Early Development and Parenting, Vol.

1 (2), 121-126 (1992)

~~~ ~

me Parental Attitude Research

Instrument: an Approach to Use
of Attitude Questionnaires
Warren R. Stanton* and Phil A. Silva
Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Research Unit, University
ofOtago Medical School, P.O. Box 913, Dunedin, New Zealand

Parental attitude questionnaires such as the Parental Attitude

Research Instrument (PARI) are still in use despite their inherent
difficulties. In light of the need to test theoretical models by
measuring a range of parental characteristics, the properties of the
PARI were re-examined and, on the basis of a factor analysis of the
23 subtests of the PARI, a shortened version was constructed. A
measure of maternal Authoritarian Control, which was found to be
associated with measures of maternal mental ability, personality,
level of education, reading age, number of adverse family
conditions and child-rearing practices, has proved useful for other
projects related to this ongoing study. It is recommended that such
instruments be used only in conjunction with other measures which
examine the family environment, for example in an index of child-
rearing practices.
Key words: Parental attitudes, parenting practices, child-rearing, index,
maternal.

INTRODUCTION parent-child relationship (see Belsky, 1984). The

Parents are often regarded as the main influence on
children’s behavioural, emotional and develop-
mental outcomes. The determinants of parenting in
Belsky’s (1984) process model encompassed three
domains: characteristics of the parents, charac-
teristics of the child and contextual sources of stress
and support. In terms of stress on the parent-child
relationship, parental characteristics are considered
to be more important than the other two domains.
Parental characteristics include personality and
psychological well-being (Belsky, 1984)and parental
attitude, which previous studies have shown to be
related to children’s developmental outcomes (Silva
and Fergusson, 1976).
Parents’ attitudes toward child-rearing and family
life have long been of interest in terms of the
-~ ~ children’s outcomes and as alternative scales had
*To whom correspondence should be addressed
Parental Attitude Research Instrument (PARI;
Schaefer and Bell, 1958) was widely used in both
research and clinical practice in the 1960s. However,
after an extensive review of the research literature
on the PARI, Becker and Krug (1%5) concluded that
it would be more profitable to work toward new
approaches. Holden and Edwards (1989) did an
extensive review of child-rearing attitude question-
naires and concluded that all of them are subject
to criticisms of their design, structure and validity;
for example, the relationship to parental behaviour.
Other scales of parental attitudes have been
developed (Baumrind and Black, 1967; Delhees,
Cattell and Sweney, 1970), but the PARI has
continued to be used and cited extensively in the
literature. One of the aims of this ongoing research
project was to examine parental characteristics and
not been sufficiently evaluated at the time this

1057-3593192102012 1 -06$08 .OO Received 16 Iune 1991

0 1992 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd Accepted 25 February 2992
122 Warren R. Stanton and Phil A . Silva

project began, we re-examined some of the PARI’s Measures

properties and relationships with other measures
of parental characteristics administered to two
Dunedin samples. Furthermore, as components of
the PARI have been successfully applied in other
related areas such as the risks of problem parenting
(Avison, Turner and Noh, 1986), the aims of this
study were to use this instrument to examine:
(a) the association between parenting attitudes and
parenting practice; (b) the association between
parenting attitudes and measures of personality and
psychological well-being; and (c) an alternative use
for parental attitude questionnaires as part of an
index of child-rearing practices.
STUDY 1
Method
Sample
The sample in Study 1 consisted of 215 mothers
of preschool children aged 4 years, studied as part
of the Queen Mary Hospital Child Development
Study (Silva, 1978). They were selected for a pilot
study of the effects of perinatal problems on
children’s development prior to Study 2, described
below. Approximately half the sample children had
completely normal perinatal histories and the
remainder had experienced some kind of neonatal
problem (Silva, 1978).
The following measures were used in Study 1:
(i) the Parental Attitude Research Instrument;
(ii) socio-economic level (Elley and Irving, 1972);
(iii) Maternal General Mental Ability (Thurstone and
Thurstone, 1973); (iv) the Cornell Health Index
(Brodman et al., 1951); (v) maternal training in child
development (a five-point scale described by Silva,
1976); (vi)the Comrey Personality Scales (Comrey,
1970); and (vii)the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale
(Terman and Merrill, 1960), administered to the
children.
Results
Factor analysis (Frane and Hill, 1973) of the 23
subscales indicated a three-factor solution, these
factors explaining 57%of the total variance. The first
factor, which was designated Authoritarian Control,
had factor loadings in excess of 0.6 on 12 of the 23
subtests; for example, Deification of Parents,
Fostering of Dependency, and Breaking the Will.
The second factor, designated Maternal Un-
happiness, had high loadings for the subtests of
Irritability (0.82), Rejection of the Home-making
Role (0.73) and Marital Conflict (0.48). Equali-
tarianism was the name given to the third factor
because of the high factor loadings of the subtests
Encouraging Verbalization (0.71), Equalitarianism
(0.64) and Comradeship and Sharing (0.54). With
the exception of the correlation of 0.362 for
Authoritarian Control and Maternal Unhappiness,

Table 1. Correlations* between four PARI factors and measures of parental characteristics and child intelligence
PARI
Parental Authoritarian PARI PARI
characteristics Control Unhappiness Equalitarianism
1. Socio-economic Level 0.316 0.150 -0.158
2. Mother’s general mental ability -0.419 -0.042 0.244
3. Mother’s physical health symptoms 0.136 0.267 0.039
4. Mother’s mental health symptoms 0.125 0.358 -0.021
5. Mother’s training in child development -0.315 -0.093 0.123
6. Mother’s personality
Trust -0.245 -0.261 0.159
Orderliness 0.221 -0.084 0.068
Conformity 0.349 -0.054 -0.153
Activity 0.104 -0.239 0.131
Stability -0.158 -0.437 0.090
Extraversion -0.129 -0.109 0.221
Masculinity -0.249 -0.131 0.083
Empathy 0.221 0.198 0.128
7. Child intellieence
” - 0.265 -0.086 0.155
*Correlations above 0.09 significant at p<O.Ol
Parental Attitude Research lnstrurnent
~
correlations between the factor scores were low.
Correlations between factor scores and socio-
economic level, mother’s general mental ability, the
Cornell Health Index (physical and psychological
symptoms), maternal training in child development,
and eight aspects of personality as measured by the
Comrey Personality Scales are set out in Table 1.
Discussion
The factors of the PARI derived from this study were
similar to those found by two other factor analytic
studies (Zuckerman et al., 1958; Schaefer, l%l). With
one exception, intercorrelations among the factor
scores were low, indicating little overlap between
them. Each factor was correlated with other maternal
characteristics and child intelligence. An attitude of
Unhappiness in relation to parenting was associated
with psychological well-being and physical well-
being. However, Authoritarian Control was clearly
of most interest as it correlated significantly with
socio-economic level, maternal general mental
ability, training in child development, certain
maternal personality factors (trust, orderliness,
conformity, masculinity and empathy) and child
intelligence, but not to psychological well-being.
The three subscales of the PARI that loaded
highest on Authoritarian Control (Excluding Outside
Influences, Intrusiveness, and Acceleration of
Development)were included in the shortened version
of the PARI. It was decided to retain additional items
in a shortened form of the PARI to avoid undue
’response set’ (Becker and Krug, 1965). Of the
remaining two factors, Equalitarianism had relatively
more highly loaded subscales than Maternal Un-
happiness. Furthermore, the items in this factor
generally evoked agreement on the part of the res-
pondents, whereas the Authoritarian Control state-
ments tended to evoke disagreement. The three
subscales that had loaded highest on Equalitarianism
and were used in the shortened form of the PARI
were Encouraging Verbalization, Equalitarianism
and Comradeship and Sharing. The shortened
form of the PARI used in this study, together with
scoring instructions, may be obtained from the
authors.
STUDY 2
Method
Sample
The Study 2 sample consisted of 1024 mothers of
1037 3-year-olds enrolled in the Dunedin
123
Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study
(DMHDS). This sample is described in detail by
Silva (1990).In summary, the sample members were
part of a cohort born at Dunedin’s only obstetric
hospital, Queen Mary, between 1 April 1972 and
31 March 1973. Their perinatal histories were
documented soon after birth, and they were first
followed up at age 3 years and again at age 5 years.
There were 1139 children eligible for inclusion in
the study (i.e. known to be still resident in the
province of Otago); 1037 were enrolled in the study
and assessed at age 3 years and 991 were assessed
at age 5 years. Most of the children were assessed
within 2 months of their birthdays.
Measures
For Study 2 the following measures were used:
(i) a shortened version of the PARI; (ii) socio-
economic level (Elley and Irving, 1972);(iii) maternal
general mental ability (Thurstone and Thurstone,
1973); (iv) level of maternal education (five-point
scale described by Silva, 1976); (v) maternal reading
age (Burt Word Reading Test; Vernon, 1967);
(vi) child language development (Reynell, 1969)
administered to their children. Additional measures
used in the study were: (vii) an index of family
adversity (Stanton, McGee and Silva, 1991); (viii)
index of child-rearing practices (Stanton, McGee
and Silva, 1991).The shortened version of the PAN
was also administered during the age 5 assessment
of this ongoing study to provide an estimate of
stability of parental attitude.
Results
The mean Authoritarian Control score for the
mothers was 34.6, standard deviation 7.81. The
range was 15-60. The distribution of scores
approached a normal form. The wide dispersion of
scores indicates that some mothers showed strong
agreement with the Authoritarian Control state-
ments while others showed strong disagreement.
The correlation between the PARI Authoritarian
Control scores obtained when the children were
ages 3 and 5 years was 0.68.
Maternal Attitudes and Maternal Characteristics
The correlations in Table 2 show that Authoritarian
Control correlated substantially with all the
maternal variables but to a lesser extent with socio-
economic level.
In order to examine the extent to which the
maternal characteristics were related to the variance
of the Authoritarian Control score, a stepwise
124
Table 2. Correlations* among scores on Authoritarian Control and maternal general mental ability, maternal education,
maternal reading age, and socio-economic level (n=987)
Variable
1. Authoritarian Control
2. Maternal general mental ability
3. Maternal education
4. Maternal reading age
5. Socio-economic level
*All correlations significant at p < 0.01
Table 3. Summary of stepwise regression analysis on the PARI Authoritarian Control scale (n=987)
Step Variable Multiple regression
1. Maternal general mental ability
2. Maternal education level
3. Maternal reading age
4. Socio-economic level
multiple regression analysiswas carried out (Kerlinger
and Pedhuser, 1974) upon the total sample for whom
all the information was available ( n= 987) with
Authoritarian Control as the dependent variable.
The results of these analyses, summarized in Table
3, show that maternal general mental ability,
education level and reading age resulted in a
multiple correlation of 0.536 with Authoritarian
Control. Socio-economiclevel did not increase the
multiple correlation. This analysis indicated that
28.8%of the variance of Authoritarian Control could
be attributed to these maternal measures.
An index of family adversity used by Stanton,
McGee and Silva (1991) consisted of the number of
risk factors present from the following list of family
background variables: (a) low socio-economicstatus;
(b) young mother (less than age 20 at birth of first
child); (c) single mother; (d) large family size (four
or more children); (e) low maternal mental ability;
(f) high maternal neuroticism score. A high number
of risk factors (three or more) was significantly
associated with a high maternal authoritarian
attitude score (x2=54.07, p<O.OOl). Calculation of
the odds ratio (OR) indicated that mothers with a
high number of adversities were six times more
likely to have a high authoritarian attitude score
than those with no such adversities.
Maternal Attitude and Early Child Development
Correlationsbetween the measure of Authoritarian
Control and measures of early language development
computed for 1015 cases for whom the relevant infor-
mation was available were: Verbal Comprehension,
- 0.188; Verbal Expression - 0.145. These correla-
tions, while statistically significant, were small.
Warren R. Stanton and Phil A . Silva
1 2 3 4
- - -
-0.480 - -
-0.380 0.434 -
-0.427 0.623 0.343
0.141 --0.209 --0.193
Variance Explained
0.480 23.07 -
0.517 26.88 3.61
0.536 28.75 2.07
0.536 28.75 0.00
In order to explore further the relationship
between maternal authoritarian attitudes and child
language development, the sample was divided into
two groups: (a) low or average Authoritarian
Control (i.e. all scores up to one standard deviation
above the mean, that is 15-44 (n= 881), and (b) high
Authoritarian Control (i.e. all scores one standard
deviation above the mean or higher, that is 45-60
(n = 143). Scores on the Reynell Developmental
Language Scales indicated that the high Authori-
tarian Control group had a mean language score
about 3 months lower than the comparison group,
( p < 0.001).
Maternal Attitude and Child-rearing Practices
An index of adverse child-rearing practices which
was developed by Stanton, McGee and Silva (1991)
included subscales from the PARI as well as the
presence or absence of the following conditions
when the child was age 3 years: (a) rejection of child
(based on psychometrist’s observation of a range
of maternal behaviours toward the child); (b)
protectiveness of child (as for Part A); (c) number
of experiences by child (e.g. rides on a bus, going
to a zoo, factory, sports event, watching television);
(d)child did not attend pre-school; (e) parent had no
training, information or experience of child-rearing;
(f) separations from child (more than one separation
of more than a week on each occasion). A high
maternal authoritarian score was found to be s i g h -
cantly associated with a high score for rejection of
child (2=5.6; p=0.02; OR=2.87), a low number of
experiences (x2=4.66;p=0.03; OR=1.61) and no
preschool attendance (x2=17.1, p<O.OOl, OR=
2.90), but not with the remainder of the measures.
Parental A t t i t u d e Reseurch Instrument
-
Discussion
Although the PARI was designed to measure a
variety of attitudes, the factor analysis in Study 1
identified three factors. These factors were found
to correlate significantly with some maternal
characteristics a n d two were found to correlate with
a measure of child intelligence (Table 1).Study 2
enabled a n examination of some of the properties
of a shortened form of the PARI, which w a s a
measure of Authoritarian Control. Moderately high
correlations between this measure a n d maternal
general mental ability, education levels, a n d reading
age were obtained (Table 2) a n d these three
maternal measures explained 28.8%of the variance
of the attitude measure. Further analysis showed
that the mothers with higher verbal ability scores
a n d those who were better educated tended to be
less authoritarian in their expressed attitudes about
child-rearing a n d family life (Table 3). Furthermore,
mothers who scored high o n the measure of
Authoritarian Control were much more likely
than t h e remainder of the sample to have a
higher number of risk factors related to family
adversity.
A review of parental attitude questionnaires
led Holden a n d Edwards (1989) to state that to
influence children the attitudes must be stable,
coherent a n d reflect behaviour. In this study,
maternal authoritarian attitudes were highly cor-
related (0.68) over a 2-year period. In terms of
validity, a high authoritarian score was associated
with rejection of t h e child, relatively fewer stimu-
lating experiences for the child, a n d the child not
attending preschool.
According to Belsky (1984), parental charac-
teristics are the most important component of the
parent-child relationship. However, reviews have
established that parental attitudes o n their o w n do
not provide an adequate description of the family
environment (Holden a n d Edwards, 1989). The
results of the present studies confirmed that
attitudes to parenting are associated with other
maternal characteristics. Therefore, the recom-
mended approach for use of parental attitude
questionnaires is to include measures of parental
attitude in a n index of adverse child-rearing
practices. In this study, the PARI has provided a
measure of maternal authoritarianism which, in
conjunction with other measures of maternal
characteristics, has been found to be useful in other
areas (McGee, Williams a n d Silva, 1984; Silva,
McGee, Thomas and Williams, 1982) of this ongoing
study.
125
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and
Development Study is supported by the Medical
Research Council of New Zealand, and involves
several departments of the University of Otago.
Much of the data has been gathered by volunteer
workers from the Dunedin community. The authors
are indebted to the many people whose contribution
makes this ongoing study possible.