Christopher Daddis

Family Processes and Problem Behaviors in Middle‐Class African American Adolescents

This study examined the joint association between mothers’ and adolescents’ ratings of parental behavioral control and adolescents’ and observers’ ratings of mother – adolescent communication with adolescent problem behaviors in a sample of 86 middle-class African American early adolescent boys and girls (age: M= 13.08 years, SD= 1.32) and their mothers. Consistent with hypotheses, greater adolescent-rated parental behavioral control and better observer-rated mother – adolescent communication were associated with lower levels of adolescent problem behavior, as examined using structural equation modeling. Furthermore, interrelationships between age and adolescent problem behavior were partially mediated by adolescents’ reports of parental behavioral control and observers’ ratings of positive mother – adolescent communication, which both decreased with adolescents’ age. Although the sample was primarily middle class, higher socioeconomic status was associated with more positive mother – adolescent communication, as rated by observers. Problem behavior was greater among boys than girls, but the hypothesized indirect effect of gender on problem behavior through associations with parenting was not observed. The findings demonstrate the utility of conceptually distinguishing between parenting and parent – adolescent relationships, and suggest that both have unique influences on middle-class African American adolescents’ problem behavior.

Middle-class African American families' expectations for adolescents' behavioural autonomy

Timetables for adolescents’ behavioural autonomy were examined using a modified version of Feldman and Quatman’s (1988) teen timetable measure with 73 middle-class African American middle adolescents (M age 1 / 4 14.96 years, SD 1 / 4 1.29) and their parents (73 mothers and 44 fathers), who were followed longitudinally for 3 years. African American mothers’ and fathers’ expectations for adolescents’ behavioural autonomy did not differ, but expectations varied greatly across issues, and mothers consistently endorsed later timetables than did adolescents. Autonomy expectations each could be described in terms of two empirically derived, conceptually meaningful, and internally consistent composites pertaining to personal and prudential issues. They were earlier for personal than prudential issues and for prudential issues, for boys than for girls. Mothers’ (but not adolescents’) expectations for the desired timing of adolescents’ autonomy over personal and prudential issues predicted increased autonomy over those issues 3 years later.

Effects of Provocation on Maltreated and Nonmaltreated Preschoolers' Understanding of Moral Transgressions

This study examined maltreated and nonmaltreated preschool children’s judgments regarding hypothetical provoked and unprovoked moral transgressions. Maltreated children (17 physically abused and 19 neglected) and 19 matched nonmaltreated children rated the severity and deserved punishment and evaluated affective responses to six hypothetical moral transgressions which were depicted as both unprovoked and provoked by another child’s actions. All children rated unprovoked transgressions as more serious and deserving of punishment and as eliciting more happiness and fear and less anger than transgressions that were depicted as provoked by another’s actions. No gender or maltreatment status differences in ratings of transgression severity and deserved punishment were found; however, patterns of affective responses to hypothetical transgressions differed as a function of maltreatment subtype. Findings are discussed in terms of previous research on maltreatment and moral judgment development.

Preference Management and the Role of Constructivist Processes in Children’s Social Development

In her recent book, Social Development as Preference Management: How Infants, Children, and Parents Get What They Want from One Another, Rachel Karniol [2010] described a theory of social development that places preference management as the motivational engine that defines and propels children’s social development. Defined as cognitive structures or mental representations that guide our choices, Karniol sees preferences as the ‘reasons for goal-oriented behavior’ (p. 1). According to this view, children are born with and further develop preferences that motivate their everyday behavior across all domains of their lives. Moreover, with development, children come to manage these preferences as they interact with others who also have preferences of their own. Accordingly, central tasks of social development involve communicating preferences to others, inferring others’ preferences, and coordinating and aligning one’s own preferences with those of others. Using a developmental framework, the book traced preference management from infancy to adolescence with an emphasis on three main areas. In the first section of the book, Karniol [2010] described how children come to express and communicate preferences and how they start to understand that others have preferences. The second section focused on how parents influence and shape their children’s preferences, and the third described specific processes of preference management including cognitive transformations of preferences and awareness of other people’s preferences as they relate to morality and altruism. Across all of the chapters, children’s understanding and use of language were used to represent how children ex-