Essay Grade

Copyright 2000 by the American Psychological Association, Inc.
0893-3200/00/$5.00
DOI: 10.1037//0893-3200.14.3.380
Journal of Family Psychology
2000, Vol. 14, No. 3, 380-400
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
Discipline Responses: Influences of Parents’
Socioeconomic Status, Ethnicity, Beliefs About
Parenting, Stress, and Cognitive-Emotional Processes
Ellen E. Pinderhughes
Kenneth A. Dodge
Vanderbilt University
Duke University
John E. Bates
Gregory S. Pettit
Indiana University
Auburn University
Arnaldo Zelli
Duke University
Direct and indirect precursors to parents’ harsh discipline responses to hypothetical
vignettes about child misbehavior were studied with data from 978 parents (59%
mothers; 82% European American and 16% African American) of 585
kindergarten-aged children. SEM analyses showed that parents’ beliefs about
spanking and child aggression and family stress mediated a negative relation
between socioeconomic status and discipline. In turn, perception of the child and
cognitive-emotional processes (hostile attributions, emotional upset, worry about
child’s future, available alternative disciplinary strategies, and available preventive
strategies) mediated the effect of stress on discipline. Similar relations between
ethnicity and discipline were found (African Americans reported harsher discipline), especially among low-income parents. Societally based experiences may
lead some parents to rely on accessible and coherent goals In their discipline,
whereas others are more reactive.
Parent discipline practices are integral in theories of children’s socialization. Parents’ use of
physical punishment with their child is of special interest. Numerous theories posit a role for
physical punishment in the development of antisocial behavior in children. According to one
set of theories, discipline responses are made in
the context of multiple influences ranging from
more distal factors such as culture, ethnicity,
and socioeconomic status (SES) to more proximal factors such as available social supports,
family structure, and family processes (Belsky,
1984; Luster & Okagaki, 1993; Rubin, Stewart,
& Chen, 1995). Indeed, SES and ethnic differences have been found consistently in
physical punishment (e.g., Deater-Deckard,
Ellen E. Pinderhughes, Department of Psychology
and Human Development, Peabody College, Vanderbilt University; Kenneth A. Dodge and Arnaldo Zelli,
Sanford Institute of Public Policy, Duke University;
John E. Bates, Department of Psychology, Indiana
University; Gregory S. Pettit, Department of Psychology, Auburn University,
This research was supported by National Institute
of Mental Health Grant MH42498, and National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
Grant HD30572 and a William T. Grant faculty
scholar award. We are grateful for the participation of
numerous parents, children, and teachers. Special
appreciation for assistance with this article is extended to Robert D. Laird, Robert Nix, and Laura
Griner Hill.
Correspondence concerning this article should be
addressed to Ellen E. Pinderhughes, Department of
Psychology and Human Development, Peabody College, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee
37203. Electronic mail may be sent to ellen.e.
pinderhughes @ vanderbilt.edu.
380
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
SPECIAL ISSUE: SES, ETHNICITY, AND DISCIPLINE
Dodge, Bates, & Pettit, 1996; Dodge, Pettit, &
Bates, 1994; Luster, Rhoades, & Haas, 1989;
McLoyd, 1990). More proximal influences such
as stress also have been linked to punitive parenting (e.g., McLoyd, Jayaratne, Ceballo, &
Borquez, 1994). Another set of theories suggests that the most proximal influence on discipline responses can be found in parents’
cognitive-emotional processes regarding situationally based child misbehavior (e.g., Dix,
1993). This study drew from these two sets of
literature to examine relations among contextual influences, cognitive-emotional processes,
and parents’ use of physical or harsh punishment. Consistent with Luster & Okagaki
(1993), who have suggested several patterns
through which contextual influences may affect
discipline responses, this study examined direct
and mediated relations among SES, ethnicity,
gender, stressors, parents’ perception of the
child, parenting beliefs, cognitive-emotional
processes, and the use of physical and harsh
punishment (hereafter referred to as discipline
responses). Two models of direct and mediated
relations between SES and discipline responses
and between ethnicity and discipline responses
were tested. The theoretical and empirical literatures supporting these models are discussed
next
381
Direct and Mediated Relations Between
SES and Parenting
Figure 1 presents a model of direct and mediated relations between SES and discipline responses. SES has been found consistently to
have negative relations with physical and harsh
punishment. Although there may be differences
in this relation across ethnicity (e.g., DeaterDeckard et al., 1996), this relation is hypothesized to hold within ethnicity.
Parenting Values and Beliefs
As Figure 1 depicts, one theorized pathway
linking SES and parenting practices is parenting
beliefs (Kohn, 1963; Okagaki & Divecha,
1993). With a sample of European American
mothers, Luster et al. (1989) found that SES
was negatively related to values embracing conformity and positively related to values endorsing self-direction. In turn, the effect of these
parental values on parenting behaviors was mediated by parenting beliefs about discipline,
promoting exploratory behavior, and affectionate, responsive behavior. This leads to the question of whether the relation between SES and
parenting behavior could be mediated by parenting beliefs. Several studies illustrate the link
CognltlveEa»tion»l
ProccsMg
Figure 2. Hypothesized model of relations among socioeconomic status (SES), parenting beliefs, stress,
perception of child, cognitive-emotional processes, and discipline responses.
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
382
PINDERHUGHES, DODGE, BATES, PETTIT, AND ZELLI
between parenting beliefs and attitudes and parenting behavior (e.g., Dix, 1993; Luster et al.,
1989). Luster and Kain (1987) found differences between parents who believed that parenting positively affects child outcomes (high
efficacy) and parents who believed that parenting has little effect on child outcomes (low
efficacy). Parents high in efficacy endorsed
love, affection, and modeling as critical influences, whereas parents low in efficacy, especially fathers, tended to endorse discipline.
Stressors, Parent Perception of the Child,
and Parent Cognitive-Emotional
Processes
Another pathway through which SES is hypothesized to influence differences in discipline
responses is stress: Economic hardship exposes
low-SES parents to additional stressors that undermine their ability to use inductive discipline
strategies and that result in higher parental reliance on punitive discipline (see McLoyd,
1990, for a review of the literature on these
relations). Parental stress has been found to be
associated positively with punitive parenting
practices (e.g., Crnic & Greenberg, 1987;
McLoyd et al., 1994; Patterson, 1986). Low
SES may operate through the following specific
stressors that are associated with punitive and
unsupportive practices: being a single parent
(e.g., Fox, Platz, & Bentley, 1995), having a
large number of children (e.g., Fox et al., 1995),
having an unplanned pregnancy (e.g., Zuravin,
1987), and living in an unsafe neighborhood
(e.g., Abell, Clawson, Washington, Bost, &
Vaughn, 1996).
Parents’ Perception of the Child
Although external stressors are hypothesized
to have a direct link to parents’ discipline responses, their influence also may be mediated
by parents’ perception of the child and parents’
cognitive-emotional processes when faced with
child misbehavior. External stressors have been
found to predict parents’ negative views of the
child (Conger, McCarty, Yang, Lahey, &
Kropp, 1984). And parents’ perception of child
functioning has been linked to parenting behaviors, particularly among parents of aggressive
children (Rubin et al., 1995). Aggressive behavior by children in preschool and early elementary school tends to evoke negative parent emotions and cognitions, which lead to more
negative parenting behaviors (Rubin & Mills,
1992; Rubin et al., 1995).
Parents’ Cognitive-Emotional Processes
McLoyd (1990) noted that stressful life conditions facing low-income parents undermine
their emotional state. Dix (1991) has suggested
that high levels of stressors negatively affect
parents’ cognitive-emotional processes. Several links have been found between cognitiveemotional processes and parents’ discipline responses. First, it has been shown (e.g., Dix,
Ruble, & Zambarano, 1989; MacKinnon-Lewis,
Lamb, Arbuckle, Baradaran, & Volling, 1992;
Strassberg, 1995) that parents’ tendency to
make hostile attributions about the child correlates with punitive parenting. Second, intense
negative affect about child misbehavior may be
related to use or endorsement of forceful discipline (Dix, 1993; Dix & Lochman, 1990).
Third, parental worry about the future implications of current child misbehavior may affect
discipline responses. This process may be intensified when important socialization goals are
involved (Dix, 1991, 1993). For example, a
parent who values obedience is more likely to
become upset over his or her child’s defiance
than is a parent who places less value on obedience. These different emotional reactions to
defiance might lead to different discipline responses. Fourth, parental perceived control over
the misbehavior is another process that may
affect discipline responses (Dix, 1991). Parents
who perceive that they lack control over the
misbehavior in question are more likely to have
negative emotions than those who believe they
can control the misbehavior (Bugental, Blue, &
Lewis, 1990). In this study, perceived control
over the misbehavior was assessed in two ways:
the degree to which parents perceived that they
could prevent the problem behavior in the future
and the variety of noncoercive alternative disciplinary strategies they reported as being available to them.
Direct and Mediated Relations Between
Ethnicity and Parents’ Discipline
Responses
The direct and mediated relations between
ethnicity and discipline responses were theorized to be the same, with one key difference.
SES was expected to moderate relations be-
SPECIAL ISSUE: SES, ETHNICITY, AND DISCIPLINE
tween ethnicity and stress. The literature supporting this model is summarized next.
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
Ethnicity and Parenting Beliefs
African American mothers have reported
greater use of physical discipline than do European American mothers (Deater-Deckard et al.,
1996). African American parents also have displayed more punitive attitudes toward their children (e.g., Reis, Barbera-Stein, & Bennett,
1986). How parents think about physical or
severe discipline and its purpose as a socialization strategy may differ for African Americans
and European Americans (e.g., Deater-Deckard
& Dodge, 1997; Garcia Coll, 1990; Jackson,
1997; Kelley, Power, & Wimbush, 1992; Ogbu,
1981). For example, ethnic differences have
been found in parents’ acceptance of spanking
(Heffer & Kelley, 1987). Thus, this study represents a further step in examining ethnic differences in parenting (Deater-Deckard et al.,
1996; Pettit, Bates, & Dodge, 1997) by specifically assessing whether parenting beliefs mediate relations between ethnicity and discipline.
Ethnicity, Stress, Parents’ Perceptions of
the Child and Cognitive-Emotional
Processes
Researchers have noted the moderating role
of SES in relations between ethnicity and stressors (McLoyd, 1990; Myers & King, 1983). In
their study of race, SES, and distress, Kessler
and Neighbors (1986) found that low-income
African Americans were particularly vulnerable
to additional race-related stressors and constraints and reported higher levels of stress than
did low-income European Americans. In contrast, no differences emerged between stress
levels reported by middle-income African
Americans and European Americans. These
findings were consistent across multiple epidemiological data sets. With higher levels of
stress, low-income African American parents
may be likely to engage in more punitive discipline responses (e.g., McLoyd, 1990). In the
study reported here, SES was hypothesized to
moderate relations between ethnicity and stressors. Low-income African American parents
were expected to report greater stress and to
endorse more physical and harsh discipline responses than their European American counterparts. Among middle-income parents, no ethnic
differences in level of stressors were expected,
383
and no differences were expected in relations
between level of stressors and discipline.
In summary, this study tested direct and indirect contributions of SES to discipline responses and direct and indirect contributions of
ethnicity to discipline responses. The study, part
of a longitudinal investigation of child development, used cross-sectional data. Parents’ responses to multiple hypothetical vignettes involving child misbehavior were the measure of
discipline responses. Parenting beliefs, family
stress, parents* perception of the child, and
cognitive-emotional processes were hypothesized to mediate relations between SES and
discipline responses and relations between ethnicity and discipline responses. Parenting beliefs included beliefs about (a) the effectiveness
of spanking and (b) the appropriateness of peerdirected aggression by the child. Stressors included marital status, number of children, having an unplanned pregnancy, living in an unsafe
neighborhood, and conflict in romantic relationships. Parent perception of the child was assessed as the distinctiveness of the description
of the child and parental affect toward the child.
Cognitive-emotional processes included hostile
attribution of the child, upset affect about the
misbehavior, concern about the future implications of the misbehavior, available alternative
discipline responses, and preventive discipline
responses.
This study included fathers as respondents.
Fathers’ voices are relatively rare in the literature on parenting (Phares, 1996). Although
mothers and fathers have been found to engage
in similar levels of harsh discipline (e.g.,
Feldman & Wentzel, 1990), research on relations among contextual influences, cognitiveemotional processes, and discipline responses
has focused primarily on mothers. Thus, inclusion of fathers here has the potential to extend
current understanding of parents’ discipline responses. More specifically, this design enabled
examination of parent sex as a moderator of
relations among SES, ethnicity, parenting beliefs, stress, perceptions of the child, cognitiveemotional processes, and discipline responses,
which Phares (1996) and Rubin et al. (1995)
noted are important new avenues for study.
Method
Participants
Respondents in this study were participants in the
Child Development Project (described in previous
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
384
PINDERHUGHES, DODGE, BATES, PETTIT, AND ZELLI
reports; e.g., Dodge et al., 1994; Pettit et al., 1997).
They were selected in two cohorts from Nashville,
Tennessee (a midsized mid-South urban community
with about 25% of the participants residing in federally subsidized housing); Knoxville, Tennessee (an
Appalachian rural and small urban community); and
Bloomington, Indiana (a small midwestern city, with
many of the participants selected from working-class
backgrounds, including some rural families of Appalachian descent). Families were recruited at the time
of the kindergarten preregistration and (in April or
August preceding the September of matriculation)
asked to participate in a longitudinal study of child
development. Two cohorts of participants were recruited in successive years. About 70% of families
agreed to participate. Because about 15% of kindergartners do not preregister, this proportion of the
sample was recruited in August by mail, letter from
school, or telephone. Of the 585 participating families, 52% had a male child, and 48% had a female
child; R2% were White, 16% were African American,
and 2% were from other ethnic backgrounds, mostly
Asian American. When the father lived in the same
home as the child, both parents were invited to participate. Of the 978 participating parents, 581 were
mothers, including adoptive mothers and stepmothers
(475 White, 95 African American, and 11 other), and
397 were fathers, including adoptive fathers and stepfathers (358 White, 30 African American, and 9
other). Of the 585 families, both parents participated
in 393 cases, mothers only participated in 188 cases,
and fathers only participated in 4 cases.
Procedure
In the summer before—or, in some cases, soon
after—the child’s matriculation in kindergarten, two
trained interviewers visited the mother, falher, and
child in (heir home for a 3-hr session. In almost all
cases, at least one of the two visitors was of the same
ethnicity as the family. One visitor obtained written
informed consent and then privately interviewed one
randomly selected parent while the second parent
completed a battery of written instruments. The other
visitor interviewed the child to collect information
not relevant to this article. After about 90 min, the
two parents switched roles. The parent interview
consisted of a demographic survey, a history of the
child’s development, and parenting divided into past
and current (past 12 months) eras. This interview was
followed by the presentation of five hypothetical parenting situations designed to solicit parent discipline
responses and cognitive-emotional processes. A
written battery further assessed the parent’s discipline responses and values and the child’s behavior.1
The parent interviewer was trained over a 4-week
period that included reading a detailed procedure
manual, observing interviews by a master interviewer, and conducting interviews with a supervisor
present. Interviewers were trained to a reliability of
.80 or higher (percentage agreement across all items,
with the supervisor’s scores as the criterion) before
they began to collect data on their own. Independent
reliability assessments were obtained by a trained
observer who either accompanied the interviewer
for or listened to tapes of 56 randomly selected
interviews.
Constructs and Measures
Demographic characteristics. Parent sex (1 =
mother, 2 = father) and child sex (1 = boy, 2 = girl)
were coded via interviewer observation. Ethnicity
(1 = White, 2 — African American, 3 = other) was
coded via direct questions to the parent. During the
interview, the parent’s and partner’s education and
employment status were solicited. Family SES was
computed with Hollingshead’s (1979) four-factor index of social status (based on parent and partner
education and current occupation; sample M — 39.5,
SD = 14). As recommended by Hollingshead, when
fathers did not reside in the home, the mother’s
scores were double weighted. Parent education level
was coded via Hollingshead’s 7-point scale {M =
4.7, SD ~ 1.3). Parent past-year employment status
was coded, on a 3-point scale, as unemployed outside
the home, employed part time, or employed full time
(M = 2.5, SD = 0.8).
General parenting beliefs were assessed with two
variables. The parent completed a newly developed,
15-item written instrument, the Culture Questionnaire, in which she or he read a statement and responded on a 7-point scale ranging from definite
disagreement to definite agreement. Six items were
used for this study. One item (reverse scored) constituted the parent’s belief that spanking works
(“When my child does something wrong, talking
about it with her/him helps more than spanking”);
M = 4.57, SD = 1.6). The mean of 5 items constituted a measure of the parent’s aggressive values for
the child (M = 2.57, SD = 1.0; a = .52): “I would
want my child to defend himselfyherself even if it
meant hitting another child”; “I wouldn’t try to stop
my child’s fighting because my child has to show that
s/he can defend herseltfhimself’; “Sometimes a physical fight might help my child have a better relationship with another child”; “If I found out my child hit
another child, I would be disappointed no matter
what the reason” (reverse scored); and “I wouldn’t
1
Interviewers read questionnaires to parents who
had difficulty reading items to ensure that parents
understood the questions. Interviewers also rated
level of literacy (degree of difficulty reading and
understanding questionnaires). Correlations between
this literacy measure and parent reports on written
measures ranged from .024 (ns) to .11 (p < .01). We
concluded that literacy had a modest impact on written responses.
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
SPECIAL ISSUE: SES, ETHNICITY, AND DISCIPLINE
mind if my child got a reputation as the toughest kid
in school.”
Family stress was assessed with five variables.
Parent marital status was coded on a 2-point scale as
married (which included cohabitating with a partner
for at least the past year) or single (M = 1.26, SD =
0.4). The number of children living in the home was
recorded directly (M = 2.20, SD = 1.0). During the
interview, the child’s birth history was reviewed, and
the degree of planning of the pregnancy was discussed. Unplanned pregnancy was coded on a 4-point
scale as unprepared (1), not planned but accepted
(2), partially planned or under discussion (3), or
planned (4; M = 2.01, SD = 1.09). Reliabilities of
the family stress measures, computed with the kappa
statistic, ranged from .63 to .87.
During the interview, family stressors were discussed in the context of influences on the child’s
development. The parent was asked the following:
“All families have conflicts, parents and kids. What
kinds of conflicts, arguments, or violence was your
child aware of during this past year (including shouting, physical fights, pushing, etc.)?” The interviewer
probed for descriptions of arguments and any involvement by outside agencies. Separate questions
asked about marital conflict, parent-child or sibling
conflict, and neighborhood conflict. The parent was
encouraged to talk freely about the number, range,
and severity of conflicts. On the basis of the parent’s
description, the interviewer privately rated the degree
of partner conflict on a 6-point scale of increasing
severity (0 = no partner or no conflict, 1 = rarely
even shouting, 2 — numerous mild verbal arguments
reported, 3 = numerous major verbal arguments
reported, 4 = mild physical fights or frequent major
verbal arguments reported, 5 = more than one major
physical fight reported; M = 1.75, SD = 1.1). Independent rater agreement on this coding was computed by Pearson correlation to be .70 (p < .001).
The interviewer also rated the child’s exposure to
violence outside the parental dyad, including other
familial violence and neighborhood violence (1 =
none, 2 = mild verbal arguments, 3 = major verbal
arguments, 4 = mild physical fights or frequent major verbal arguments, 5 = more than one major
physical fight; M – 1.60, SD – 0.9). Independent
rater agreement (r) was .69 (p < .001).
Later during the interview, the interviewer asked a
number of questions about the parent’s experience of
stress during the previous 12 months. Prompting
from a list of 14 common stressful life events,
the interviewer asked questions, including “What
changes or adjustments occurred in your family?”
“How did these changes affect your child?” “How
were you doing during the past year?” and “Did you
have chances to get out and do the things you enjoy,
with or without the family?” The interviewer then
privately rated the parent’s experience of stressors
(stress rating) on a 5-point scale ranging from minimal challenges (1) to severe and/or frequent chal-
385
lenges (5; M = 2.62, SD = 1.1). Independent rater
agreement was .75 (p < .001).
Perception of child. Two scores were derived to
measure the parent’s affect about the child and evaluation of the child. At the beginning of the interview,
the parent was asked to describe the child freely for
up to 5 min without interruption. The interviewer
then rated the parent’s positive affect toward the
child on a 3-point scale ranging from mostly negative
to mostly positive (M = 2.60, SD = 0.6). The Pearson
correlation coefficient for agreement was .56 (p <
.01). The interviewer also rated the level of distinctive description of the child—specifically, the parent’s ability to describe the child uniquely, with great
detail and understanding—on a 3-point scale ranging
from vague and indistinct to distinct and insightful
(Af = 2.13, SD = 0.7), Reliability, computed with the
Pearson correlation coefficient, was .67 {p < .001).
Cognitive-emotional processes in parenting were
assessed with five variables. In the last part of the
interview, parents were presented with each of five
hypothetical vignettes designed to elicit cognitiveemotional processes in decision making in response
to child misbehavior. For each vignette, the parent
was asked to imagine that her or his child had engaged in a particular misbehavior in an ambiguous
context For example, in one vignette, the parent was
asked to imagine the following: “You go to your
child’s school to pick him or her up. You see all the
kindergarten children running to get into line. One of
the other children runs hard and bumps into your
child. The other kids laugh. Your child gets upset and
pushes the other kid to the ground” (Story 2). The
other vignettes described the child calling the winner
of a race a bad name (Story 1), the child threatening
peers who had excluded the child from a game (Story
3), the child excluding a cousin from a birthday party
invitation list (Story 4), and the child teasing a peer
(Story 5).
After each vignette, the parent first was asked why
the child might have acted in the manner described.
As a means of measuring the parent’s hostile attribution to the child, responses were scored as 1 if the
parent indicated that the child had acted with hostile
intent or in a negative-trait-like manner (or, in 3% of
the cases, if the parent could not generate an explanation) and 0 if the parent attributed the blame to any
other cause (including the demands of the situation,
the child’s temporary state, the child’s misinterpretation of peer behavior, or the peer’s behavior) or
reported that the behavior was not indicative of a
problem (across five vignettes, M = .24, SD ~ .21).
Second, the parent was asked to rate how she or he
would feel if the child had behaved this way (upset
affect); responses ranged from very good and not
upset (1) to very bad and upset (5; M — 3.99, SD =
0.5). Next, the parent was asked what she or he would
do if the child behaved this way. Free responses were
solicited that could include multiple behaviors. The
full response was coded as 1 if it included physical
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
386
PINDERHUGHES, DODGE, BATES, PETTIT, AND ZELLI
punishment and 0 if not (M = .06, SD = .13). The
response was separately coded as 1 if it included
reasoning, explanations, discussion, inductive reasoning, or proactive guidance and 0 if not, as a
measure of an acceptable alternative to physical punishment (M = .77, SD = .24). A parent’s response
could be coded as including both of these alternatives
or neither alternative.
Third, as a measure of severity of discipline response, the parent was asked to rate whether she or he
would punish the child and, if so, how much. Response options were not at all (1), a little (2), moderately (3), somewhat (4), and very sternly (5; M =
2.50, SD = 0.9).
Next, the parent was told “Children sometimes do
things that make their parents worry that they will
have some problems. Some things parents don’t
worry about because they know their children will
grow out of it. If your child acted this way most of the
time, how worried would you be that your child
would grow up to have problems later on?” Parents
rated their worry about the child’s future on a 5-point
scale ranging from not at all (1) to very worried (5;
M – 3.43, SD – 0.9).
Finally, the parent was asked “What could you as
a parent do to prevent your child from acting this way
in the first place?” The free response was coded as a
measure of available preventive strategies in the parent’s repertoire, with 1 coded if the response included
a before-the-fact preventive strategy and 0 coded if
the parent reported that the behavior could not be
prevented or the parent could generate only an afterthe-fact response (M = .09, SD = .16). Reliability
was assessed on this measure with a subset of families (« = 24; Pettit et al., 1997). The correlation
between independent raters for the number of times
mothers identified a preventive strategy was .56. Because interviewers were trained to a high level of
reliability (.80) before beginning to collect data, reliability of coding on variables for which code options (i.e., hostile attribution, physical punishment,
and alternative punishments) were clear and unambiguous was not specifically assessed.
Harsh discipline response styles were assessed
with four variables. In addition to the two scores for
harsh discipline assessed in response to each of the
five hypothetical vignettes (physical punishment and
severity of discipline response), two other scores
were computed for harsh discipline used by the parent. The first score was a rating made by the interviewer after asking the following questions: “What
kinds of misbehavior over the past year did your
child do that you had to deal with?” “What kinds of
things did you have to do to deal with his/her misbehavior?” “How often did you have to physically
punish your child, such as spank, grab, or shake?”
and “What was the most severe thing you had to do
during this period?” The interviewer then privately
rated the parent’s harshness of discipline on a 5-point
scale ranging from nonrestrictive, mostly positive
guidance (1) to severe, strict, often physical punishment (5; M = 2.60, SD = 0.9). Independent rater
agreement on this rating was .73 (p < .001). (Because this rating was made early in the interview, it
was not affected by parents* responses to the five
vignettes.)
The fourth measure of harsh discipline was obtained from parent self-reports on a revision of the
Conflict Tactics Scales (CTS; Straus, 1979). Cohort 1
parents were asked to report the frequency with
which they displayed aggressive behaviors toward
their child for each of two eras of the child’s life
(birth to 4 years of age and the previous 12 months).
Response options ranged from never (0) to more than
once a month (5). A physical aggression toward child
scale was derived as the mean of 10 items (a = .87;
items were, for each of two eras, “threatened to hit or
throw something at your child”; “threw something at
your child”; “pushed, grabbed, or shoved your child”;
“hit or tried to hit your child”; and “hit or tried to hit
with something”). Straus and Gelles (1990) reported
“strong evidence of construct validity” (p. 72) for this
scale. For parents in Cohort 2, the “threatened to hit
or throw something at your child” item was divided
into 2 items, and the six resp