The dimensionality of the Conflict Resolution Styles Inventory across age and relationships

Close interpersonal conflicts between parents and children, marital or romantic partners, and between friends are common, and adjustment in youth and adults depends on how these conflicts are managed. While conflict management is important for relationships and adjustment, the structure of conflict management in adults or in youths has rarely been examined. Knowing how conflict management is structured, and whether this structure changes with age and relationships, is important to understanding what factors influence the development of conflict management skills, and how to intervene. In the current study, we explored the unidimensional vs. multidimensional structure of conflict management in family relationships, friendships and romantic relationships across adolescence and adulthood. The sample consisted of 497 Dutch adolescents (57% boys, Mage = 13.03, SD = 0.46, 11–15 years old) who were followed over 11 years in 9 measurement waves, and their parents, siblings, best friends (six waves), and romantic partner (three waves). First-order factor analyses (CFA) showed that the structure of conflict management is similar for adolescents and adults, across relationships. The results of second-order models, including the theoretical higher dimensions positive/negative conflict management and engagement/disengagement, showed no support for these higher dimensions. The results of bifactor models showed differences between adults and youths: while positive problem solving was part of the general factor of conflict management in adults, it was not part of this general factor in adolescents. The general factor was linked to increases in internalizing and externalizing problems, and with decreases in prosocial behavior. Overall, the bifactor models increased the interpretability and validity of the conflict management measure

Examination of Parental Self-Efficacy and Their Beliefs About the Outcomes of Their Parenting Practices

In this study, we examined parental self-efficacy (PSE) in light of Bandura’s distinction between efficacy expectations and outcome expectations, and their links to parenting practices. We used a sample of 968 parents of children aged 11 to 18 years and examined the factor structure of items measuring PSE and parents’ outcome expectations, as well as the links between these two cognitive aspects and parenting practices. The results suggested that PSE and our measure of parents’ outcome expectations constituted two distinct factors and were not part of the same overall factor. Additionally, the analyses showed that PSE might be seen as a unidimensional construct with multidimensional aspects and was more strongly linked to parenting practices than were parents’ outcome expectations. In general, this study offers a comprehensive model of two different parental cognitive mechanisms as antecedents of parenting behaviors in different developmental periods

Have authoritarian parenting practices and roles changed in the last 50 years?

This study examined changes in authoritarian parenting practices and family roles in Sweden over the last 50 years. Data came from 3 cohorts (1958, 1981, and 2011) of young to middle-age adults living in a suburb of Stockholm who answered questions about how they were raised (N1958 = 385, N1981 = 207, N2011 = 457). The results showed a dramatic decrease in parents' directive control. Also, over time, parents increasingly allowed children to express anger toward them. Parents' roles changed from stereotyped versions of fathers as decision makers and mothers as caregivers to both parents sharing decisions and garnering respect from children. Overall, the results suggest that authoritarian parenting practices have declined dramatically and moved toward more egalitarian family environments. Virtually all these changes in parental practices and parental roles happened between the last 2 cohorts

Qualitative Approach to Clinical Psychology. Explorative Studies

This article is aimed to present a new approach to clinical research and also to clinical work based on Grounded Theory and on the software developed from it, Atlas.ti. It includes two practical applications of this software, one is the analysis of a clinical interview and the other the assessment of nine interviews taken with the Five Minutes Speech Sample belonging to five couples of parents. As it is presented below, each analysis was performed as a circular process, starting from the data, grouping them into categories, creating codes and then returning to the data in order to sustain them and to establish relations between them. In our view, this is a new and interesting way of approaching clinical data which gives the clinician the possibility of developing a deeper understanding of the patient/client without loosing himelf/herself in the theories of the psychological orientation the psychotherapist belongs to

Examination of Parental Self-Efficacy and Their Beliefs About the Outcomes of Their Parenting Practices

In this study, we examined parental self-efficacy (PSE) in light of Bandura’s distinction between efficacy expectations and outcome expectations, and their links to parenting practices. We used a sample of 968 parents of children aged 11 to 18 years and examined the factor structure of items measuring PSE and parents’ outcome expectations, as well as the links between these two cognitive aspects and parenting practices. The results suggested that PSE and our measure of parents’ outcome expectations constituted two distinct factors and were not part of the same overall factor. Additionally, the analyses showed that PSE might be seen as a unidimensional construct with multidimensional aspects and was more strongly linked to parenting practices than were parents’ outcome expectations. In general, this study offers a comprehensive model of two different parental cognitive mechanisms as antecedents of parenting behaviors in different developmental periods