Child Development, 86, 903–918.

54.

Vansteenkiste

Soenens

Van Petegem

Duriez

(2014). Longitudinal associations between adolescent perceived degree and style of parental prohibition and internalization and defiance. Developmental Psychology, 50, 229–236.

55.

Vinik

(2015). Children’s acquisition of values within the family: Domains of socialization assessed with autobiographical narratives. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada.