Baumrind's Parenting Styles Study

During the 1960s the clinical and developmental psychologist Diana Baumrind conducted a series of observational studies of preschool-age children and their parents, examining how parenting behavior related to children's social competence, self-control and independence. Combining naturalistic observation, parent interviews and controlled assessments, Baumrind identified patterns of parenting that varied along two underlying dimensions, the degree of responsiveness and warmth a parent showed and the degree of behavioral control and demandingness a parent exercised, and used these dimensions to describe three parenting styles: authoritarian parenting, which combines high demandingness with low responsiveness and relies on strict rules and firm discipline; permissive parenting, which combines high responsiveness with low demandingness and imposes few behavioral controls; and authoritative parenting, which combines high levels of both warmth and firm, reasoned expectations. Baumrind's research associated authoritative parenting with the most favorable outcomes for children's social competence and self-regulation in her samples. A fourth style, neglectful or uninvolved parenting, characterized by low levels of both responsiveness and demandingness, was added by later researchers Eleanor Maccoby and John Martin in the 1980s. Baumrind's typology remains one of the most widely taught and applied frameworks in developmental psychology's study of parenting and child outcomes.