PSYCHOLOGY SET UP A STUDY Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

PSYCHOLOGY SET UP A STUDY - Essay Example For our purposes, in this study we shall select two contrasting styles, the Authoritative and the Uninvolved for investigation. The paper cited above in summarising research on the topic claims that ‘Children and adolescents whose parents are authoritative rate themselves and are rated by objective measures as more socially and instrumentally competent †¦ ’and those whose parents are ‘uninvolved perform poorly in all domains.’ The description of ‘authoritative’ parental style borders on the ideal. These parents do not demand unquestioning obedience. They set standards for children’s conduct by negotiation and reference to shared and valued goals. They are assertive but do not punish breaches of discipline in an arbitrary manner by restrictions or by intruding on the child. They require and receive cooperation from their children. The ‘uninvolved’ parents may be labelled ‘laissez-faire’, almost to the point of being neglectful of their children. They are neither responsive to the children’s demands nor do they demand or expect standards of behaviour and conduct from their children. Although it is clear from the above discussion that we could easily identify two groups for this study, we are required to delve a little further into the theory underlying the differences in the two parental styles. One basis of criticisms for isolating parental styles is the ‘nature – nurture’ controversy. Are we right to ignore ‘nature’ or heritability (genes) when we use parental style as a variable? We are concentrating on ‘nurture’ exclusively in this study. Caveats must be spelt out in the Discussion section. Children may undergo quantitative as well as qualitative changes in their personality and competences as they mature. By selecting children of exactly the same age group for our study, we can reasonably hope to eliminate problems that could arise from the ‘continuity-discontinuity’ compounding variable. The