TEACHER DISCIPLINE AND CHILD MISBEHAVIOR IN DAY-CARE - UNTANGLING CAUSALITY WITH CORRELATIONAL DATA

Day-care centers provide an ideal, underused setting for studying the developmental processes of child psychopathology. The influence of day -care teachers' lax and overreactive discipline on children's behavior problems was examined, as was the influence of children's behavior pr oblems on teachers' discipline. Participants were 145 children and 16 day-care teachers from 8 classrooms in a day-care center for children from low-income families. Two techniques are presented for estimating causal relations based on correlational data gathered from day-care ce nters: 2-stage least squares and simultaneous structural equation mode ling. Across techniques, teachers' laxness strongly influenced child m isbehavior, and child misbehavior influenced both teachers' overreacti vity and laxness. Teachers' overreactivity did not influence child mis behavior.