Poster #129 - Links Among Mothers’ Parenting, Aggression, Prosocial Behaviors, and the Mediating Role of Expected Parental Reactions

• In Event: 2-055 - Poster Session 06
  In Poster Session: PS 06 Section - Moral Development

Integrative Statement

Parental socialization is a well-studied area that has been shown to have consequences on children and adolescents’ prosocial (i.e., actions intend to benefit others; Eisenberg, Spinrad, & Knafo. 2015) and antisocial behaviors (i.e., actions intend to harm others; Coyne, Nelson, & Underwood, 2010) (Grusec, Chaparro, Johnsonton, & Sherman, 2013). One area of parenting that has received attention is the study of expected parental reactions (EPRs) (Hardy & Carlo; Wyatt & Carlo, 2002) which refer to children’s judgements of the appropriateness of their parents’ reactions to prosocial and antisocial behaviors. EPRs are deemed to develop as a result of socialization experiences over time such that adolescents develop expectations about how their parents would respond to future prosocial and antisocial behaviors (Wyatt & Carlo, 2002). Past research has found that EPRs are predictive of higher levels of prosocial behavior and lower levels of aggression and delinquency (Wyatt & Carlo, 2002). However, what is less understood about the relation between EPRs and antisocial and prosocial behaviors are how these expectancies form. Two aspects of parenting that may be linked to the formation of EPRs include parental warmth and psychological control, broad dimensions of parenting styles that are also often associated with children’s prosocial and antisocial behaviors (Padilla-Walker, 2014). The present study was designed to examine the possible mediating role of EPRs in the relations between maternal warmth and control and youth prosocial and antisocial behavior.
The sample was composed of 324 college students (Mage=19.47 years, SD=1.10; 79.6% female) from a large university in the Midwest U.S. Students completed the RCRPBI to assess parental warmth and psychological control (Schuldermann & Schuldermann, 1988), the Expected Parental Reactions Scale (Wyatt & Carlo, 2002), the Weinberg Adjustment Inventory (Weinberger & Schwartz, 1990), and the Prosocial Tendencies Measure (Carlo, Hausmann, Christiansen, & Randall, 2003; Carlo, McGinley, Zamboanga, & Jarvis, 2010). A path model conducted in Mplus 8.0 (Muthén & Muthén, 1998-2017) showed that mothers ‘warmth and psychological control were differentially linked to college students’ prosocial behaviors and aggression, and that parental reactions to antisocial and prosocial behaviors mediated these associations. Expected reactions to prosocial behavior mediated the relation between warmth and prosocial behavior (95% C.I: .03, .016) and the relation between control and prosocial behavior (95% C.I.: .072, -.005). Expected reactions to antisocial behavior mediated the relation between warmth and aggression (95% C.I.: -.052, -.003) and the relation between control and aggression (95% C.I.: .001, .049). The general findings suggest that maternal warmth and maternal psychological control may be contributing to college students’ prosocial behavior and aggression indirectly through expected parental reactions. Discussion will focus on role of parenting styles and the social cognitive mechanisms associated with expected parental reactions in predicting prosocial behaviors.

Authors

• Logan Dicus, University of Missouri
  Presenting Author

• Gustavo Carlo, University of Missouri
  Non-Presenting Author

• Meredith McGinley, University of Wisconsin-Parkside
  Non-Presenting Author