Journal of Youth and Adolescence, Vol. 19, No. 6, 1990
Perceived Parental Behavior and the Social Desirability Response Set W i n s t o n E. Gooden 1 and Karen D. Struble 2,3 Received May 26, 1988; accepted July 24, 1990
The purpose of the present study was to investigate the potential effects of the social desirability response set as a confounding variable in research involving self-report measures of perceived parental behavior. Scores on the MarloweCrowne Social Desirability Scale (M-C SDS) were correlated with each of the three factors on the Bronfenbrenner Parental Behavior Scale (BPB): (1) Loving, (2) Punishing, and (3) Demanding. Fifty-eight young adults participated in the study; the sample included roughly equal numbers of black and white subjects, male and female subjects, and college students and other community residents. Scores were analyzed by sex of subject and sex of parent as well as in combined groups. Significant correlations (p < .05, p < .01) were obtained from female subjects on BPB factors 2 and 3. Implications for the BPB's validity and suggestions for future research are discussed.
It is widely recognized that parents impact the psychological developm e n t of their children. It is believed, however, that the processes o f influence are m o r e contingent u p o n the child's experience of her parents than u p o n the parents' actual attitudes and behaviors (Acock, 1984; Jessop, 1981). Ausubel et al. report that parental behavior "'affects the child's ego 1Associate Professor of Psychology, Fuller Theological Seminary, Graduate School of Psychology, Pasadena, CA 91101. Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology, Yale University. Research interests include transition to adulthood, midlife transition, and parenting styles. zPh.D, candidate, Fuller Theological Seminary, Graduate School of Psychology, Pasadena, CA 91101. Currently completing Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology at Fuller. Research interests include parenting styles, parent-child interactions, and group therapy process and outcome. 3Send requests for reprints to Karen D. Struble, 280 South Euclid No. 211, Pasadena, California 91101. 605 0047-2891/90/1200-0605506.00 9 1990 Plenum Publishing Corporation
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Gooden and Struble
development only to the extent and in the form in which he perceives it"' (cited by Siegelman, 1965, p. 163). Therefore, researchers who seek to discover patterns of parental influence have found it most helpful to examine the child's perceptions of her relationship with her parents (Goldin, 1969; Siegelman, 1965). Recently a number of studies have investigated the relationships between perceived parenting styles and adolescent/young adult behavior, personality characteristics, and physical/psychological health. Significant relationships have been found between, for example, the level of perceived parental support and adolescents' (a) conformity and (b) choice of premarital dating relationships (Atakan, 1984; Leslie, 1982). In addition, studies have shown that disturbed adolescents (i.e., psychiatric patients and socially maladjusted youths) report significantly different patterns of parental behavior than do control groups (Fox et al., 1983; Nihira et al., 1975; Tyerman and Humphrey, 1981). Teenagers' parent perceptions have also been linked to problems such as runaway behavior (Englander, 1984), substance abuse (Davis and Cross, 1973; Pandina and Schuele, 1983), and suicide attempts (McKenry et al., 1982). Adolescents' psychological and physical disorders such as depression (Blatt et al., 1979) and hypertension (Lander, 1979) have been shown to have parental correlates. For example, Lander (p. 2372B) has reported that hypertensive adolescents perceive their family environments as "more rigid and authoritarian" than their normotensive peers. Similar studies have demonstrated relationships between parenting styles and children's personality development in the areas of self-esteem, educational aspirations, and achievement motivation (Fields, 1981; Keating, 1982). The empirical findings cited above appear quite promising, for if these reported patterns of parental influence can be substantiated, there is hope of developing more effective interventions that could create healthier family environments as well as healthier young people. However, it is advisable to check carefully the accuracy of empirical results before developing therapeutic interventions based upon them. As Bronfenbrenner has remarked with reference to his own Parental Behavior Scale, "there is always the possibility that any consistent patterns are the result of artifacts of response set rather than of genuine relationship between the independent and dependent variables" (1960, p. 109). Bronfenbrenner (1960) was particularly concerned that his parentperception research might be confounded by the social desirability response set (SD), which has been defined as a consistent tendency to "conform to social stereotypes of what is good to acknowledge concerning oneself," because of a deep-seated neurotic need for the approval of others (Crowne
Parent Perceptions
607
and Marlowe, 1964, p. 27). Crowne and Marlowe refer to this need as the "approval motive." Unfortunately, Bronfenbrenner (1960) did not report any empirical investigation of this hypothesized relationship between children's perceptions of their parents and the SD response set. Recent family interaction studies have, however, been exploring the possibility that SD may be a confounding variable in parent-perception research; thus far the evidence is inconclusive. Studies by Brook et al. (1977) and Englander (1984) found that adolescents with drug problems or runaway behavior, respectively, scored lower on measures of SD than their normal peers. Robinson and Anderson (1983) found that previously reported correlations between marital and child adjustment may have been inflated by differences in their subjects' willingness to endorse socially undesirable characteristics. Eirikson also reported that "persons who experience emotional closeness with their family find it difficult to make critical remarks c o n c e r n i n g . . , parents" (1983, p. 7). On the other hand, Lander (1979) found that hypertensive adolescents described their parents in a less favorable light than did their peers, and Baker (1979) found no significant differences in SD between juvenile delinquents and normals. In spite of these controversial findings, a thorough review of the literature found no correlational studies between measures of perceived parental behavior and social desirability. The purpose of the present study was to determine whether or not the Bronf e n b r e n n e r Parental Behavior Scale (BPB) is correlated with and confounded by the variable of social desirability. Hypotheses for the study were as follows. Hypothesis 1: BPB Factor 1, "Loving," will not correlate with SD on the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale (MCSDS). Hypothesis 2: BPB Factor 2, "Punishing," will not correlate with SD on the MC-SDS. Hypothesis 3: BPB Factor 3, "Demanding," will not correlate with SD on the MC-SDS.
METHOD
Subjects Fifty-eight young adults between 18 and 24 years of age were recruited from the Chicago area to serve as volunteers for the study; the
608
Gooden and Struble Table 1. Descriptive Statistics
BPB N
Loving
Punishing
Demanding
SD
.~
SD
6 6 11 6 7 12 6 7 12
57 46 102 43 54 98 50 50 100
7 8 15 9 10 17 11 10 16
Subject sex
Parent
M
F
Total
.~
SD
X
Male Male Male Female Female Female All S's All S's All S's
Mother Father Both Mother Father Both Mother Father Both
26 23 23 0 0 0 26 23 26
0 0 0 29 24 24 29 24 24
26 23 23 29 24 24 55 47 47
41 51 92 36 38 73 38 45 83
8 12 19 10 12 18 9 14 21
45 48 93 44 47 93 45 48 93
MC-SDS _~ SD 8 8 8 9 8 8 9 8 8
3 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4
sample included college students as well as other community residents. Eleven black males, 15 black females, 16 white males, and 16 white females participated by completing questionnaires which contained a number of scales. Some subjects, who had experienced parental separation due to death, divorce, or abandonment, did not complete the Bronfenbrenner scale with respect to one or both parents; thus, the number of subjects for each portion of the data analysis varied slightly (see Table I).
Instruments
BPB. The Bronfenbrenner Parental Behavior Scale (Siegelman, 1965) was used to measure subjects' perceptions of how their parents treated them. The scale consists of 42 items, for each of which children rate both parents' behaviors separately on a frequency scale from 1 to 5, where 1 = "always" and 5 = "never." The variables measured fall into three primary categories: (a) Loving, (b) Punishing, and (c) Demanding. Siegelman (1965) described the three factors as follows: Factor I, labeled "Loving," depicts a parent who is readily available for counsel, support, and assistance. This parent enjoys being with his [sic] child, praises him, is affectionate, concerned, and has confidence in him. Factor II, " P u n i s h m e n t , " . . . characterizes a parent who often uses physical and nonphysical punishment with little concern for the feelings and needs of his child, and frequently for no apparent reason. Although rejection or hostility by the parent is not explicitly noted in the items, it is strongly suggested . . . A controlling, demanding, protecting, and intrusive parent is depicted in Factor III, "Demanding." This parent insists on high achievement, explains to his child why he must be punished when such discipline is necessary, and becomes emotionally upset and distant when the child misbehaves (p. 168).
Parent Perceptions
609
Construct validity for the three orthogonal factors was established by Siegelman (1965), who measured the factor saturations across four groups of subjects; subsequent empirical studies have lent support to Siegelman's (1965) factorial model. Content validity is supported by Goldin's (1969) exhaustive review of the literature on parent perceptions. KR-20 reliability estimates for the BPB range from .70 to .91 for four groups of scores, separated by sex of child and sex of parent (Siegelman, 1965). M - C SDS. The Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale is widely used to locate subjects whose test-taking behavior is influenced by the approval motive (Crowne and Marlowe, 1964). The M-C SDS is generally considered the instrument of choice for measuring SD, because it has minimum pathological implications; the 33-item test was constructed from a pool of "culturally acceptable and approved behaviors which are, at the same time, relatively unlikely to occur" (Crowne and Marlowe, 1960, p. 354). KR-20 reliability is estimated at .88, and test-retest reliability at .89 (Crowne and Marlowe, 1960). Evidence for the scale's validity includes both its high positive correlation (p < .01) with the established Edwards SDS (Crowne and Marlowe, 1960) and empirical construct validation in a series of experiments studying the behavioral correlates of SD (Wiggins, 1968). Crowne and Marlowe (1964) found that persons who scored high on the M-C SDS were "more conforming, cautious, and persuasible, and their b e h a v i o r . . . more normatively anchored, than persons who depict themselves less euphemistically" (p. 189).
Analysis Pearson r correlations (Kirk, 1978) were calculated for each of the three BPB subscales in relation to the M-C SDS scores. In light of empirical evidence suggesting that (a) children perceive mothers and fathers differently and (b) sons and daughters report differing perceptions of their parents (Goldin, 1969), the subject sample was separated by sex of child and sex of parent, resulting in nine subject/parent combinations for analysis (see Table II). Correlations were calculated for the following sets of scores: male subjects' reports on mother and father, separately and combined; and female subjects' reports on mother and father, separately and combined. Two-tailed F tests of significance were conducted for each r (df = 1).
610
Gooden and Struble T a b l e II. C o r r e l a t i o n C o e f f i c i e n t s Subject sex
Parent
BPB factor
r (MC-SDS)
Significance, 2-tailed
Male Male Male Male Male Male Male Male Male Female Female Female Female Female Female Female Female Female All S's All S's All S's All S's All S's All S's All S's All S's All S's
Mother Mother Mother Father Father Father Both Both Both Mother Mother Mother Father Father Father Both Both Both Mother Mother Mother Father Father Father Both Both Both
L P D L P D L P D L P D L P D L P D L P D L P D L P D
- . 13 -.35 .02 - .09 - . 16 - . 14 - . 12 -.26 - .05 .17 .32 .24 .04 .56** .39 .08 .58** .42* .01 .02 .02 -.03 .22 .17 -.03 .19 .20
ns p < .07 ns ns ns ns ns p < .2 ns ns p < .09 p < .2 ns p < .004 p < .06 ns p < .003 p < .04 ns ns ns ns p < .1 p < .3 ns p < .2 p < .2
*p < .05. **p < .01.
RESULTS
A complete summary of the correlation coefficients is given in Table II. When the scores of all subjects were taken together, none of the correlations were significant between the BPB and the M-C SDS. However, when the scores were separated by sex of subject, several notable findings emerged. For male subjects, none of the nine correlations were significant at the .05 level. Female subjects' scores, on the other hand, showed several significant correlations between the BPB and the M-C SDS. Although BPB Factor 1 (Loving) consistently remained uncorrelated with SD across subject groups, for the female S's Factors 2 and 3 (Punishing and Demanding, respectively) were significantly related to SD in the following cases: paternal punishment (r = .56, p < .004), combined punishment (r = .58, p < .003), and combined demandingness (r = .42, p < .04).
Parent Perceptions
611
DISCUSSION Some of the original hypotheses for this study were supported, while other were not. Specifically, Hypothesis 1 was supported across subject groups, but Hypotheses 2 and 3 were supported only for male subjects. The latter two hypotheses were contradicted with respect to female subjects, in spite of the fact that males and females did not differ in their average scores on SD (see Table I). We expected that the relation between social desirability and perception of parents would be similar across both genders and across all three parenting factors. The fact that there is a gender by social desirability interaction such that women who score higher on social desirability report that parents are less punishing and demanding requires further discussion. These results may be interpreted to suggest that the punishing and demanding scales elicit socially desirable responses from female subjects. This explanation leaves unexplored the question of why the scales do not elicit similar socially desirable responses from male subjects. A more plausible explanation might be that perception of parents as demanding and or punitive has different consequences for males and females. The social desirability scale, used as an indicator of need for approval, can help to clarify these results. It might be that women with a higher need for approval will be more likely to idealize parents. Gilligan (1982) argues that women are more interdependent and relationally oriented than men. The woman's sense of self is more relationally defined than that of the man. This would mean that perception of self and perception of parents are closely linked. Women with a higher need for approval may evaluate self negatively when parents are perceived as punitive and demanding and may expect negative evaluation from others if parents are reported to be punishing and demanding. Making more socially desirable responses may reduce the anxiety associated with negative evaluations. Two limitations of this study included (a) the narrow age range of subjects chosen and (b) the variability in living situations between subjects. Some subjects were living at home with one or both parents, while others were living alone or with either a roommate or a family of their own. The potential effects of subjects' living situations are seldom addressed in the literature, yet they would seem to warrant investigation as a possible factor which would need to be controlled in future parent-perception research. Limitations notwithstanding, it is reasonable to conclude from the above results that the SD response set does, for this group of young adults, tend to confound self-report data gathered from women for the BPB measures of perceived parental punishing and demanding behaviors. An examination of the correlations obtained from the total sample reflects the
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Gooden and Struble
importance of dividing the subjects by sex; had such subgrouping not been carried out, the confounding influence of SD could have been obscured by the small, negative correlations obtained from male subjects. The results of this study have important implications for the use of the BPB in parent-perception research. First, researchers using this instrument should be aware of the limitations of the test's validity for female subjects, and the effects of SD should be controlled in future studies. Second, with respect to the parent-perception literature already accumulated, caution is advised in the application, both theoretical and practical, of findings from studies using self-report instruments such as the BPB without adequate control for the variable of SD. One interesting observation is that the correlations for male subjects were virtually all in the negative direction, while those obtained from female subjects were consistently positive. This finding underscores the fact that the female subjects were consistently more reluctant to report socially undesirable parental behaviors than were their male peers. In addition, the trend toward a negative relationship between maternal punishment and SD in males is worth noting. This correlation, being in the socially undesirable direction, cannot be explained in terms of an SD response set. A more plausible explanation would be to posit an association between perceived maternal punishment and the approval motive in male subjects, such that those who view their mothers as highly punitive tend to have a higher need for approval than other men. An important topic for future research would be to investigate further the relationships between parenting styles and personality development in children, specifically with respect to the approval motive. Also, it would be important to examine the impact of gender (both parent and child) in influencing childrearing practices and their effects on children.
REFERENCES Acock, A. (1984). Parents and their children: The study of intergenerational influence.SocioL Soc. Res. 68(2): 151-171. Atakan, S. A. (1984). Perceived parental power, parental behavior and adolescent conformity to parents (doctoral dissertation, Universityof Tennessee, 1984).Dissert. Abstr. Int. 45(2): 1687-A. Baker, T. G. (1979). Family dissatisfaction, locus of control, and social desirabilityin juvenile delinquents (doctoral dissertation, Medical College of Pennsylvania, 1979).Dissell. Abstr. Int. 40(2): 979-B. Blatt, S. J., Wein, S. J., Chevron, E. S., and Quinlan, D. M. (1979). Parental representations and depression in normal young adults, J. Abnorm. PsychoL 88(4): 388-397. Bronfenbrenner, U. (1960). Toward a theoretical model for the analysis of parent-child relationships in a social context. In Glidewell, J. C. (ed.), Parental Attitudes and Child Behavior, Charles C Thomas, Springfield, IL, pp. 90-109.
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Brook, J. S., Lukoff, I. F., and Whiteman, M. (1977). Peer, family, and personality domains as related to adolescents' drug behavior. Psychol. Rep. 41: 1095-1102. Crowne, D. P., and Marlowe, D. (1960). A new scale of social desirability independent of psychopathology. J. Consult. Psychol. 24(4): 349-354. Crowne, D. P., and Marlowe, D. (1964). The Approval Motive: Studies in Evaluative Dependence, John Wiley & Sons, New York. Davis, G. L., and Cross, H. J. (1973). College student drug users' memories of their parents. Adolescence 8(32): 475-480. Englander, S. W. (1984). Some self-reported correlates of runaway behavior in adolescent females. J. Consult. Clin. Psychol. 52(3): 484-485. Erikson, P. (1983). Sibling and Parent-Child Subsystems on the Family Adaptability and Cohesion Evaluation Scale, Unpublished master's thesis, Graduate School of Psychology, Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, CA. Fields, A. B. (1981). Perceived parent behavior and the self-evaluations of lower-class black male and female children. Adolescence 16(64): 919-934. Fox, R., Rotatori, A. F., Macklin, F., Green, H., and Fox, T. (1983). Socially maladjusted adolescents' perceptions of their families. PsychoL Rep. 52: 831-834. Gilligan, C. (1982). In A Different Voice, Psychological Theory in Women's Development, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA. Goldin, P. (1969). A review of children's reports of parent behaviors. Psychol. Bull. 71(3): 222-236. Jessop, D. (1982). Topic variation in levels of agreement between parents and adolescents. Public Opin. Q. 46: 538-559. Keating, B. R. (1982). Parent-child interaction and achievement orientation (doctoral dissertation, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 1982). Dissert. Abstr. Int. 43(3): 940-941-A. Kirk, R. E. (1978). Introductory Statistics, Brooks/Cole, Monterey, CA. Lander, H. S. (1979). Psychological and environmental correlates of adolescent hypertension (doctoral dissertation, Saint Louis University, 1979). Dissert. Abstr. Int. 40(5): 2371-2372-B. Leslie, L. A. (1982). Parental influence and premarital relationship development: A study of young adults' perceptions (doctoral dissertation, The Pennsylvania State University, 1982). Dissert. Abstr. Int. 43(1): 277-A. McKenry, P. C., Tishler, C. L., and Kelley, C. (1982). Adolescent suicide: A comparison of attempters and nonattempters in an emergency room population. Clin. Pediat. 21(5): 266270. Nihira, K., Yusin, A., and Sinay, R. (1975). Perception of parental behavior by adolescents in crisis. PsychoL Rep. 37: 787-793. Pandina, R. J., and Schuele, J. A. (1983). Psychosocial correlates of alcohol and drug use of adolescent students and adolescents in treatment. J. Stud. Alcohol 44(6): 950-973, Robinson, E. A., and Anderson, L. L. (1983). Family adjustment, parental attitudes, and social desirability. J. Abnorm. ChiM Psychol. 11(2): 247-256. Siegelman, M. (1965). Evaluation of Bronfenbrenner's questionnaire for children concerning parental behavior. Child Dev. 36:162-174 Tyerman, A., and Humphrey, M. (1981). Dimensions of the family environment in adolescence. J. Adolesc. 4: 353-361. Wiggins, J. (1968). Personality structure. Annu. Rev. Psychol. 19: 293-350.
Perceived Parental Behavior and the Social Desirability Response Set W i n s t o n E. Gooden 1 and Karen D. Struble 2,3 Received May 26, 1988; accepted July 24, 1990
The purpose of the present study was to investigate the potential effects of the social desirability response set as a confounding variable in research involving self-report measures of perceived parental behavior. Scores on the MarloweCrowne Social Desirability Scale (M-C SDS) were correlated with each of the three factors on the Bronfenbrenner Parental Behavior Scale (BPB): (1) Loving, (2) Punishing, and (3) Demanding. Fifty-eight young adults participated in the study; the sample included roughly equal numbers of black and white subjects, male and female subjects, and college students and other community residents. Scores were analyzed by sex of subject and sex of parent as well as in combined groups. Significant correlations (p < .05, p < .01) were obtained from female subjects on BPB factors 2 and 3. Implications for the BPB's validity and suggestions for future research are discussed.
It is widely recognized that parents impact the psychological developm e n t of their children. It is believed, however, that the processes o f influence are m o r e contingent u p o n the child's experience of her parents than u p o n the parents' actual attitudes and behaviors (Acock, 1984; Jessop, 1981). Ausubel et al. report that parental behavior "'affects the child's ego 1Associate Professor of Psychology, Fuller Theological Seminary, Graduate School of Psychology, Pasadena, CA 91101. Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology, Yale University. Research interests include transition to adulthood, midlife transition, and parenting styles. zPh.D, candidate, Fuller Theological Seminary, Graduate School of Psychology, Pasadena, CA 91101. Currently completing Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology at Fuller. Research interests include parenting styles, parent-child interactions, and group therapy process and outcome. 3Send requests for reprints to Karen D. Struble, 280 South Euclid No. 211, Pasadena, California 91101. 605 0047-2891/90/1200-0605506.00 9 1990 Plenum Publishing Corporation
606
Gooden and Struble
development only to the extent and in the form in which he perceives it"' (cited by Siegelman, 1965, p. 163). Therefore, researchers who seek to discover patterns of parental influence have found it most helpful to examine the child's perceptions of her relationship with her parents (Goldin, 1969; Siegelman, 1965). Recently a number of studies have investigated the relationships between perceived parenting styles and adolescent/young adult behavior, personality characteristics, and physical/psychological health. Significant relationships have been found between, for example, the level of perceived parental support and adolescents' (a) conformity and (b) choice of premarital dating relationships (Atakan, 1984; Leslie, 1982). In addition, studies have shown that disturbed adolescents (i.e., psychiatric patients and socially maladjusted youths) report significantly different patterns of parental behavior than do control groups (Fox et al., 1983; Nihira et al., 1975; Tyerman and Humphrey, 1981). Teenagers' parent perceptions have also been linked to problems such as runaway behavior (Englander, 1984), substance abuse (Davis and Cross, 1973; Pandina and Schuele, 1983), and suicide attempts (McKenry et al., 1982). Adolescents' psychological and physical disorders such as depression (Blatt et al., 1979) and hypertension (Lander, 1979) have been shown to have parental correlates. For example, Lander (p. 2372B) has reported that hypertensive adolescents perceive their family environments as "more rigid and authoritarian" than their normotensive peers. Similar studies have demonstrated relationships between parenting styles and children's personality development in the areas of self-esteem, educational aspirations, and achievement motivation (Fields, 1981; Keating, 1982). The empirical findings cited above appear quite promising, for if these reported patterns of parental influence can be substantiated, there is hope of developing more effective interventions that could create healthier family environments as well as healthier young people. However, it is advisable to check carefully the accuracy of empirical results before developing therapeutic interventions based upon them. As Bronfenbrenner has remarked with reference to his own Parental Behavior Scale, "there is always the possibility that any consistent patterns are the result of artifacts of response set rather than of genuine relationship between the independent and dependent variables" (1960, p. 109). Bronfenbrenner (1960) was particularly concerned that his parentperception research might be confounded by the social desirability response set (SD), which has been defined as a consistent tendency to "conform to social stereotypes of what is good to acknowledge concerning oneself," because of a deep-seated neurotic need for the approval of others (Crowne
Parent Perceptions
607
and Marlowe, 1964, p. 27). Crowne and Marlowe refer to this need as the "approval motive." Unfortunately, Bronfenbrenner (1960) did not report any empirical investigation of this hypothesized relationship between children's perceptions of their parents and the SD response set. Recent family interaction studies have, however, been exploring the possibility that SD may be a confounding variable in parent-perception research; thus far the evidence is inconclusive. Studies by Brook et al. (1977) and Englander (1984) found that adolescents with drug problems or runaway behavior, respectively, scored lower on measures of SD than their normal peers. Robinson and Anderson (1983) found that previously reported correlations between marital and child adjustment may have been inflated by differences in their subjects' willingness to endorse socially undesirable characteristics. Eirikson also reported that "persons who experience emotional closeness with their family find it difficult to make critical remarks c o n c e r n i n g . . , parents" (1983, p. 7). On the other hand, Lander (1979) found that hypertensive adolescents described their parents in a less favorable light than did their peers, and Baker (1979) found no significant differences in SD between juvenile delinquents and normals. In spite of these controversial findings, a thorough review of the literature found no correlational studies between measures of perceived parental behavior and social desirability. The purpose of the present study was to determine whether or not the Bronf e n b r e n n e r Parental Behavior Scale (BPB) is correlated with and confounded by the variable of social desirability. Hypotheses for the study were as follows. Hypothesis 1: BPB Factor 1, "Loving," will not correlate with SD on the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale (MCSDS). Hypothesis 2: BPB Factor 2, "Punishing," will not correlate with SD on the MC-SDS. Hypothesis 3: BPB Factor 3, "Demanding," will not correlate with SD on the MC-SDS.
METHOD
Subjects Fifty-eight young adults between 18 and 24 years of age were recruited from the Chicago area to serve as volunteers for the study; the
608
Gooden and Struble Table 1. Descriptive Statistics
BPB N
Loving
Punishing
Demanding
SD
.~
SD
6 6 11 6 7 12 6 7 12
57 46 102 43 54 98 50 50 100
7 8 15 9 10 17 11 10 16
Subject sex
Parent
M
F
Total
.~
SD
X
Male Male Male Female Female Female All S's All S's All S's
Mother Father Both Mother Father Both Mother Father Both
26 23 23 0 0 0 26 23 26
0 0 0 29 24 24 29 24 24
26 23 23 29 24 24 55 47 47
41 51 92 36 38 73 38 45 83
8 12 19 10 12 18 9 14 21
45 48 93 44 47 93 45 48 93
MC-SDS _~ SD 8 8 8 9 8 8 9 8 8
3 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4
sample included college students as well as other community residents. Eleven black males, 15 black females, 16 white males, and 16 white females participated by completing questionnaires which contained a number of scales. Some subjects, who had experienced parental separation due to death, divorce, or abandonment, did not complete the Bronfenbrenner scale with respect to one or both parents; thus, the number of subjects for each portion of the data analysis varied slightly (see Table I).
Instruments
BPB. The Bronfenbrenner Parental Behavior Scale (Siegelman, 1965) was used to measure subjects' perceptions of how their parents treated them. The scale consists of 42 items, for each of which children rate both parents' behaviors separately on a frequency scale from 1 to 5, where 1 = "always" and 5 = "never." The variables measured fall into three primary categories: (a) Loving, (b) Punishing, and (c) Demanding. Siegelman (1965) described the three factors as follows: Factor I, labeled "Loving," depicts a parent who is readily available for counsel, support, and assistance. This parent enjoys being with his [sic] child, praises him, is affectionate, concerned, and has confidence in him. Factor II, " P u n i s h m e n t , " . . . characterizes a parent who often uses physical and nonphysical punishment with little concern for the feelings and needs of his child, and frequently for no apparent reason. Although rejection or hostility by the parent is not explicitly noted in the items, it is strongly suggested . . . A controlling, demanding, protecting, and intrusive parent is depicted in Factor III, "Demanding." This parent insists on high achievement, explains to his child why he must be punished when such discipline is necessary, and becomes emotionally upset and distant when the child misbehaves (p. 168).
Parent Perceptions
609
Construct validity for the three orthogonal factors was established by Siegelman (1965), who measured the factor saturations across four groups of subjects; subsequent empirical studies have lent support to Siegelman's (1965) factorial model. Content validity is supported by Goldin's (1969) exhaustive review of the literature on parent perceptions. KR-20 reliability estimates for the BPB range from .70 to .91 for four groups of scores, separated by sex of child and sex of parent (Siegelman, 1965). M - C SDS. The Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale is widely used to locate subjects whose test-taking behavior is influenced by the approval motive (Crowne and Marlowe, 1964). The M-C SDS is generally considered the instrument of choice for measuring SD, because it has minimum pathological implications; the 33-item test was constructed from a pool of "culturally acceptable and approved behaviors which are, at the same time, relatively unlikely to occur" (Crowne and Marlowe, 1960, p. 354). KR-20 reliability is estimated at .88, and test-retest reliability at .89 (Crowne and Marlowe, 1960). Evidence for the scale's validity includes both its high positive correlation (p < .01) with the established Edwards SDS (Crowne and Marlowe, 1960) and empirical construct validation in a series of experiments studying the behavioral correlates of SD (Wiggins, 1968). Crowne and Marlowe (1964) found that persons who scored high on the M-C SDS were "more conforming, cautious, and persuasible, and their b e h a v i o r . . . more normatively anchored, than persons who depict themselves less euphemistically" (p. 189).
Analysis Pearson r correlations (Kirk, 1978) were calculated for each of the three BPB subscales in relation to the M-C SDS scores. In light of empirical evidence suggesting that (a) children perceive mothers and fathers differently and (b) sons and daughters report differing perceptions of their parents (Goldin, 1969), the subject sample was separated by sex of child and sex of parent, resulting in nine subject/parent combinations for analysis (see Table II). Correlations were calculated for the following sets of scores: male subjects' reports on mother and father, separately and combined; and female subjects' reports on mother and father, separately and combined. Two-tailed F tests of significance were conducted for each r (df = 1).
610
Gooden and Struble T a b l e II. C o r r e l a t i o n C o e f f i c i e n t s Subject sex
Parent
BPB factor
r (MC-SDS)
Significance, 2-tailed
Male Male Male Male Male Male Male Male Male Female Female Female Female Female Female Female Female Female All S's All S's All S's All S's All S's All S's All S's All S's All S's
Mother Mother Mother Father Father Father Both Both Both Mother Mother Mother Father Father Father Both Both Both Mother Mother Mother Father Father Father Both Both Both
L P D L P D L P D L P D L P D L P D L P D L P D L P D
- . 13 -.35 .02 - .09 - . 16 - . 14 - . 12 -.26 - .05 .17 .32 .24 .04 .56** .39 .08 .58** .42* .01 .02 .02 -.03 .22 .17 -.03 .19 .20
ns p < .07 ns ns ns ns ns p < .2 ns ns p < .09 p < .2 ns p < .004 p < .06 ns p < .003 p < .04 ns ns ns ns p < .1 p < .3 ns p < .2 p < .2
*p < .05. **p < .01.
RESULTS
A complete summary of the correlation coefficients is given in Table II. When the scores of all subjects were taken together, none of the correlations were significant between the BPB and the M-C SDS. However, when the scores were separated by sex of subject, several notable findings emerged. For male subjects, none of the nine correlations were significant at the .05 level. Female subjects' scores, on the other hand, showed several significant correlations between the BPB and the M-C SDS. Although BPB Factor 1 (Loving) consistently remained uncorrelated with SD across subject groups, for the female S's Factors 2 and 3 (Punishing and Demanding, respectively) were significantly related to SD in the following cases: paternal punishment (r = .56, p < .004), combined punishment (r = .58, p < .003), and combined demandingness (r = .42, p < .04).
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DISCUSSION Some of the original hypotheses for this study were supported, while other were not. Specifically, Hypothesis 1 was supported across subject groups, but Hypotheses 2 and 3 were supported only for male subjects. The latter two hypotheses were contradicted with respect to female subjects, in spite of the fact that males and females did not differ in their average scores on SD (see Table I). We expected that the relation between social desirability and perception of parents would be similar across both genders and across all three parenting factors. The fact that there is a gender by social desirability interaction such that women who score higher on social desirability report that parents are less punishing and demanding requires further discussion. These results may be interpreted to suggest that the punishing and demanding scales elicit socially desirable responses from female subjects. This explanation leaves unexplored the question of why the scales do not elicit similar socially desirable responses from male subjects. A more plausible explanation might be that perception of parents as demanding and or punitive has different consequences for males and females. The social desirability scale, used as an indicator of need for approval, can help to clarify these results. It might be that women with a higher need for approval will be more likely to idealize parents. Gilligan (1982) argues that women are more interdependent and relationally oriented than men. The woman's sense of self is more relationally defined than that of the man. This would mean that perception of self and perception of parents are closely linked. Women with a higher need for approval may evaluate self negatively when parents are perceived as punitive and demanding and may expect negative evaluation from others if parents are reported to be punishing and demanding. Making more socially desirable responses may reduce the anxiety associated with negative evaluations. Two limitations of this study included (a) the narrow age range of subjects chosen and (b) the variability in living situations between subjects. Some subjects were living at home with one or both parents, while others were living alone or with either a roommate or a family of their own. The potential effects of subjects' living situations are seldom addressed in the literature, yet they would seem to warrant investigation as a possible factor which would need to be controlled in future parent-perception research. Limitations notwithstanding, it is reasonable to conclude from the above results that the SD response set does, for this group of young adults, tend to confound self-report data gathered from women for the BPB measures of perceived parental punishing and demanding behaviors. An examination of the correlations obtained from the total sample reflects the
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importance of dividing the subjects by sex; had such subgrouping not been carried out, the confounding influence of SD could have been obscured by the small, negative correlations obtained from male subjects. The results of this study have important implications for the use of the BPB in parent-perception research. First, researchers using this instrument should be aware of the limitations of the test's validity for female subjects, and the effects of SD should be controlled in future studies. Second, with respect to the parent-perception literature already accumulated, caution is advised in the application, both theoretical and practical, of findings from studies using self-report instruments such as the BPB without adequate control for the variable of SD. One interesting observation is that the correlations for male subjects were virtually all in the negative direction, while those obtained from female subjects were consistently positive. This finding underscores the fact that the female subjects were consistently more reluctant to report socially undesirable parental behaviors than were their male peers. In addition, the trend toward a negative relationship between maternal punishment and SD in males is worth noting. This correlation, being in the socially undesirable direction, cannot be explained in terms of an SD response set. A more plausible explanation would be to posit an association between perceived maternal punishment and the approval motive in male subjects, such that those who view their mothers as highly punitive tend to have a higher need for approval than other men. An important topic for future research would be to investigate further the relationships between parenting styles and personality development in children, specifically with respect to the approval motive. Also, it would be important to examine the impact of gender (both parent and child) in influencing childrearing practices and their effects on children.
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