Nonassertive Expression of Parental Approval and Disapproval and Its Relationship to Child Disturbance

Abstract

Assertiveness and affective quality of voice intonation were compared for approving, neutral, and disapproving statements made by 20 sets of parents of elementary-aged children who demonstrated emotional or behavioral disturbances in school and 20 sets of parents of "normal" control children. For mothers, a significant interaction (p = .01) was found between parental group and verbal affect: mothers of "normal" control children demonstrated more assertive voice intonation when expressing affective verbal content (approval or disapproval) than when making neutral statements; mothers of "disturbed" children demonstrated less assertive voice intonation when expressing affective verbal content than when making neutral statements. Differences between mothers on affective quality of voice did not reach statistical significance. No significant differences were found for fathers.

Predictors of Parental Locus of Control in Mothers of Pre- and Early Adolescents

“…Bugental and colleagues (1975, 1980) found that when interacting with a child exhibiting difficult behavior, women with more external locus of control orientations have more assertive voice quality when making neutral statements than when expressing both positive and negative verbal affect. This is the opposite pattern used by women with internal locus of control orientations, suggesting that challenging child behavior can affect mother-child interaction patterns and that external locus of control orientation may moderate this relationship.…”

How (Fast) Can I Help You? Tone of Voice and Telephone Operator Efficiency in Interactions1

“…A recent meta-analysis of the accuracy with which various clinical and social outcomes could be predicted from brief audio clips found a significant pattern of correlation (Ambady & Rosenthal, 1992). For example, a study in the schools found that mothers' tone of voice correlated significantly with the degree to which their child showed behavioral problems (Bugental & Love, 1975).…”

Nonverbal Communication in Teaching

“…More recent research with parents conducted by Bugental and her associates (Bugental, Henker, & Whalen, 1976;Bugental & Love, 1975) also found that the voice tone of adults was associated with the behavior of children. The results of these studies indicated that vocal assertiveness seemed to be an important factor in parents' ability to control the behavior of their children.…”