Parents' personality, marriage satisfaction, stress, and punishment of children in the family

Abstract

The objective of the research is to ascertain whether emotional and volitional characteristics of the individual affect the frequency of punishment in the family (for example, prohibition to watch TY for some time, pocket money reduction, request for an apology). These types of punishments are legal in Russia. The research method is Perrez's, Schoebi's questionnaire on punishing behavior in education, and Chumakov's questionnaire on volitional and emotional characteristics of a person (VEC). The data were divided into two groups (high or low level of development of volitional powers). Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was applied to compare groups. The dependent variables were marriage satisfaction, emotional stress, and frequency of punishment of children in the family. Results and conclusions found that the gaps between the groups were significant for marriage satisfaction F (1,105) = 17.77, p < 0.001 and emotional stress F (1,105) = 23.53, p < 0.001 but were not significant for the frequency of punishment. Marriage satisfaction in a group with high VEC parameters is higher than in the group with low parameters. The stress in the group with high VEC parameters is lower than in the group with low parameters. There is a correlation between marriage satisfaction and frequency of punishment as well as between stress and frequency of punishment. Thus, the emotional and volitional qualities of the parents' personality indirectly influence the frequency of punishment of children in the family.