Predicting abuse-prone parental attitudes and discipline practices in a nationally representative sample

Objective: According to sociological and ecological models of abuse, typica lly nonabusive parents could behave abusively towards their children under certain circumstances. The purpose of this study was to examine factors tha t place parents at risk of abusing their children by predicting parents' us e of discipline practices and attitudes that may bias parents towards abusi ve behaviors, which we refer to as abuse-proneness. Method: A telephone interview was administered by the Gallup Organization t o a nationally representative sample of 1,000 parents. Using a set of theor etically relevant risk factors, multiple regression was used to predict var iations in parental attitudes (i.e., attitudes towards physical discipline and attitudes that devalue children) and parental discipline practices (i.e ., physical discipline, nonphysical discipline, and verbal abuse). Results: The findings confirmed the importance of examining elements of par ental attitudes, history, personality characteristics, as well as religion and ideology in predicting abuse proneness. Child age also was an important predictor in all analyses except predicting parental attitudes that devalu e children. The findings suggest also, however, that it may be unduly simpl ified to regard parents as somewhere on a continuum of nonpunitive to punit ive disciplinarians. Social isolation was not a significant predictor in an y of the analyses. Conclusions: Although many important theoretical predictors of abuse pronen ess were confirmed, many questions arise regarding the diversity of discipl ine practices that parents use, and the relevance of child's age and social isolation in predicting abuse proneness. Implications for practitioners an d future research are discussed. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd.