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Community Differences in the Association Between Parenting Practices and Child Conduct Problems
Author(s) -
Simons Ronald L.,
Lin KueiHsiu,
Gordon Leslie C.,
Brody Gene H.,
Murry Velma,
Conger Rand D.
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
journal of marriage and family
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.578
H-Index - 159
eISSN - 1741-3737
pISSN - 0022-2445
DOI - 10.1111/j.1741-3737.2002.00331.x
Subject(s) - corporal punishment , normative , association (psychology) , psychology , argument (complex analysis) , developmental psychology , child discipline , context (archaeology) , social psychology , punishment (psychology) , multilevel model , child rearing , test (biology) , human factors and ergonomics , poison control , environmental health , political science , ecology , medicine , psychotherapist , paleontology , machine learning , computer science , law , biology
Various hypotheses were identified regarding the manner in which community context might influence the association between two dimensions of parenting—control and corporal punishment—on child conduct problems. The authors used hierarchical linear modeling with a sample of 841 African American families to test these hypotheses. Consistent with the evaporation hypothesis, the results indicated that the deterrent effect of caretaker control on conduct problems becomes smaller as deviant behavior becomes more widespread within a community. The findings for corporal punishment supported the normative parenting argument. Although there was a positive relationship between caretaker corporal punishment and child conduct problems in communities where physical discipline was rare, there was no association between the two variables in communities where physical discipline was widely prevalent. These results suggest that a particular parenting strategy may be more effective in some neighborhood environments than others. The theoretical implications of this view are discussed.