WITHIN FAMILY VARIABILITY IN PARENTAL NEGATIVITY AND CONTROL

Research on the effects of parental warmth and control on children's s ocial and emotional development has been predominantly based on studie s investigating between-family differences in parental behavior. More recently, behavior genetics research focusing on within-family differe nces has highlighted differential parental warmth and control as poten tial sources of sibling differences in behavior. The aim of this study was to test hypotheses, based on findings from several twin and adopt ion studies, that parental warmth is child specific and covaries with parents' perceptions of sibling behavioral differences, but parental c ontrol is similar for both siblings. The sample included 112 mothers a nd 98 fathers in middle-class families with two sibling children (1-10 years old). Parents' perceptions of their own negative affect and har sh control (physical and verbal) toward each sibling child, and their perceptions of their childrens' externalizing-type and internalizing-t ype behaviors, were measured. Although parental negative affect was ch ild specific and covaried with perceptions of child externalizing-type behaviors, parental control was unrelated to perceptions of the sibli ngs' behaviors. The contribution of both parent and child characterist ics to parent-child transactions, and the value of within-family desig ns, are discussed.