Poster #65 - Parent vs Child Influences on Differential Parental Warmth and Discipline Within Twin Pairs

• In Event: Poster Session 13

Abstract

Introduction: Two broad categories of parenting behaviors are parental warmth, including sensitivity, nurturing, and positive affect toward children, and parental control, particularly discipline (Grolnick & Pomerantz, 2009). The driving forces behind these behaviors are not well explored and may include child and/or parent characteristics. For example, parents may behave in reaction to temperamental characteristics of their children, or behaviors may be related to personality factors of the parents themselves such as openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism (Goldberg, 1992). Each of these has been associated with parenting behaviors of warmth and discipline (Achtergarde et al., 2014; Rantanen et al., 2014; Taraban & Shaw, 2018).
Examination of how parent behavior differs toward children in the same family will provide essential information about variables that may affect parenting behaviors. Importantly, examination of twins allows us to hold constant confounding variables such as child age. Research has begun to utilize twin studies to examine differential parenting, but such studies are relatively few and have not yet addressed the present variables of interest (e.g., Long et al., 2015; Waller et al., 2018). This study aimed to assess directionality of the relationship between parenting and temperament/personality. Parental warmth behaviors were hypothesized to be associated with parent personality, whereas discipline behaviors were hypothesized to be reactions to child temperament (Euser et al., 2020; McGuire et al., 2012).
Method: This study utilized a twin sample to investigate child temperament in association with parental behaviors of warmth and discipline at age 4 years (N = 188 twin pairs, 56% female). Parent personality and child temperament were assessed via parent questionnaires (Big-Five Mini Markers; Saucier, 1994; Child Behavior Questionnaire; Rothbart, 2001). Parent behaviors were observed through an in-lab parent-child interaction task and coded using the Parent-Child Interaction Scheme (PCIS; DiLalla et al., 2013).
Results: To analyze parents’ behaviors related to child temperament, difference scores were calculated for each twin pairs’ Effortful Control, Negative Affectivity, and Surgency/Extraversion scores. Difference scores also were created for parent warmth and discipline for each twin pair. Temperament difference scores were then correlated with parenting difference scores (Table 1). Parent discipline difference scores were significantly negative correlated with child effortful control difference scores , r = -.26, p < .001, and marginally correlated with surgency/extraversion, r = .13, p = .061. indicating that within twin pairs, the child with higher effortful control and/or lower surgency/extraversion received less discipline than their co-twin. Conversely, parent personality was significantly correlated with parental warmth behaviors. Results showed significant positive correlations between parental warmth behaviors and extraversion, r = .17, p = .015, as well as agreeableness, r = .19, p = .007 (Table 2).
Discussion: In clarifying the direction of effects in parent-child relationships, this study demonstrates the significance of child temperament affecting parent discipline, whereas parent personality contributes to parental warmth behaviors. This research contributes to knowledge about the driving forces behind parenting behaviors and can aid intervention to correct maladaptive parenting behaviors as well as encourage healthy parenting behaviors, thus promoting positive outcomes for children.

Authors

• Rachel Lynn Weisbecker, Southern Illinois University
  Presenting Author

• Lisabeth Fisher DiLalla, Southern Illinois University