Children's Reports of Parental Behavior: An Inventory

Author(s): Earl S. Schaefer

Source: Child Development, Vol. 36, No. 2 (Jun., 1965), pp. 413-424
Published by: Wiley on behalf of the Society for Research in Child Development
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 CHILDREN'S
REPORTSOF PARENTALBEHAVIOR:
AN INVENTORY

EARLS. SCHAEFER
National Institute of Mental Health

The development of a set of scales designed to collect children'sreports of

parental behavioris reported. Previous researcheson inventory measures of
children'sperceptions of parental behavior and on their validity are noted.
Twenty-sixconcepts such as ignoring, possessiveness,and lax discipline were
selected that were hypothesized to sample all sectors of a conceptual model
for parental behavior.A 10-item scale was developed for each concept from
items that describe specific, observablebehaviors.Internal-consistencyrelia-
bilities of the scales are reported for normal boys, normal girls, and delin-
quent boys. The discriminativepower of the scales is demonstratedby an
analysisof differencesbetween normaland delinquentboys.

A child's perception of his parents'behaviormay be more related to his

adjustmentthan is the actual behaviorof his parents.Perhapsthis hypothesis
has motivated the volume of research on children'sperceptions of parental
behavior that is shown by Stodgill's (1937) survey of studies between 1894
and 1936 and by a partial list of inventory methods of collecting these
perceptions (Anderson, 1940; Ausubel, Balthazar, Rosenthal, Blackman,
Schpoont, & Welkowitz, 1954; Bronfenbrenner,1961; Brown, Morrison,&
Couch, 1947; Cooper & Blair, 1959; Elias, 1952; Hayward, 1935; Itkin,
1952; MacKinnon,1938; Morrow& Wilson, 1961; Myers, 1935; Stagner &
Drought, 1935; Stott, 1941; Swanson, 1950). Family-relationshipscales
have been included in personalityinventories (Bell, 1934; Berdie & Layton,
1957; Rogers, 1931; Thorpe, Clark, & Tiegs, 1939), and children's judg-
ments of their parents'attitudes have been collected on scales that had been
developed for use with parents (Garmezy, Clarke, & Stockner, 1961; Heil-
I gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Helen Manheimer, Babette Pitt, and
Leo Droppleman in reviewing the literature, in developing the scales, and in
statistical analysis. Author's address: Laboratoryof Psychology, National Institute
of Mental Health, Bethesda, Md. 20014.

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CHILDDEVELOPMENT

brun, 1960). However, the repeated development of ad hoc measures,fre-

quently without constructiveuse of earlier studies, has delayed the process
of conceptualrefinement.Many of the methods have not attempted to meas-
ure discrete componentsof parentalbehavior,have not differentiatedmater-
nal from paternal behavior, and have not distinguishedparental adjustment
and maritaladjustmentfrom parent-childinteraction.More recently, reports
by Bronfenbrenner(1961), Roe and Siegelman (1963), and a preliminary
report of this research (Schaefer, 1961b) have described inventories that
measurespecificcomponentsof maternaland paternalbehavior.
Several studies have shown that children'sreports of parental behavior
are significantlyrelated to other data on parent-childrelationships (Andry,
1957; Bronson, Katten, & Livson, 1959; Myers, 1935; Swanson, 1950).
Other studies have shown that children's reports of parental behavior are
related to inventory measures of child adjustment (Berdie & Layton, 1957;
Brown et al., 1947; Serot & Teevan, 1961; Stott, 1941), to observers'reports
of child behavior (Bronfenbrenner,1961; Brown et al., 1947), to school
achievement (Morrow & Wilson, 1961), and to other criteria of the child's
adjustment (Anderson, 1940; Ausubel et al., 1954, Cooper & Blair, 1959);
and that such reports differentiatenormalsubjects from psychiatricpatients
(Elias, 1952; Garmezy et al., 1961; Greenfield, 1959; Hayward, 1935;
Swanson, 1950; Williams, 1958). The accumulatingevidence of the validity
of children'sreports of parental behavior motivated this attempt to develop
short, reliable scales for a systematic sample of parental-behaviorconcepts.

SELECTION
OF CONCEPTSAND SCALEDEVELOPMENT

The selection of parental-behaviorconcepts was guided by a conceptual

model that had been developed from factor analyses of psychologists'ratings
of parental behavior. The factor analyses revealed two orthogonal dimen-
sions of love versus hostility and autonomyverses control (Schaefer, 1959).
Similardimensionsof authoritariancontrol and hostile rejectionwere found
in factor analyses of parental-attitudescales (Schaefer, 1961a; Zuckerman,
Ribback, Monashkin,& Norton, 1958). A review of conceptual models for
parental behavior (Schaefer, 1961a) also revealed substantial agreement
among two-dimensionalmodels that have been independently developed by
Roe (1957), Slater (1962), and Schaefer (1959) from different types of
data.
These conceptual models led to the formulationof a hierarchicalcon-
ceptual scheme for parentalbehavior.The most molar and abstractconcepts
in this scheme were factor dimensionsof love versus hostility and autonomy
versus control. The poles of these dimensionsand combinationsof poles of
the two dimensions were defined by several concepts at an intermediate
level of abstractnessand generality, for example, possessiveness, ignoring,
lax discipline. At the lowest level of generality and abstractness,these con-

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 EARLS. SCHAEFER

cepts were to be defined by more specific, observable parental behaviors.

The hypothesizedrelationshipof the concepts chosen for scale development
to the molar dimensionsis shown in Table 1. The goal of this researchwas

TABLE 1-HYPOTHESIZED RELATIONSHIP OF THE CONCEPTS

CHOSEN FOR SCALE DEVELOPMENT TO THE MOLAR DIMENSIONS

Molar Dimensions Concepts

Autonomy................ Extreme autonomy, lax discipline
Autonomy and love... ..... Moderateautonomy, encouragingsociability, encourag-
ing independent thinking, equalitariantreatment
Love ................. Positive evaluation, sharing, expression of affection,
emotional support
Love and control.......... Intellectual stimulation, child-centeredness,possessive-
ness, protectiveness
Control Intrusiveness,suppressionof aggression,control through
................. guilt, parental direction
Control and hostility...... Strictness, punishment, nagging
Hostility ................ Irritability, negative evaluation, rejection
Hostility and autonomy .... Neglect, ignoring

to develop reliable scales for measuring the concepts listed in Table 1. A

scale for a concept was to consist of 10 homogeneousitems that described
relevant, specific, observable parental behaviors. Approximately20 items
were written for each concept. Each of three psychologists made a global
evaluation of the 20 items for each concept on a three-point scale. The
criteria for evaluation were clarity of the behavioral description,relevance
of the item to the concept, applicability of the item to both father and
mother, and high predicted item variance. A 10-item scale was then devel-
oped for each of the 26 concepts from those items which received the highest
ratings. Two sample items from each of the scales are reportedin Appendix
Table A.
SUBJECTSAND PROCEDURE
The scales were administered to a group of white, seventh-grade chil-
dren (85 boys and 80 girls) in a suburban parochial school and to a group
of 81 institutionalized delinquent boys-all from unbroken families. The
number of normal boys at each age level was 42 at 12 years, 40 at 13 years,
3 at 14 years, and the number of normal girls at each age level was 47 at 12
years, 32 at 13 years, and 1 at 14 years. The educational level of the fathers
and mothers of the normal subjects is given in Table 2. The delinquent
sample ranged in age from 12 to 18 years, included both white and Negro
subjects, and represented a somewhat lower socioeconomic group. The
delinquents were chosen from the total population of the institution for
intelligence and literacy as well as for the presence of a mother and father in
their homes. All normal children were tested in a single group; the delin-
quents were tested in groups of approximately30 each. The separateforms

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CHILDDEVELOPMENT

TABLE 2-EDUCATION OF FATHERS AND MOTHERS OF

NORMAL GIRLS AND BOYS

GiRLs Boys
EDUCATION Father Mother Father Mother
Grade school............ 3 2 5 2
Some high school........ 8 5 15 15
High-school graduate..... 35 58 29 48
Some college............ 16 9 13 11
College graduate.......... 14 3 17 8
Graduate school......... 4 3 5 1

for motherand for fatherwere given in contrabalancedorderin a single test-

ing session.

INTERNAL
CONSISTENCY
RELIABILITIES
OF THE SCALES

Internal-consistency reliabilities that were computed with Kuder-

RichardsonFormula 20 for each of the 26 scales, for both parents, and for
the three groups-normal boys, normal girls, and delinquent boys-are
reported in Appendix Table B. The median reliabilitiesof groups of scales
that were chosen to sample the molardimensionsare: love, .84; hostility, .78;
autonomy,.69; and control, .66. The attempt to develop homogeneousmeas-
ures for relatively specific componentsof parentalbehavior was rather suc-
cessful. Althoughhigher reliabilitiescould be achieved by item analyses and
by increasingthe length of the scales, the reportedreliabilitiesare sufficiently
high for research on differencesbetween groups and on correlatesof these
reports. However, several of the scales that were written to measure the
dimension of love versus hostility have highly skewed distributions.Non-
parametricstatisticsmight be used in analysesof the skewed distributions.

DISCRIMINATIVE
POWER
OF THESCALES
The importantissue of scale validity is introducedby the question, "Do
these scales discriminatebetween criteriongroups?"Although the groups of
boys described above are not matched on variables that may be related to
these reports, nor are they representativesamples of well-defined popula-
tions, differencesbetween these groupswere tested to determinethe discrim-
inative power of the scales. To emphasize that the results of these analyses
should not be interpreted as revealing stable differences between matched
groupsof normaland delinquentboys, the normalboys will be labeled Group
X and the delinquent boys will be labeled Group Y in the analysis reported
below. If significantdifferencesare found between these groups, the discrim-
inative power of the scale will have been demonstrated,and furtherresearch

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 EARLS. SCHAEFER

on these scales that would analyze the effects of age, socioeconomicstatus,

and adjustmentstatuswould be justified.
The Mann-Whitneytest was used to test the significanceof the differ-
ences between distributionsof total scores of GroupX and GroupY for each
scale. The significance and direction of the differences between the two
groups for both fathers and mothers are reported in Table 3. Of the 52
TABLE 3-DIRECTION AND SIGNIFICANCEOF DIFFERENCESIN
Z SCORESBETWEENTWO GROUPSOF BOYS,X AND Y

REPORTS OF MOTHERS REPORTS OF FATHERS

SCALE Group X Group Y Group X Group Y

Extreme autonomy......... ... 5.42** ... 5.09**
Lax discipline ............. ... 3.87** ... 3.49**
Moderate autonomy ....... ... 3.68** ... 0.31
Encouraging sociability ..... 0.27 3.10**
Positive evaluation........ 0.92 ... 4.28**
Sharing activities, plans
and interest ............. ... 2.33* 2.31*
Expression of affection ...... 1.77 2.62**
Encourages independence. . ... 2.10* 1.20
Emotional support.............. 0.25 1.82
Equalitarianism............... 2.09* 1.05
Intellectual stimulation.. . . . ... 1.78 2.26*
Child-centeredness ......... ... 2.58** 2.01*
Possessiveness .............. ... 3.41"* 1.71
Protectiveness ............. ... 0.14 2.50*
Intrusiveness........ ..... '.. . 1.69 0.79
Suppression of aggression... 2.26* ... 3.71"* .
Strictness ........ ........ 1.00 ... 2.13*
Punishment ............... 0.97 ... 1.84
Control through guilt........ 3.97** ... 2.23*
Parental direction......... 2.85** . .. 2.42*
1.48 ... 0.18
Nagging...................
Negative evaluation ........ 0.11 ... ... 1.18
Irritability ...... ......... 1.48 ... ... 0.41
Rejection ................. 2.78** ... 0.05
Neglect................... 1.72 ... ... 2.01*
Ignoring.................. 1.24 ... ... 1.73
Note.-The direction of the difference, i.e., the higher score, is indicated by the column place-
ment of the Z score for each scale.
* Significant beyond the .05 level.
** Significant beyond the .01 level.

differences, 26 are significant beyond the .05 level with a two-tailed test,
and 14 were significantbeyond the .01 level. GroupY describesboth mother
and father as higher on extreme autonomy and lax discipline, with signifi-
cance beyond the .01 level. Group Y also describes mother as being signifi-
cantly more positive and loving, but father as significantlyless positive and
less loving than GroupX. These resultsjustify a separateanalysisof maternal
and paternal behavior. If the descriptionsof mother and father had been
combined,the magnitudeof the differencesbetween GroupsX and Y would
have been obscured.

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CHILDDEVELOPMENT

The results also justify the analysis of specific components of parent

behavior.For example, GroupX reportsboth mother and father higher than
Group Y on most scales written to measureparental control, except for con-
trol through guilt, for which the direction of the difference is reversed.
GroupY'sdescriptionsof motheras more loving and involved and father
as less loving and less involved than GroupX suggest that highly significant
differencesmight be found between Group Y's descriptionsof mother and
father. Results of the Wilcoxen test of significanceof these differencesare
reported in Table 4. Twenty of the 26 tests are significantbeyond the .01

TABLE4-DIFFERENCES IN Z SCORESBETWEENMOTHERSAND
FATHERSFOR GROUPY
Scale Mother Father
Extremeautonomy........ 0.69
Lax discipline............. 3.32*
Moderate autonomy......... 4.47*
Encouragingsociability ..... 4.18*
Positive evaluation........ 4.81"
Sharing activities, plans,
and interests............ 4.50*
Expressionof affection..... 6.41*
Encourages independence... 4.72*
Emotional support......... 4.23*
Equalitarianism........... 4.10*
Intellectual stimulation..... 4.18*
Child-centeredness......... 5.58*
Possessiveness............. 5.02*
Protectiveness............. 4.56*
Intrusiveness........ ...... 1.28
Suppressionof aggression. . . 3.46*
Strictness................. 2.89*
Punishment ..................1.13
Control through guilt....... 0.80
Parental direction.......... .60
Nagging.................. ... 1.30
Negative evaluation......... ... 2.86*
Irritability. ... 2.69*
Rejection .................
................ ... 3.51*
Neglect................... ... 3.80*
Ignoring .................. ... 3.55*
Note.-The directionof the i.e., the higher score, is indicatedby the columnplace-
ment of the Z score for each difference,
scale.
* Significantbeyondthe .01 level.

level using a two-tailed test. The subjects in Group Y are describing ex-
tremely different patterns of behavior for mother and father. Differences
between reports of maternal and paternal behavior by Group X, that have
been reported elsewhere (Droppleman & Schaefer, 1963), are similar but
less extreme.Otherresearchsuggests that the size of the differencesbetween
reportsof maternaland paternalbehaviormay be related to both social class
and adjustmentstatus. Kohn and Carroll(1960) found greaterdifferencesin

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 EARLS. SCHAEFER

children's reports of maternal and paternal behavior in a working-class group

than in a middle-class group, while Andry (1957) found greater differences
in a delinquent group than in a normal group.
Further evidence of the discriminative power of the scales was found
in an earlier analysis of differences between the samples of normal boys and
normal girls in their reports of parent behavior (Droppleman & Schaefer,
1963). Significant differences were found in 7 of the 26 scales for mothers
and 11 of the 26 scales for fathers, but the findings were not replicated for
an older, somewhat lower socioeconomic status group. These results were
interpreted as suggesting that some type of interaction may exist among the
variables of sex of child, sex of parent, age of child, social class, and religious
affiliation as they are related to reports of parental behavior.
In order to determine whether individual subjects describe their
mother's and father's behavior as being similar, tetrachoric correlations be-
tween reports of mother and of father were computed for each scale for
both groups. The correlations reported in Table 5 indicate that the indi-
vidual subject in Group X reports very similar behavior for mother and for
father. The correlations for Group Y, although predominantly positive, are
lower for 25 of the 26 scales. Parents of Group Y may have a less unified

TABLE 5-CORRELATION BETWEEN INDIVIDUALS' REPORTS OF

MOTHER'S AND FATHER'S BEHAVIOR FOR GROUPS X AND Y

Scale Group X Group Y

Extreme autonomy........ .80 .63
Lax discipline............. .66 .49
Moderate autonomy....... .65 .44
Encouragingsociability...... .64 .14
Positive evaluation......... .70 .37
Sharing activities, plans,
and interests............ .74 .52
Expression of affection..... .76 .40
Encouragesindependence... .58 .17
Emotional support......... .74 .32
Equalitarianism.......... .63 .37
Intellectual stimulation..... .75 .14
Child-centeredness........ .77 .50
Possessiveness............. .41 .44
Protectiveness.............. .91 -.10
Intrusiveness.............. .72 .66
Suppressionof aggression . .77 .49
Strictness................ .86 .46
Punishment............... .88 .69
Control through guilt ...... .79 .32
Parental direction.......... .33 .21
Nagging.................. .66 .22
Negative evaluation........ .73 .50
.63 .39
Irritability.................
Rejection................. .79 .59
Neglect................... .75 .42
Ignoring................. .84 .40

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CHILDDEVELOPMENT

and coordinatedpolicy in their behaviorwith their children or may empha-

size their differencesin child rearing.Possibly the children of Group Y have
a more critical and differentiatedperception of others. Tables 4 and 5 indi-
cate that both the size of differences and the degree of similaritybetween
an individual'sreport of maternal and paternal behavior may be related to
his adjustment.
The above analyses have been made of total scores for scales that were
designed to measure specific componentsof parent behavior.The pattern of
differences between the groups suggests that, if the scales were factor-
analyzed, differencesbetween groups would also be found for factor scores.
An item analysis has revealed even clearer differences between groups on
individualitems. As examplesof the findingsof the item analysis,differences
between the groupson three items are reportedin Table 6.
TABLE 6-DIFFERENCES BETWEENGROUPSX AND Y
ON INDIVIDUALITEMS*
AGREEING
PERCENTAGE
Group X Group Y
ITEM Mother Father Mother Father

Lets me go out any evening I wish.... 15 18 48 49

Lets me dress in any way I please.... 15 13 72 68
Decides what movies or parties
I may go to 73 71 22 21
.....................
* All differences between groups for these items are significant beyond the .001 level.

Again these findings should be interpretedas illustrativesince the dif-

ferences might be related to differences in age and socioeconomic status
rather than to adjustmentstatus. However, these results suggest that empiri-
cal scales might be developed from this set of parental-behavioritems that
would maximizediscriminationof criteriongroups.
These analyses of differences between groups justify the analysis of
specific componentsof parentalbehavior and the differentiationof maternal
and paternal behavior and demonstrate the discriminativepower of these
scales. Both the reliabilitydata and the analysesof group differencessuggest
that this inventory provides a sensitive method for investigating children's
perceptions of parental behavior. The forms are available from the author
for researchuse.

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APPENDIX TABLE A-CONCEPTS AND SAMPLE ITEMS OF THE

CHILD'S REPORT OF PARENTAL BEHAVIOR INVENTORY

Concepts Sample Items from Scales

Extreme autonomy........ Allows me to go out as often as I please.
Lets me go any place I please without asking.
Lax discipline ............Lets me get away without doing work she's (he's) told
me to do.
Excuses my bad conduct.
Moderate autonomy Allows me to pick my own friends.
....... Gives me the choice of what to do whenever possible.
Encouragingsociability..... Helps me give parties for my friends.
Enjoys it when I bring friends to my home.
Positive evaluation....... Often praises me.
Often speaks of the good things I do.
Sharing .................. Enjoys talking things over with me.
Enjoys working with me in the house or yard.
Expression of affection...... Almost always speaks to me with a warm and friendly
voice.
Smiles at me very often.

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Encourages independent
thinking................Allows
Emotional support.........
Equalitarian treatment.....
Intellectual stimulation ..... Goes to interesting places with me, and talks with me
Child-centeredness.........Enjoys
Possessiveness. ............
Protectiveness. ............
Intrusiveness..............
Suppression of
aggression... Doesn't like me to fight with anyone.
Strictness.................
Punishment...............If
Control through guilt ......
Parental direction.........
Nagging. .................
Negative evaluation........
Irritability................Loses
Rejection. ................
Neglect ..................
Ignoring .................
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EARLS. SCHAEFER
me to tell her (him) if I think my ideas are
better than hers (his).
Asks me what I think about how we should do things.
Makes me feel better after talking over my worries
with her (him).
Gives me sympathy when I need it.
Always listens to my ideas and opinions.
Lets me help to decide how to do things we're working
on.
about what we see there.
Enjoys talking about the news with me.
staying home with me more than going out
with friends.
Often gives up something to get something for me.
Would like me to spend most of my free time with her
(him).
Does not approve of my spending a lot of time away
from home.
Worries about my health.
Worries about me when I'm away.
Asks me to tell everything that happens when I'm
away from home.
Asks other people what I do away from home.
..Doesn't approve of my getting angry.
Always makes sure I hear about it if I break a rule.
Keeps the home in order by having a lot of rules and
regulations for me.
I don't behave at school, punishes me when I get
home.
Almost always punishes me in some way when I am
bad.
Feels hurt when I don't follow advice.
Thinks I'm not grateful when I don't obey.
Always tells me exactly how to do my work.
Wants to control whatever I do.
Is always trying to change me.
Keeps reminding me about things I am not allowed
to do.
Doesn't like the way I act at home.
Sometimes says that I'm stupid or dumb.
her (his) temper with me when I don't help
around the house.
Gets cross and nervous when I'm noisy around the
house.
Acts as though I'm in the way.
Often seems glad to get away from me for a while.
Forgets to get me things I need.
Does not seem to care how I am dressed, and isn't
interested in getting me something nice to wear.
Doesn't talk with me very much.
Doesn't share any activities with me.
423
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CHILDDEVELOPMENT

APPENDIX TABLE B--INTERNAL-CONSISTENCY RELIABILITIES FOR

THE CHILD'S REPORT OF PARENTAL BEHAVIOR INVENTORY SCALES

FATHER MOTHER

Delinquent Normal Normal Delinquent Normal Normal

Boys Boys Girls Boys Boys Girls
SCALE N = 81 N = 85 N = 80 N = 81 N = 85 N = 80
Extreme autonomy... .81 .66 .71 .77 .66 .65
Lax discipline....... .73 .70 .76 .68 .68 .67
Moderateautonomy.. .71 .70 .63 .72 .67 .56
Encouraging
sociability........ .86 .77 .72 .85 .76 .77
Positive evaluation... .85 .76 .67 .80 .80 .76
Sharing............. .93 .85 .81 .90 .86 .86
Expressionof
affection......... .88 .81 .81 .85 .83 .81
Encouraging
independent
thinking.......... .79 .72 .70 .75 .74 .68
Emotional support... .91 .83 .92 .93 .80 .94
Equalitarian
treatment.......... .91 .84 .84 .85 .80 .82
Intellectual
stimulation....... .91 .82 .84 .81 .82 .78
Child-centeredness... .87 .75 .77 .80 .78 .54
Possessiveness....... .66 .58 .65 .50 .55 .55
Protectiveness....... .64 .74 .63 .56 .64 .38
Intrusiveness........ .77 .76 .57 .69 .72 .50
Suppressionof
aggression......... .53 .62 .53 .56 .67 .40
Strictness........... .80 .68 .74 .78 .73 .71
Punishment......... .88 .76 .85 .86 .79 .86
Control through
guilt ............. .46 .69 .70 .52 .77 .77
Parental direction.... .70 .64 .54 .74 .67 .63
Nagging............. .77 .75 .75 .78 .75 .76
Negative evaluation.. .81 .73 .55 .82 .77 .70
Irritability.......... ..83 .83 .84 .73 .83 .84
Rejection.......... .87 .66 .67 .78 .79 .58
Neglect............. .84 .72 .86 .78 .60 .72
Ignoring........... .89 .82 .84 .79 .82 .76

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