Relationships between adolescents’ memory of parental rearing styles, social values and socialisation behavior traits
Introduction
Since the late seventies, the role of parent-rearing styles on the socialisation process has been widely investigated. Longitudinal studies by Baumrind, 1968, Baumrind, 1971, Baumrind, 1991 showed that well-adjusted children were associated with a consistent, firm, warm and supportive parental style. The EMBU (Egna Minnen av Barndoms Uppfostran—My memories of upbringing; Perris, Jacobsson, Lindström, Von Knorring, & Perris, 1980) is a Swedish self-report measure of the perceptions about the rearing behaviour of parents. Arrindell, Emmelkamp, Brilman, and Monsma (1983) developed a 64-item version of the EMBU. This version had four sub-scales: Rejection, Emotional warmth, Overprotection, and Favouring subject. Different studies have shown its cross-cultural stability (Arrindell and Van der Ende, 1984, Arrindell et al., 1988, Arrindell et al., 1992). More recently, shorter versions excluding the Favouring subject scale have been adapted in several languages (Aluja et al., in press, Arrindell et al., 1999, Winefield et al., 1994).
Smith, Pope, Sanders, Allred, and O’Keeffe (1988) found relationships between parents’ beliefs and the process of socialisation in a student sample. Hostile subjects described their families as conflictive and less united. In this sense, the family environment could account for differences in hostility (Woodall and Mathews, 1989, Woodall and Mathews, 1993). A parental style defined by punishments and excessive control could help to develop a pattern of hostility and a lack of socialisation in children (Houston & Vavak, 1991). In this line, Meesters, Muris, and Esselink (1995) found that high hostile subjects perceived more Rejection and Overprotection, and less Emotional Warmth than low hostile subjects. Rejection was the strongest predictor of hostility. More recent studies have shown that male offenders perceived their fathers as being more rejecting than non-offenders (Palmer & Hollin, 1999). Furthermore, Palmer and Hollin (2000) stated that perceived parental Rejection and Emotional Warmth, moral reasoning and attribution of intent were significantly related to levels of self-reported delinquency among offenders. The strongest predictors of self-report delinquency scores among offenders were age, perceived paternal Emotional Warmth, and incorrect attribution of hostility among offenders. For non-offenders, self-reported delinquency was related to attribution of intent, and incorrect attribution of hostility. Delinquents with a positive family history of alcohol abuse also reported more Rejection and less Emotional Warmth (Ruchkin, Koposov, Eisemann, & Hägglöf, 2002). Altogether, these results related parent-rearing styles with children’s socialisation processes and behaviour in adulthood.
The EMBU has been linked to Eysenck’s personality model in different countries. Rejection usually correlates positively with Neuroticism, and negatively with Extraversion. Emotional Warmth is positively related to Extraversion and negatively to Psychoticism, the contrary pattern depicted for Overprotection (Arrindell et al., 1999, Arrindell et al., 2005, Weina and Gonglin, 2002). In short, parents who are warmer and less likely to resort to punishment would bring up more emotional stable, extraverted, sociable and empathic children.
Eysenck’s personality dimensions have also been related to social values. Furnham (1984) found that extraverted subjects tend to value excitement more than introverts. Neurotics value independence, freedom from conflict, and self-esteem more than non-neurotics. Rim (1984) stated that people with higher Neuroticism scores assigned more importance to social recognition and self-respect values, while those scoring low on Neuroticism found greater value in adjectives such as ‘ambitious’ and ‘capable’. These values were also highly valued by extraverts. Introverts attached greater importance to obedience and wisdom. Subjects with high scores on Psychoticism placed importance on values such as independence, imagination, and salvation, whereas those scoring low on the Psychoticism scale placed more importance on politeness, cleanliness, and obedience. Also, previous evidence suggests that better socialised subjects, assessed in the school, tend to score lower on Psychoticism (Aluja and Torrubia, 1998, Aluja et al., 1999), and prefer values related to prosocial and normative behaviours.
The Five-factor model has also been related to the taxonomy of values devised by Schwartz (1994). Agreeableness correlated positively with Benevolence and Tradition values, Openness with Self-Direction and Universalism values, Extraversion with Achievement and Stimulation values, and Conscientiousness with achievement and Conformity values (Roccas, Sagiv, Schwartz, & Ariel, 2002). These patterns of relationships were generally supported in a Spanish adult population (Aluja & García, 2004).
Previous evidences suggest that parent-rearing styles and social values are related to the socialisation process. Therefore, adolescent subjects who show socialised behaviours in the classroom (Aluja and Torrubia, 1998, Aluja et al., 1999) are expected to perceive their parents as being warmer, and less rejecting and overprotecting (Meesters et al., 1995, Weina and Gonglin, 2002). Also, they would value responsibility, security, benevolence, respect, order, and concern for others (Rim, 1984, Roccas et al., 2002). The aim of the present study was: (a) to validate the social values questionnaire in an adolescent population and (b) to investigate the relationships of parenting–rearing styles, social values, and socialised behaviour traits assessed by the teacher.
Section snippets
Subjects
The sample was composed of 408 boys (mean age = 14.4 years; SD = 0.96), and 424 girls (mean age = 14.4; SD = 0.88) from the general population. Subjects attended Spanish educational system courses equivalent to eighth of secondary, and first, second and third grade high school courses. The questionnaire was applied in the classroom in the presence of a trained psychologist. EMBU was applied before the Social Values Inventory (SVI). Subjects were allowed to ask the psychologist questions before, during
Structure of the Social Values Inventory
A principal axis with direct oblimin rotation was conducted on the list of 30 values. As the scree plot suggested, three factors were extracted (Cattell, 1966). Items with loadings lower than 0.35 on their factors or with secondary loadings higher than 0.30 were suppressed (totalling nine items). Table 1 shows the factor solution with the 21 items. The Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy was of 0.843 and Bartlett’s test of Sphericity was an approximate Chi-Square of 3731.214 (degree
Discussion
The main aim of the present study was to evaluate the psychometric properties of a measure of social values in the adolescent population. The three scales used presented good factor structure as well as alpha coefficients. These three factors were similar to the Security (and Order), Social power, and Benevolence types identified by Schwartz, 1992, Schwartz, 1994. Thus, the use of the SVI questionnaire in the Spanish context is supported by the results of the present study (also Aluja & García,
Acknowledgment
This research was supported by a grant from the Ajuntament de Lleida and Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia (Spain) (BSO2000-0059).
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