Discipline responses: Influences of parents' socioeconomic status, ethnicity, beliefs about parenting, stress, and cognitive-emotional processes.

TLDR

Societal experiences shape whether parents use goal‑oriented or reactive discipline. The study examined direct and indirect precursors to harsh discipline in 978 parents of 585 kindergarteners, assessing socioeconomic status, ethnicity, parenting beliefs, stress, and cognitive‑emotional processes. SEM revealed that lower socioeconomic status and African‑American ethnicity were linked to harsher discipline through beliefs about spanking, child aggression, family stress, and parents’ cognitive‑emotional responses.

Abstract

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.