Parental Self-Efficacy and its Effect on the Socio-Emotional Development of Toddlers: The Mediating Role of Negative Discipline

Abstract

In the literature, parental self-efficacy has emerged as an important variable when predicting parenting discipline and child development. Most of these studies used mothers in their samples. Although much research has been done on parental self-efficacy, negative discipline and the socio-emotional development of toddlers, little research has been done to identify possible associations between these three constructs, and the influence of gender of the parent is often underexposed. The current study attempted to overcome this knowledge gap by exploring to what extent negative discipline mediates the relationship between parental self-efficacy and the socio-emotional development of their toddlers. In addition, current study also explored if the relation between parental self-efficacy and negative discipline was moderated by gender of the parent. Scales assessing parental self-efficacy, negative discipline and the socio-emotional development of their toddler were administered to both mothers (N = 108) and fathers (N = 60). Results showed that parental self-efficacy predicts their toddlers’ socio-emotional development. The use of negative discipline didn’t mediate this relationship. In fact, no associations were found between negative discipline and parental self-efficacy, nor for negative discipline and the socio-emotional development of toddlers. Neither did gender of the parent moderate the relation between parental-self-efficacy and the use of negative discipline. It is suggested that more research should be done on the relationship between ND – PSE and ND – SED. A possible direction for this is to take another measure for ND.