CONFLICT OUTCOME AS A FUNCTION OF PARENTAL ACCURACY IN PERCEIVING CHILD COGNITIONS AND AFFECT

It is usually maintained that positive family functioning and internal ization of parental values are promoted by parents' consistent use of particular discipline strategies or styles of childrearing. In this pa per a different position is presented, viz., that parents who can accu rately perceive their children's thoughts and feelings during a disagr eement will have the most successful outcomes because they can tailor their disciplinary interventions to the particular states of their chi ldren at the time. Adolescents and their parents were interviewed abou t recent disagreements and asked to rate themselves and their partner on measures of anger, blame, acceptability of their own and their part ner's behavior, and satisfaction. In families where fathers were accur ate in their perceptions of their adolescent's cognitions and affect t here were fewer conflicts per week. Accurate perception on the mothers ' parts was related to their satisfaction with the outcomes of the dis agreements. There was no relation between adolescents' perceptual accu racy and number of conflicts or their satisfaction with the outcomes.