Study 1. The parents shared their experience of parenting and respond to questions developed based on a review of the literature, to assess: 1) parents’ descriptions of controlling parenting behaviors and 2) parents’ beliefs about the acceptance and effectiveness of parental control. Specifically, four hypothetical vignettes involving parents’ use of control (e.g. physical coercion and psychological control; see Table 1) in response to non-desired child behaviors were developed by the research team for this study. After reading each vignette, parents were asked to comment on the parent’s parenting behaviors in each vignette and to describe situations during the past two weeks when they used those controlling parenting behaviors. Study 2. The lead teachers in each participating class provided ratings of physical and relational aggression for each participating child, while each participating child’s mother and father completed a survey to report on their own as well as their spouse’s parenting behaviors to reduce self-report bias at both Time 1 (i.e. November) and Time 2 (i.e. May). Family background and control variables were also measured. At the same time, the RA and student research assistants (SRA) visited each kindergarten to conduct child tasks to assess child temperament (Time 1 only) and aggression (Time 1 and Time 2) |
