Effects of parenting and discipline on antisocial behavior: Mediating role of adaptive and maladaptive social-information processing

Abstract

A search of the published literature identified few studies that have examined the mechanisms by which parenting and children's perceptions of patenting behavior predicted antisocial behavior through both adaptive and maladaptive social-information processing. The present study tested the hypothetical model that parenting attitudes are manifested in actual parenting behavior, and that children represent their image of their parents' parenting attitudes through their perception of their parents' behavior. The children's images of their parents' parenting attitudes would then affect the children's antisocial behavior through both adaptive and maladaptive social-information processing. Data were obtained from pairs of 327 junior high school students (193 seventh graders, 79 eighth graders, and 55 ninth graders) from one school and their parents (of whom 303 were their mothers), and 471 university undergraduates from 2 universities and their parents (of whom 422 were their mothers). The children and their parents provided retrospective reports of their perception of parenting and discipline during the children's early childhood. The children's social rules and anti-social cognitive biases, such as cognitive distortion, and their general beliefs about aggression were also assessed. The undergraduates also provided retrospective self-reports of their experiences with antisocial behavior during their high school years. The results of structural equation analyses conformed to the proposed model for both the junior high school and undergraduate samples. The present findings suggest that parents might need to confirm that their parenting behavior is perceived by their children as the parents intend.