In this study, we argue for the importance of guilt and shame for the process of socialization via the role of these reflexive emotions in individuals' conformity to moral and social norms. Working from the assumption that the self-concept is the basis for feelings of guilt and shame, we test a number of hypotheses connecting the experience of these emotions to 3 styles of parental control (inductive, affective, and coercive). Undergraduate students ( N = 270) completed questionnaires designed to assess their proneness to feelings of guilt and shame in situations of norm violations, and through retrospective reports the disciplinary practices of each of their parents. Results supported hypothesized connections between inductive control and guilt, and between affective control and shame. The associations between parental control, guilt, and shame in situations of intentional and unintentional norm violations differed depending on the gender of the parent relative to the gender of the child and on the interaction of parental control with parental support. These associations and the implications of the use of affective control as a moral socialization strategy are discussed.
There is broad consensus among family and child development researchers that variations in parenting styles and practices contribute to individual differences along a range of child outcomes. Although the literature implies a continuum of parenting styles, research on ethnic minority and low-income families has often implied that these groups are homogeneous with respect to parenting practices and has compared them to standard samples (usually ethnic majority and middle class). In rejecting these assumptions, we examined the diversity of parenting styles in a sample of a low-income, African American families served by Head Start. Analyses revealed a range of child-rearing beliefs yielding discrete patterns of parenting that were distinguished in terms of beliefs about desirable child attributes and community-level attributes, and were associated with children's social competence. Findings suggest that crude group comparisons are inadequate to describe or explain the effects of parenting values and parent-child interactions in low-income, minority ethnic status samples.
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