Chinese children's effortful control and dispositional anger/frustration: relations to parenting styles and children's social functioning

Dev Psychol. 2004 May;40(3):352-66. doi: 10.1037/0012-1649.40.3.352.

Abstract

Relations among authoritative and authoritarian parenting styles, children's effortful control and dispositional anger/frustration, and children's social functioning were examined for 425 first and second graders (7-10 years old) in Beijing, China. Parents reported on parenting styles; parents and teachers rated children's effortful control, anger/frustration, externalizing problems, and socially appropriate behaviors: and peers rated aggression and leadership/sociability. High effortful control and low dispositional anger/frustration uniquely predicted Chinese children's high social functioning, and the relation of anger/frustration to social functioning was moderated by effortful control. Authoritarian parenting was associated with children's low effortful control and high dispositional anger/frustration, which (especially effortful control) mediated the negative relation between authoritarian parenting and children's social functioning. Effortful control weakly mediated the positive relation of authoritative parenting to social functioning.

Publication types

  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, P.H.S.

MeSH terms

  • Anger*
  • Authoritarianism
  • Child
  • China
  • Culture
  • Female
  • Frustration*
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Parent-Child Relations*
  • Parenting / ethnology*
  • Regression Analysis
  • Social Behavior*
  • Social Desirability
  • Surveys and Questionnaires