Dissertation
Elucidating parent and child effects in paths to positive socialization
University of Iowa
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), University of Iowa
Summer 2025
DOI: 10.25820/etd.008109
Abstract
Developmental psychologists and psychopathologists have long been exploring the question of who has more influence in children’s socialization processes – the parent or the child. This work has evolved considerably since it began in earnest in the 1970’s, with most modern work adopting a transactional perspective in which both the parent and child are seen as influencing the socialization process. In particular, the transactional perspective involves the parent and child influencing each other over time, working either as adversaries towards negative outcomes or as a team to promote positive outcomes. Transactional perspectives can include a focus on parenting behaviors, parent-child relationships, and child temperament as factors which, in their complex interplay, influence children’s socialization outcomes. The five studies, presented in Chapters 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 respectively, aimed to contribute to this literature by highlighting various aspects of the socialization processes, examining specific roles of the parent, the child, their relationship, and child temperament. All five studies used data from two longitudinal datasets, almost exclusively based on behavioral observations, and all examined the processes of interest in mother- and father-child dyads.
In the study presented in Chapter 2 (Study 1), my co-authors and I examined parental mind-mindedness (MM), the parent’s ability to view the infant as a distinct psychological agent with their own mental states, increasingly studied in developmental research, as a predictor of children’s self-regulation at preschool age, and parent-child mutual responsiveness as one mechanism, or mediator, of those links. Fathers’ MM, assessed in infancy, had a direct positive effect on children’s self-regulation; moreover, it had an indirect effect, such that it promoted mother-child mutual responsiveness which, in turn, predicted children’s self-regulation.
In the study presented in Chapter 3 (Study 2), my co-authors and I focused on the role of attachment security in early toddlerhood as a predictor of different aspects of self-regulation (abstract Stroop-like tasks and regulated, compliance towards the parent) at kindergarten-age. We also examined the role of child temperament (anger proneness). In both mother- and father-child dyads, more secure children performed better in abstract self-regulation tasks. In mother-child dyads, temperament additionally moderated the effects of security on compliance: As expected, highly anger-prone infants became more compliant if they had secure attachment relationships, but less compliant if they had insecure attachment relationships. There were no such effects for children low in anger proneness.
In the study presented in Chapter 4 (Study 3), my co-authors and I examined the effects of parent-child shared positive affect on parent-child attachment security in early toddlerhood. We again examined the role of child temperament. Again, in mother-child dyads, we found that highly anger-prone children became more secure if they had a history of shared positive affect, but less secure if they did not. There was no such effect for children low in anger proneness. In father-child dyads, shared positive affect predicted higher attachment security, regardless of child temperament.
In the study presented in Chapter 5 (Study 4), my co-authors and I studied the effects of parental use of mild power-assertive control on children’s positive orientation to their parents. Whether power assertion is universally detrimental remains controversial and is still debated. We tested if those effects depend on the quality of the parent-child relationship context (secure vs. insecure attachment), and found that in father-child dyads, power-assertive control did have detrimental effects, but only for children with insecure attachment histories and not for those with secure histories.
In the study presented in Chapter 6 (Study 5), my co-authors and I examined reciprocal dynamics between parents’ MM and child temperament in infancy and early toddlerhood, as well as their roles in children’s emerging self-regulation at preschool age. We found significant autoregressive paths (stability over time) for parental MM in both mother- and father-child dyads. We did not find the reciprocal effects. Fathers’ MM in infancy positively predicted children’s self-regulation at preschool age. Finally, when mother- and father-child dyads were examined in the same model to account for their interdependence, fathers’ MM in infancy continued to predict children’s self-regulation at preschool age, and additionally, it had a positive effect on mothers’ MM at toddler age.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Elucidating parent and child effects in paths to positive socialization
- Creators
- Lilly Catherine Bendel-Stenzel
- Contributors
- Grazyna Kochanska (Advisor)Ö. Ece Demir-Lira (Committee Member)Dorit Kliemann (Committee Member)Isaac T. Petersen (Committee Member)
- Resource Type
- Dissertation
- Degree Awarded
- Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), University of Iowa
- Degree in
- Psychology
- Date degree season
- Summer 2025
- DOI
- 10.25820/etd.008109
- Publisher
- University of Iowa
- Number of pages
- xv, 196 pages
- Copyright
- Copyright 2025 Lilly C. Bendel-Stenzel
- Language
- English
- Date submitted
- 06/06/2025
- Description illustrations
- Illustrations, graphs, charts, tables
- Description bibliographic
- Includes bibliographical references.
- Public Abstract (ETD)
Much remains to be learned about a key question of development the parent s and the child s influence on children s future positive socialization outcomes. Current theories emphasize the complexity of the processes involved by implicating characteristics of the parent (e. g., mentalization, or ability to view the infant as a distinct psychological agent with their own mental states; style of control), the child (e.g., temperament), and their dyadic relationship (e.g., mutual responsiveness, shared positive affect) as contributors to child outcomes such self-regulation, secure attachment, and positive, cooperative attitudes toward parental socialization. The five studies presented here have addressed those processes in mother- and father-child dyads drawing from two datasets: Family Study, following parents and children from 8 months to 10 years (N=102), and Children and Parents Study, following parents and children from 8 months to 4.5 years (N=200). The findings elucidated (a) positive impact of parents mentalization on children s future self-regulation (Studies 1 and 5); (b) associations between parent-child positive relationship and children s future attachment security (Study 3) and (c) in turn, between children s secure attachment and future self-regulation (Study 2); (d) the roles of both secure attachment and parental control style on children s future positive, cooperative attitude toward the parent (Study 4). Additionally, the findings demonstrated that those effects vary for children differing in their biologically based temperaments (Studies 2 and 3). Further, examination of processes in mother- and father-child dyads produced evidence of both similarities and differences between them and of their interdependence within the family system.
- Academic Unit
- Psychological and Brain Sciences
- Record Identifier
- 9984948341302771
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