Developing self‐control: the role of parental stress

Abstract

This article presents a test of the key propositions from self‐control theory. We explore the mediating role of parenting practices (i.e., use of discipline and display of approval) for the link between parental stress via interparental conflict on self‐control development. The results of the study, which are based on self‐reports from a national probability sample of 1148 mothers and children, show partial support for this mediating view. The results are qualified by methodological and analytical limits. Despite the limits, the study represents an addition to the growing body of literature on self‐control theory.

Keywords:

• parental stress
• interparental conflict
• self‐control
• parenting

Notes

1. Descriptive statistics and correlations among the individual items are available from the first author on request.

2. To learn more about our data and analysis, we performed a series of Monte Carlo simulations. We used the estimates from the original model as the population parameters and asked the Mplus program to develop simulations of our model 1000 times. Following the guidelines and standards from Muthen and Muthen (2002) for Monte Carlo simulations, we discovered that our parameter estimates and their standard errors were not biased.