Psychological Bulletin Copyright 1993 by the American Psychological Association, Inc.

1993. Vol. 113. No. 3, 487-496 0033-2909/93/S3.00

Parenting Style as Context: An Integrative Model

Nancy Darling and Laurence Steinberg

Despite broad consensus about the effects of parenting practices on child development, many
questions about the construct parenting style remain unanswered. Particularly pressing issues are
the variability in the effects of parenting style as a function of the child's cultural background, the
processes through which parenting style influences the child's development, and the operational-
ization of parenting style. Drawing on historical review, the authors present a model that integrates
two traditions in socialization research, the study of specific parenting practices and the study of
global parent characteristics. They propose that parenting style is best conceptualized as a context
that moderates the influence of specific parenting practices on the child. It is argued that only by
maintaining the distinction between parenting style and parenting practice can researchers address
questions concerning socialization processes.

During the past 25 years, research based on Baumrind's con- European-American adolescents and is least effective in in-
ceptualization of parenting style has produced a remarkably fluencing the academic achievement of Asian- and African-
consistent picture of the type of parenting conducive to the American youths (Dornbusch, Ritter, Leiderman, Roberts, &
successful socialization of children into the dominant culture Fraleigh, 1987; Steinberg, Mounts, Lamborn, & Dornbusch,
of the United States. Authoritativeness—a constellation of par- 1991).
ent attributes that includes emotional support, high standards, How can such variability be explained? Are the processes
appropriate autonomy granting, and clear, bidirectional com- through which authoritativeness enhances development under-
munication—has been shown to help children and adolescents mined by other processes operating in particular cultural
develop an instrumental competence characterized by the bal- milieus (e.g., within the child's peer group)? Or is there some-
ancing of societal and individual needs and responsibilities. thing fundamentally different about the processes that occur
Among the indicators of instrumental competence are responsi- within authoritative families in different milieus that results in
ble independence, cooperation with adults and peers, psycho- different consequences for the child?1 For example, are the
social maturity, and academic success (for reviews, see goals toward which authoritative parents try to socialize their
Baumrind, 1989,199 la). children the same in African- and European-American homes?
This work on authoritativeness and its beneficial effects Alternatively, perhaps the goals African- and European-Ameri-
builds on half a century of research on parenting and parenting can authoritative parents hold are the same, but the methods
style. Yet, despite some impressive consistencies in the socializa- they use to help children attain these goals differ.
tion literature, important questions remain unanswered. As re- Although much has been written in theory about the pro-
searchers have expanded beyond samples of White, predomi- cesses through which parenting style may influence child devel-
nantly middle-class families, it has become increasingly clear opment (for excellent discussions, see Baumrind, 197 la, 1983;
that the influence of authoritativeness, as well as other styles of Lewis, 1981), in actuality we have a very limited empirical basis
parenting, varies depending on the social milieu in which the on which to assess alternative hypotheses about the conditions
family is embedded. For example, Baumrind (1972) reported under which the same parenting style may differentially affect
that authoritarian parenting, which is associated with fearful, children's development. One clear consequence of this absence
timid behavior and behavioral compliance among European- is our lack of understanding of ethnic differences in the impact
American children, is associated with assertiveness among of authoritativeness on children's development. Another is that
African-American girls. Furthermore, recent studies in which there is no empirical basis on which to draw conclusions about
the effects of authoritativeness have been compared across eth- how the appropriateness of different parenting styles may vary
nic groups have consistently shown that authoritative parenting depending on the child's developmental stage (e.g., Steinberg,
is most strongly associated with academic achievement among Elmen, & Mounts, 1989).

1
Nancy Darling and Laurence Steinberg, Department of Psychology, Although some writers have treated parenting style as if it were a
Temple University. developmental process, we disagree. A developmental process is de-
Work on this article was supported by grants from the Lilly Endow- nned by interactions between the developing person and his or her
ment and the William T. Grant Foundation. Our thanks to Diana environment. Parenting style is a characteristic of the parent (i.e., it is a
Baumrind, Marsha Weinraub, and several anonymous reviewers for feature of the child's social environment), independent of characteris-
their thoughtful comments. tics of the developing person. In contrast, the extent and nature of the
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to child's identification with parents are examples of developmental pro-
Laurence Steinberg, Department of Psychology, Temple University, cesses, because identification inherently involves both the child and
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19122. the object of the identification.

487
488 NANCY DARLING AND LAURENCE STEINBERG

In this article, we argue that to understand the processes influence of an individual behavior could not be easily disag-
through which parenting style influences child development, gregated. As one influential group noted,
one must disentangle three different aspects of parenting: the
goals toward which socialization is directed; the parenting It is possible for the child to take a great deal of rather crude
cuffing and spanking and still feel so fully the affection and
practices used by parents to help children reach those goals; warmth of the parents' concern that no harm results. And it is
and the parenting style, or emotional climate, within which possible for parents to do the technically correct thing with so
socialization occurs. We argue that parenting style is most use- little apparent affection that even their kind and patient words
fully conceptualized as a characteristic of the parent that alters leave the child cold as well as confused and resentful. (Greenberg
the efficacy of the parent's socialization efforts by moderating and Others of the Staff of the Child Study Association of Amer-
ica, 1936, quoted by Symonds, 1939, p. 153)
the effectiveness of particular practices and by changing the
child's openness to socialization. Parenting style developed initially as a heuristic device to
To make this argument, we review the historical develop- describe the parenting milieu. To the extent that this milieu
ment of the parenting style construct, paying careful attention was accurately captured by measures of parenting style, analy-
to the processes through which parenting style has been ses using the construct were presumed to be more predictive of
thought to influence child outcomes. Key to this discussion is child attributes than analyses based on specific parenting prac-
our exegesis of the historical tension between researchers inter- tices, because the influence of any particular parenting prac-
ested in the developmental consequences of particular parent- tice on child development would easily be lost among the com-
ing practices and those interested in more global parenting plexity of other parental attributes (Baldwin, 1948; Orlansky,
characteristics, or parenting style. Drawing on this review, we 1949; Symonds, 1939). Initial qualitative and later quantitative
develop a model of parenting that encompasses parenting efforts to assess parenting style focused on three particular com-
goals, practices, and style, and we discuss how this model facili- ponents: the emotional relationship between the parent and
tates addressing extant issues in socialization research. child, the parents' practices and behaviors, and the parents'
belief systems. Because researchers from different theoretical
perspectives emphasized different processes through which par-
Historical Change in the Conceptualization of ents influence their children, their writings stressed different
Parenting Style components of style.
The psychodynamic model. Socialization researchers who
Emotional Relationships and Parenting Behaviors worked from a psychodynamic perspective concentrated their
efforts on the emotional relationship between the parent and
The model we offer defines parenting style as a constellation child and its influence on the child's psychosexual, psychoso-
of attitudes toward the child that are communicated to the cial, and personality development. Like other theories of social-
child and that, taken together, create an emotional climate in ization offered during this historical era, their models were
which the parent's behaviors are expressed. These behaviors strictly unidirectional. These theorists argued that individual
include both the specific, goal-directed behaviors through differences in the emotional relationships between parents and
which parents perform their parental duties (to be referred to as children must necessarily result from differences in parental
parenting practices) and non-goal-directed parental behaviors, attributes, and many researchers focused on attitudes as the
such as gestures, changes in tone of voice, or the spontaneous attributes of importance. For example, after reviewing research
expression of emotion. on the influence of a broad range of parenting practices on
This definition of parenting style is consistent with some of infant personality development and concluding that there was
the earliest research on socialization, conducted during the 3rd essentially no consistent relationship between any specific pa-
and 4th decades of the 20th century. Interest in the influence of rental practice and child outcomes, Orlansky (1949) wrote,
parents' behavior on child development was a natural out-
growth of both behaviorist and Freudian theory. Child behav- We lean to the belief that a specific discipline does not exert a
specific invariant psychological influence upon the child and that
iorists were interested in how the patterning of reinforcement its effect can be gauged only from a study of the parental attitudes
in the near environment shaped development. Freudian theo- associated with its administration, (pp. 7-8)
rists, in contrast, argued that the basic determinants of develop-
ment were biological and inevitably in conflict with parental Because attitudes help determine both parental practices and
desires and societal requirements. The interaction between the the more subtle behaviors that give those practices meaning,
child's libidinal needs and the family environment was pre- many investigators who worked in this tradition reasoned that
sumed to determine individual differences in children's devel- assessing parental attitudes would capture the emotional tenor
opment. Then, as now, two questions dominated socialization of the family milieu that determined the parent-child relation-
research: What are the modal patterns of child rearing? What ship and influenced the child's development (Baldwin, 1948;
are the developmental consequences of different child rearing Orlansky, 1949; Schaefer, 1959; Symonds, 1939). This shift in
patterns? emphasis from parents' behaviors to their attitudes posed a
Although there was general agreement that parenting prac- problem for researchers, however. Behavior is determined and
tices influence child development, documenting the influence made meaningful by attitudes, but attitudes are expressed
of specific practices proved elusive. Early socialization re- through behavior. As Symonds (1939) wrote, "Eventually the
searchers recognized that individual parenting behaviors were child's emotional security does go back to the parents' feelings
part of a milieu of many other behaviors and, therefore, that the and attitudes, needs and purposes, but only as they are openly
 PARENTING STYLE AS CONTEXT 489

expressed to him in word and action" (p. 154). In essence, al- "socialized, cooperative, friendly, loyal, emotionally stable, and
though attitudes were deemed to be more important than be- cheerful . . . honest, straightforward, and dependable . . .
haviors per se, there was no means of studying the former with- good citizens and good scholars" (p. 75) and whom Baumrind
out measuring the latter. (1970) would later call "instrumentally competent"—were the
Researchers who focused on the emotional processes under- products of homes in which parents behaved in a particular
lying parenting style tried to bridge this gap between parental manner. These parents were warm, established clear, rational
attitudes and the specific behaviors they were thought to engen- guidelines while allowing the child autonomy within those
der by aggregating behavior at what Schaefer (1959) called a boundaries, and clearly communicated both their expectations
"molar" level. Rather than using individual practices to define and the reasons behind them (Baldwin, 1948,1955; Sears et al.,
parenting style, particular practices were grouped conceptually 1957; Symonds, 1939).
into broader categories on the basis of their potential to alter The importance of both the affective and instrumental pro-
emotional processes (Baldwin, 1948; Orlansky, 1949; Schaefer cesses emphasized by psychodynamic and learning theorists,
& Bell, 1958; Symonds, 1939). These molar attributes included, respectively, is evident in these findings. Both Scare's (1957)
among others, autonomy granting, ignoring, punitiveness, per- melding of the Freudian concept of identification with learning
ception of the child as a burden, strictness, use of fear to con- theory and the limited usefulness of direct measures of parents'
trol, and expressions of affection (Schaefer, 1959, 1965). attitudes in predicting child outcomes without parenting prac-
Schaefer used circumplex modeling to organize these attributes tices to mediate the process (for a review, see Becker, 1964)
into a typology of parenting style believed to capture both atti- suggested the importance of examining affective and instru-
tudes and practice. mental processes within a single model.
The learning model. Researchers who approached parent- Psychodynamic and social learning theorists both agreed
ing style from behaviorist and social learning perspectives at that the instrumental and interpersonal goals toward which
the time also sought to categorize parenting style according to parents socialize their children and parents' beliefs about par-
parental behaviors, but they focused their efforts on parental enting and the nature of children were critical determinants of
practices rather than attitudes. Because differences in chil- parents' practices, but psychologists rarely measured these os-
dren's development were thought to reflect differences in the tensibly critical antecedents. For sociologists, however, value
learning environment to which they had been exposed, mea- transmission and the role families played in maintaining the
sures of parenting style were designed to capture the patterning social order were important elements of functionalist and struc-
of behaviors that defined these environments (e.g., Sears, Mac- tural-functionalist theories. Thus, although psychologists paid
coby, & Levin, 1957; Whiting & Child, 1953). In these ap- scant attention to parents' beliefs, the determinants and signifi-
proaches, factor analysis might be used to identify control as a cance of these belief systems received attention from social sci-
behavioral attribute underlying the pattern of correlations entists interested in the influence of the broader social context
among such practices as a parent's use of physical punishment, on parenting, most importantly, Parsons and Bales (1955),
tolerance of masturbation, sanctions against aggression, failure Kohn (1969), and Bronfenbrenner (1958,196la, 1961b).
to enforce rules, and rules for use of common living areas. Par- An important gap between the study of socialization goals
enting style was used as a sort of shorthand to summarize the and the study of socialization techniques remained for some
results of the many analyses performed on specific parenting time. It was not until Baumrind (1966), however, that a theoreti-
practices, rather than reified as an entity unto itself, as it was by cal model emerged that incorporated the emotional and behav-
the analytically oriented theorists. ioral processes that underlay earlier models of socialization
Dimensions of style. The utility of parenting style as a heu- into a conceptualization of parenting style that was anchored in
ristic device is reflected in the similarity of the qualities used to an emphasis on parents' belief systems. This model would pro-
describe it by researchers who worked from different theoreti- foundly alter subsequent thinking about parenting style.
cal vantage points, were interested in different developmental
outcomes, and focused on different socialization processes. Belief Systems and Ecological Niches:
Just as early theories of parenting differed in their emphasis on
Baumrind's Typology
control (Watson, 1928) and nurturance (Freud, 1933; Rogers,
1960), so did the dimensions used to describe parenting style in For Baumrind, socializing child to conform to the necessary
early empirical research on socialization. For Symonds (1939), demands of others while maintaining a sense of personal integ-
these dimensions included acceptance/rejection and domi- rity was the key element of the parental role. Her early research
nance/submission; for Baldwin (1955), emotional warmth/hos- focused on the influence of normal variation in the patterning
tility and detachment/involvement; for Schaefer (1959), love/ of parental authority on early childhood development. She be-
hostility and autonomy/control; for Sears et al. (1957), warmth gan by articulating and enlarging the concept of parental con-
and permissiveness/strictness; and for Becker (1964), warmth/ trol. Previously, control had been variously defined as strict-
hostility and restrictiveness/permissiveness. In retrospect, the ness, use of physical punishment, consistency of punishment,
similarity of the underlying dimensions proposed by these dif- use of explanations, and so on (for a review, see Baumrind,
ferent researchers is remarkable. 1966). In contrast, Baumrind argued that parents' willingness
In addition to this basic agreement about the underlying orga- to socialize their child is conceptually distinct from parental
nizational structure of parenting style, a consensus began to restrictiveness and used the concept of parental control to refer
emerge about the association between child outcomes and par- to parents' attempts to integrate the child into the family and
enting. Model children—whom Symonds (1939) described as society by demanding behavioral compliance.
490 NANCY DARLING AND LAURENCE STEINBERG

In Baumrind's (1968) conceptualization of parenting style, variations in patterns of parental authority, in reality the dis-
parents' values and the beliefs they hold about their roles as tinction was associated with other parenting attributes as well.
parents and the nature of children help define naturally occur- For example, although Baumrind (1966) allowed conceptually
ring patterns of affect, practices, and values. This can be seen in that parents who use different styles of authority might be
her description of the prototypic authoritative parent: equally warm and loving, empirically she found that compared
with authoritative parents, both authoritarian and permissive
She encourages verbal give and take, and shares with the child the parents were similar in their relative detachment, the ineffec-
reasoning behind her policy. She values both expressive and in- tiveness of their communication skills, and their lower matu-
strumental attributes, both autonomous self-will and disciplined
conformity. Therefore, she exerts firm control at points of parent- rity demands (Baumrind, 1967). These results called into ques-
child divergence, but does not hem the child in with restrictions. tion the validity of searching for orthogonal dimensions of par-
She recognizes her own special rights as an adult, but also the enting, as earlier socialization researchers had done. Indeed, it
child's individual interests and special ways. The authoritative par- became apparent that the advantage of a configurational ap-
ent affirms the child's present qualities, but also sets standards for
future conduct. She uses reason as well as power to achieve her proach grounded in naturally occurring parenting styles, rather
objectives. She does not base her decisions on group consensus or than on theoretical dimensions alone, was its ecological
the individual child's desires; but also does not regard herself as validity.
infallible or divinely inspired. (Baumrind, 1968, p. 261) Baumrind's (1967, 197la) model also differed from those of
earlier researchers in that it reflected what was then a paradigm
Baumrind's (1967, 197la) operationalization of parenting shift in thinking about socialization—the emergence of the no-
style set her apart from earlier researchers in several ways. First, tion that children contribute to their own development through
rather than determining with great exactitude multiple dimen- their influence on their parents. Although the possibility that
sions of parental behavior and denning style as a linear combi- temperamental differences in children might alter parents' be-
nation of these dimensions, Baumrind specified one broad par- haviors had been noted earlier (Baldwin, 1948), Baumrind
enting function—control—and added articulation within that (1989) explicitly tried to disentangle parent behaviors from
single domain. Second, rather than demand that parental con- child behaviors. For example, she measured parents' attempts
trol be organized linearly from high to low (as was the implicit to gain compliance independently of children's actual compli-
or explicit assumption of earlier theorists), she distinguished ance (Baumrind, 1967,197la, 1971b). This allowed her to de-
among three qualitatively different types of parental control: fine parenting style as a characteristic of the parent, rather than
permissive, authoritarian, and authoritative. Third, Baumrind of the parent-child relationship, a distinction that we, too, be-
used a configurational approach to define parenting style, argu- lieve is crucial. Because earlier models had assumed that chil-
ing that the influence of any one aspect of parenting (e.g., ideol- dren were influenced by, but did not influence, their parents,
ogy, maturity demands, or the use of specific disciplinary tech- previous operationalizations of parenting style had not ad-
niques) is dependent on the configuration of all other aspects. dressed this distinction.
In many ways, Baumrind's typology of parenting recalled the More important for the model we present in this review,
earliest conceptualizations of parenting style (e.g., Symonds, Baumrind viewed the socialization process as dynamic; specifi-
1939), in that it described naturally occurring family niches cally, she hypothesized that the parenting style used actually
organized around parents' belief systems. altered how open children are to their parents' attempts to so-
The configurational approach was a natural outgrowth of cialize them. For example, she posited that authoritative parent-
Baumrind's initial interest in identifying and describing the ing actually enhances the value of parental reinforcement and
parenting that was antecedent to clearly identified clusters of that authoritative parents' clear articulation of desired and pro-
child behaviors (Baumrind, 1967; Baumrind & Black, 1967). scribed behaviors enhances children's ability to discern correct
The configuration of practices associated with authoritative par- responses to parental demands and enhances their cognitive
enting reached beyond the issue of authority to include matu- ability (Baumrind, 1967). In essence, she suggested that author-
rity demands, communication style (including both effective- itativeness increases the effectiveness of parenting by altering
ness and directionality), and nurturance (in which a distinction child characteristics that, in turn, strengthen the parents' abil-
is made between warmth and involvement; Baumrind, 1965, ity to act as socialization agents.
1967; Baumrind & Black, 1967). Importantly, Baumrind found Lewis's (1981) critique of Baumrind. Despite the apparent
that parents who differ in the way they use authority also tend strengths of Baumrind's typological approach, an inherent dis-
to differ along other dimensions, providing empirical as well as advantage of any empirically derived typology is that the inevi-
conceptual support for the configurational approach. For exam- table intercorrelation of different parent characteristics makes
ple, parents whose control practices warranted the label "per- it difficult to discern the mechanism that underlies differences
missive" or "authoritarian" were found also to make fewer matu- among children from different types of families. This problem
rity demands, communicate less effectively and more unilater- was highlighted in Lewis's (1981) critique and reinterpretation
ally, and act less nurturant and controlling than authoritative of Baumrind's work. Lewis asked why strong external control
parents (Baumrind, 1967). such as that used by authoritative parents should induce chil-
Baumrind's (1967) empirical validation of the configura- dren to internalize their parents' values, when attribution
tional approach changed the emphasis of parenting style re- theory suggests that strong external controls should undermine
search and marked an important departure from the factor-an- internalization. In her reinterpretation of Baumrind's findings,
alytic and circumplex traditions. Although in theory the author- Lewis suggested that it is not the high control characteristic of
itative-authoritarian-permissive typology was based solely on authoritative families that helps children develop an indepen-
 PARENTING STYLE AS CONTEXT 491

dent and autonomous sense of self while conforming to rules, Baumrind's configurational approach with earlier attempts to
but rather the reciprocal communication characteristic of au- define parenting along a limited number of dimensions. They
thoritative families and the experience children in these fami- did so by attempting to capture parenting style as a function of
lies have of successfully modifying parental rules through argu- two dimensions, which they labeled responsiveness and de-
mentation. Specifically, Lewis suggested that Baumrind's find- mandingness.
ings could be reinterpreted as showing that the advantages Maccoby and Martin's (1983) transformation of Baumrind's
enjoyed by authoritatively reared children are attributable to configurational typology facilitated investigations of the gener-
their parents' openness to bidirectional communication. alizability of Baumrind's model to populations quite different
Lewis (1981) did not question the empirical validity of the from the one in which the typology arose, by creating linear
association between authoritative parenting and child compe- constructs along which theoretically important aspects of par-
tence. In essence, however, she redefined authoritative parent- enting could be measured. For both Baumrind (1983) and Mac-
ing in terms of its emphasis on mutual accommodation rather coby and Martin (1983), parenting style was best understood
than on a certain type of control.2 Although the validity of this within a social learning or ethological perspective. Parenting
redefinition remains an open question both empirically and style was defined as reflecting two specific underlying pro-
conceptually, Lewis's reinterpretation brought into focus two cesses: (a) the number and type of demands made by the parents
important related points: (a) Any parenting typology (including and (b) the contingency of parental reinforcement. Authorita-
Baumrind's) captures a configuration of parenting practices, tive parents are high in both demandingness and responsive-
thus making it difficult to ascertain what aspect of parenting ness. Authoritarian parents are high in demandingness but low
affects which developmental outcomes, and (b) extant notions in responsiveness. Whereas empirically, Baumrind had found
about the processes through which parenting style influences the "permissive" type, Maccoby and Martin distinguished two
child development are speculative rather than empirically distinct patterns of parenting. In their framework, indulgent
grounded. parents are defined as high in responsiveness but low in deman-
The putative processes (e.g., mutual accommodation, effec- dingness. Neglecting parents are defined as low in both respon-
tive conflict management, and firm control) by which parental siveness and demandingness. The neglecting pattern arises
authoritativeness might influence the development of compe- both logically, as a consequence of crossing the two theoretical
tence have been discussed in depth, albeit hypothetically, by dimensions (i.e., responsiveness and demandingness), and eco-
both Baumrind (197la, 1983) and Lewis (1981). However, the logically, because doing so includes a broader range of parent-
configurational approach makes it difficult to move from the ing than had been represented in Baumrind's earlier sample of
hypothetical to the empirical. This is especially true when com- mainly conscientious parents.
parisons are limited to comparisons of children raised in bla- In earlier models of socialization based on two orthogonal
tantly different parenting styles, because within-group studies dimensions of parenting, warmth or an attribute similar to
would be necessary to specify the operative socialization pro- warmth (e.g., acceptance, love, etc.) was always one of the critical
cesses. Unfortunately, the richness and detail of the data dimensions. In Maccoby and Martin's (1983) model, however,
Baumrind gathered in her research necessarily restricted the the contingency of parent and child behavior replaced warmth
size of the samples she studied, making the critical within- as an organizing element:
group comparisons unfeasible.
Whether parental responsiveness be viewed as contingent rein-
In retrospect, a review of the Lewis-Baumrind argument un- forcement (meaning, presumably, that the parents are "shaping"
derscores the fact that, despite consistent evidence that authori- the child by responding differentially to desired and undesired
tative parents produce competent children, we still do not re- behavior), as providing control to the child, or merely as parental
ally know how or why. Both the attribution and social learning sensitivity and adaptation to the child's signals, states, and needs,
perspectives offer interesting hypotheses about the mecha- the concept differs importantly from that of warmth, which in-
cludes affection or praise when they are contingently but also
nisms through which such an association might come about, when they are given on the parent's impulse regardless of the con-
but the empirical evidence necessary to allow us to judge which current state, signals, and behavior of the child, (p. 39)
hypotheses are correct is lacking.
In her more recent work (1978, 1980, 199la, 1991b),
Maccoby and Martin's (1983) Two-Dimensional Baumrind has used the concepts of responsiveness and deman-
dingness to reflect the balance of demands between society (as
Framework
reflected through the parent) and the individual. She has writ-
Whatever its limitations, Baumrind's authoritative-authori- ten,
tarian-permissive typology proved a fruitful focus for research
on parenting. By the early 1980s, this tripartite model was 2
firmly established in the field of child development and served More recently, Baumrind (1983) has written that "differences
as the organizing heuristic for most discussions of parents' in- among authoritative, permissive, and authoritarian families should be
fluence on their children's development. However, although attributed to contrasting styles of managing parent-child disciplinary
conflict" (p. 138; also see Cooper, 1988). In some respects, this appears
Baumrind specifically limited the scope of her investigation to to be a restatement of the typology's conceptual derivation. However,
the influence of parenting variations within well-functioning although the typology originally was denned according to stylistic
families, other researchers were interested in a broader range. differences in parents' orientation toward their socialization duties
In an influential review published in the Handbook of Child (i.e., toward control), it actually was operationalized in terms of the
Psychology, Maccoby and Martin (1983) attempted to merge management of conflict.
492 NANCY DARLING AND LAURENCE STEINBERG

Demandingness refers to the claims parents make on the child to back into a framework based on quantitative differences mea-
become integrated into the family whole by their maturity de- sured along two dimensions.
mands, supervision, disciplinary efforts and willingness to con-
front the child who disobeys. Responsiveness refers to actions
which intentionally foster individuality, self-regulation and self- Style as Context: An Integrative Model
assertion by being attuned, supportive and acquiescent to the
child's special needs and demands. (1991a, p. 748) We noted earlier that past models of parenting have identi-
fied three characteristics of parents that determine the pro-
In other words, demandingness refers to the parent's willing- cesses through which parenting style influences child develop-
ness to act as a socializing agent, whereas responsiveness refers ment: the values and goals parents have in socializing their
to the parent's recognition of the child's individuality. Thus the children, the parenting practices they employ, and the attitudes
two dimensions reflect two types of demands: those made by they express toward their children. We have argued that a very
the society on the child (as conveyed through the parent) and real tension has existed in the literature between building typol-
those made by the child on society. Baumrind (1978) cogently ogies of parenting style to capture the parenting milieu, or ge-
laid out this balance in her discussion of how authoritative par- stalt, and attempting to understand the mechanisms through
ents instill instrumental competence by helping their children which style influences child development by disaggregating
balance other-oriented, rule-following tendencies with indivi- parenting style into its component parts. If we are to move
dualistic, autonomous, active thinking. beyond a "family address" model of parenting and understand
Although the authoritarian and authoritative parenting styles the processes through which parenting style influences chil-
defined by responsiveness and demandingness have familiar dren, models of parenting style must account for the crucial
names, they only approximate, and do not directly correspond mediating processes. In the previous section, we discussed the
to, the patterns described by Baumrind. For example, Maccoby elements of such a model in historical context. In this section,
we suggest how these elements fit together as a whole. In articu-
and Martin (1983) explicitly separated their discussion of paren-
lating such a model, we focus our attention on processes that
tal communication patterns from their discussion of parenting
occur within the family setting. We recognize, of course, that
style, although reciprocity of communication and use of expla-
such processes may (and probably do) vary as a function of
nations and reasoning are important characteristics that
other influences outside the immediate setting, such as the fam-
Baumrind said distinguished authoritative from authoritarian
ily's culture, class, or composition.
parents. Differences in the quality of control between authori-
Researchers from Symonds (1939) to Dornbusch et al. (1987)
tative and authoritarian parents may not be captured in models
have argued that the values parents hold and the goals toward
that rely solely on the measurement of responsiveness and de- which they socialize their children are critical determinants of
mandingness, because they do not include assessments of other parenting behavior. These socialization goals include both the
important distinguishing features, such as restrictiveness, au- child's acquisition of specific skills and behaviors (e.g., appro-
tonomy granting, warmth, and coerciveness. priate manners, social skills, and academic ability) and the
As Maccoby and Martin (1983) noted, denning configura- child's development of more global qualities (e.g., curiosity, criti-
tional typologies using linear dimensions can prove a Procrus- cal thinking, independence, spirituality, and the capacity to
tean bed for empirical typologies and may lead to subtle diffi- experience joy or love). Although these goals and values have a
culties in interpretation. It is tempting, for example, to describe direct affect on parenting behavior, it is only through parenting
differences in the development of the children of authoritative behavior that these goals can influence the developing child
and authoritarian parents as resulting from differences in pa- (Becker, 1964). We propose that the attributes of parenting in-
rental responsiveness because in Maccoby and Martin's typol- fluenced by these goals are of at least two distinct types: parent-
ogy both styles of parenting are defined as high in demanding- ing practices and parenting style. Moreover, we argue that in
ness. In contrast, although Baumrind (1989) described both order to understand the processes through which parents influ-
authoritative and authoritarian parents as demanding, the qual- ence their children's development, researchers must maintain
ity of their demandingness is different, above and beyond the this distinction between practice and style.
differences ascribed to responsiveness. In fact, Baumrind dis- Parenting practices are behaviors defined by specific content
tinguished two aspects of demandingness: restrictiveness (simi- and socialization goals. Attending school functions and spank-
lar to what others [e.g., Schaefer, 1965; Steinberg et al., 1989] ing are both examples of parenting practices. Depending on the
have called psychological control) and firm control (similar to hypothesized relationship between a socialization goal and a
what others [e.g., Steinberg et al., 1989] have called behavioral child outcome, practices may be operationalized at different
control). Both authoritative and authoritarian parents are high levels. For example, if one were interested in the development
in firm control, but only authoritarian parents are highly restric- of adolescent self-esteem, one might hypothesize that the chil-
tive (i.e., high in psychological control). dren of parents who showed interest in their child's activities
The move by Maccoby and Martin (1983) away from the would develop more positive self-esteem than would children
configurational approach toward one that defined configura- whose parents did not. In such a case, it would make sense to
tions on the basis of orthogonal dimensions marked an equate such diverse parental behaviors as attending baseball
attempt—reminiscent of earlier attempts to differentiate un- games or school functions, asking about the child's friends, and
derlying dimensions of parenting style—to tease apart the pro- going to art museums at the child's request as different manifes-
cesses that underlie the influence of style. By 1983, qualitatively tations of the same basic practice. If the socialization goal is
different types of parental authority had been transformed school achievement and the hypothesized process of influence
 PARENTING STYLE AS CONTEXT 493

is communicating the importance of academics, parenting Adolescent's

1 Parenting Willingness
practices such as making time for the child to do homework, Style tobe
attending school functions, and inquiring about grades might Socialized
Parental
all be considered equivalent. Parenting practices are best un- Goals and
derstood as operating in fairly circumscribed socialization do- Values
mains, such as academic achievement, independence, or coop-
Parenting Adolescent
eration with peers. Depending on the specific developmental Practices Outcomes
outcome of interest, different parenting practices would be
more or less important to investigate. Figure 1. Contextual model of parenting style. Parenting goals for
A second class of parenting attributes influenced by parents' socialization influence both parenting style (Arrow 1) and parenting
goals and values is parenting style. Earlier, we denned parent- practices (Arrow 2). Parenting practices have a direct effect on specific
ing style as a constellation of attitudes toward the child that are child developmental outcomes (Arrow 3). In contrast, parenting style
communicated to the child and create an emotional climate in influences child development primarily through its moderating influ-
which the parent's behaviors are expressed. These behaviors ence on the relationship between parenting practices and developmen-
include aspects of the behaviors that encompass parenting tal outcomes (Arrow 4) and through its influence on the child's open-
practices as well as other aspects of parent-child interaction ness to parental socialization (Arrow 5). The child's openness to social-
that communicate emotional attitude but are not goal directed ization also moderates the influence of parenting practice on the
or goal defined: tone of voice, body language, inattention, child's development (Arrow 6).
bursts of temper, and so on. Thus, global parenting style is
expressed partly through parenting practices, because these are
some of the behaviors from which children infer the emotional practices are the mechanisms through which parents directly
attitudes of their parents. Parenting style is not simply a more help their child attain their socialization goals (Figure 1, Ar-
distal variable mediated through proximal parenting practices, row 3). In contrast (and in contradistinction to previous au-
however. thors), the primary processes through which parenting style
Using Baumrind's (197 la) prototype of an authoritative par- influences child development are indirect. Parenting style
ent as an example of a parenting style, we note two ways in alters the parents' capacity to socialize their children by chang-
which the concept differs from that of parenting practice. First, ing the effectiveness of their parenting practices. From this per-
unlike our descriptions of parenting practice, the description of spective, parenting style can best be thought of as a contextual
the authoritative style is independent of the content of the par- variable that moderates the relationship between specific par-
enting behavior. Thus, an authoritative mother encourages ver- enting practices and specific developmental outcomes.
bal give-and-take and shares with the child the reasoning be- We hypothesize that parenting style moderates the influence
hind her policies, but her authoritativeness is independent of of parenting practices on the child's development in at least two
the content of her socialization. For example, one authoritative ways: by transforming the nature of the parent-child interac-
parent might have a policy stating that homework must be fin- tion, and thus moderating the specific practices' influence on
ished before the child engages in any other activity, whereas child outcomes (Figure 1, Arrow 4), and by influencing the
another might require outdoor exercise before homework is child's personality, especially the child's openness to parental
tackled. Thus, in our model, parenting style differs from parent- influence (Figure 1, Arrow 5). This openness to socialization on
ing practices in that it describes parent-child interactions the part of child in turn moderates the association between
across a wide range of situations, whereas practices are by defi- parenting practices and child outcome (Figure 1, Arrow 6).
nition domain specific. For example, it is widely reported that adolescent school per-
Second, because parenting style is theoretically independent formance is enhanced by parental involvement in the child's
of specific socialization content, and because a style is dis- schooling (e.g., Stevenson & Baker, 1987). In a recent examina-
played across a range of parent-child interactions, parenting tion of this assertion, however, we have shown that the effective-
style conveys to the child the parent's attitude toward the child, ness of parents' school involvement in facilitating adolescent
rather than toward the child's behavior. To return once again to academic achievement is greater among authoritative than
Baumrind's framework, the authoritative mother communi- nonauthoritative parents (Steinberg, Lamborn, Dornbusch, &
cates her authority to the child through her comfort in asserting Darling, 1992), that is, the magnitude of the correlation be-
her influence; she communicates her recognition of the child's tween school involvement and academic performance varies as
separateness and capacity to understand through her explana- a function of the level of parental authoritativeness in the par-
tions; and she communicates her respect for the child through ent-child relationship generally. One might speculate that au-
her reluctance to assert her will superfluously. thoritative parents are more effective during school-related in-
In the model we propose, both parenting style and parenting teractions with the child, such as helping the adolescent choose
practices result in part from the goals and values parents hold courses, because their use of explanations, their encourage-
(Figure 1, Arrows 1 and 2). Yet we posit that each of these parent- ment of discussion, and their acknowledgement of the adoles-
ing attributes influences the child's development through dif- cent's perspective help the adolescent make more intelligent
ferent processes. Parenting practices have a direct effect on the decisions. This is an example of how style may enhance the
development of specific child behaviors (from table manners to effectiveness of a specific parenting practice, making it a better
academic performance) and characteristics (such as acquisition practice than it would be in a different stylistic context (Figure
of particular values, or high self-esteem). In essence, parenting 1, Arrow 4).
494 NANCY DARLING AND LAURENCE STEINBERG

In addition, authoritativeness may enhance the effectiveness tical. At the same time, we would also hypothesize that children
of a practice through its influence on the child's openness to of authoritative parents who do not emphasize academic perfor-
socialization, for example, by increasing the child's desire to mance will perform worse in school than will authoritatively
make his or her parents proud in a domain known to be impor- reared youngsters whose parents' practices emphasize achieve-
tant to them (Figure 1, Arrow 5). Thus, authoritative parents' ment.
involvement in school activities may communicate the impor-
tance they place on academics to an adolescent who is already
receptive to parental values, thus enhancing the impact of in- Directions for Future Socialization Research
volvement (Figure 1, Arrow 6). Conversely, authoritarian parent- The conceptual distinction we offer between parenting prac-
ing may increase adolescents' resistance to parental advice, and tices and parenting style both advances the study of socializa-
this resistance might attenuate the otherwise beneficial effects tion in the family and facilitates the examination of three unre-
of involvement. solved issues in the study of familial influences on child devel-
Although both types of processes (increasing the effective- opment: First, how does the influence of parenting style vary as
ness of parents' attempts to guide children and enhancing chil- a function of the cultural background of the developing person?
dren's openness to guidance) have been discussed with regard to Second, what are the processes through which parenting style
parenting style (e.g., Baumrind, 1967), earlier models have influences child development? Third, what are the determi-
failed to distinguish between the style of the socializing agent nants of parenting style? In this section, we briefly discuss each
(e.g., the parent), the goals toward which socialization is di- of these issues.
rected, or the means through which parents attempt to socialize Contextual variability. An important question raised in the
their children. This confounding is particularly problematic recent work that has expanded socialization research beyond
when one attempts to interpret the results of parenting style White, middle-class samples is whether and why the influence
research. of parenting style and practices varies across cultural contexts.
For example, the assumption that underlies comparisons of For example, both Dornbusch et al. (1987) and Steinberg et al.
the academic performance of authoritatively and nonauthorita- (1991), using different approaches to the measurement of au-
tively reared children is that the differences between them can thoritative parenting, have found that the association between
be attributed solely to stylistic differences. In other words, it authoritativeness and school performance is much stronger
might be argued that adolescents from authoritative families among European- and Hispanic-American adolescents than
perform better than their peers from nonauthoritative families among Asian- and African-American adolescents. Many hy-
solely because of their parents' emotional supportiveness and potheses have been offered for this difference, including coun-
high standards (if authoritativeness were so denned). Such an tervailing peer or community influences, social disincentives
interpretation ignores the possibility that authoritative and for academic success, and the relative functionalism of aca-
nonauthoritative parents may also differ in the goals toward demic success for youths from different ethnic backgrounds
which they direct their children or the methods they use to help (Steinberg, Dornbusch, & Brown, 1992). An additional hypoth-
their children reach those goals. For example, although most esis, however, concerns differences in the goals toward which
parents hope that their children will excel academically, author- parents socialize their children. It is possible that authoritative
itative, permissive, and authoritarian parents may differ in the parenting as a style is equally effective in socializing children
relative importance they place on the goals of academic excel- across all cultural contexts, but that the goals toward which
lence and social success or in the ways in which they help their children are socialized, and thus parents' practices, vary across
children succeed. these very same ecologies (Baumrind, 197la). Before conclud-
Although previous researchers have recognized this di- ing that authoritative parenting, or, for that matter, any other
lemma either in their explicit conceptualization of parenting style of parenting, is more or less effective in different cultural
style as a combination of all these elements (e.g., Baumrind, contexts, we need to know more about the goals toward which
1967) or in their explanations of why the influence of parenting parents socialize their children and the practices they use to
style varies from one group to the next (i.e., Dornbusch et al., achieve these goals.
1987), the dilemma must be not only recognized but also re- Processes of influence. Despite many years of research, we
solved in order to move toward an understanding of process. It know surprisingly little about the processes through which par-
is to this problem that we address our model. enting style influences the development of children's compe-
Concretely, we postulate that the extent to which children tence. Although the implicit processes proposed have nearly
manifest a particular psychological or behavioral characteristic always included changes in characteristics of the child (presum-
varies as a joint function of (a) the extent to which the practices ably through modeling or changes in cognitive complexity, attri-
the parents use are correlated with that specific outcome and butions, or the emotional relationship with the parent), re-
(b) the extent to which the style the parents use is effective in search documenting these processes is scant. In one exception
influencing the child in general. Accordingly, predictions about to this general trend, Steinberg et al. (1989) found that the rela-
the consequences of various socialization techniques must take tionship between parenting style and adolescents' academic per-
into account both style and practice. For example, we would formance was mediated specifically through changes in adoles-
hypothesize that the children of authoritative parents who em- cent psychosocial maturity. More research is needed that speci-
phasize school performance through their parental practices fies both the discrete aspects of parenting style that influence
will perform better in school than will the children of nonau- changes in child characteristics and how these changes mediate
thoritative parents whose education-specific practices are iden- the relationship between style and behavioral outcome. This
 PARENTING STYLE AS CONTEXT 495

kind of basic research would provide insight, for example, into parents' efforts to socialize their children may hold the greatest
such questions as whether the difference between patterns of promise for future research on familial influences on child and
drug use in the adolescents of authoritative parents and demo- adolescent development. Because parenting style is best under-
cratic parents (i.e., warm parents who do not assert their author- stood as a context within which socialization occurs, rather
ity as clearly as do authoritative parents; Baumrind, 1989) result than as a socialization practice itself, careful investigations of
from differences in the adolescents' desire for parental ap- how the effectiveness of specific parenting practices varies as a
proval, differences in the contingency of parental approval vis- function of this context must be conducted.
a-vis the adolescent's behavior, differences in the type of peers
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