SYNOPSISObjective. We estimate the correlation between interviewer-rated harshness of maternal physical discipline and parent-rated child externalizing problems and test whether it varies as a function of maternal warmth or mother -child genetic similarity. Design. Using a parent -offspring behavior genetic design, we included 297 3-to 8-year-old children in 169 biological and adoptive families. Parents completed ratings of child externalizing problems and their feelings of warmth toward their children. They were interviewed about discipline, and global ratings of maternal warmth following a home visit were made. Results. The correlation between interviewer-rated harshness of discipline and parent-rated child externalizing problems was .27. However, this correlation was moderated by mothers' and observers' reports of maternal warmth: lower-warmth mothers, r =.36 to .40; higher-warmth mothers, r = .10 to .19. This pattern held for genetically related and unrelated (i.e., adoptive) mother -child pairs regardless of child age, sex, or age of placement. Conclusion. The link between harsh parenting and child externalizing problems is strongest when the mother -child relationship lacks warmth. This result is consistent whether the mother and child are genetically similar, thus ruling out passive gene -environment correlation as an explanation.

Parenting stress is influenced by parents' perceptions of their relationships with their children, which can vary widely for each parent depending on which child in the family is being considered. Because this within-parent variation is rarely studied, we investigated some of the differential perceptions that arise with respect to children's behaviour problems and parent-child negativity/positivity. Participants included a national sample of adoptive parents of 486 pairs of genetically unrelated siblings. Mothers reported different perceptions of their sibling children, and within the family, the child who was rated higher in behaviour problems also was regarded with more negativity and less positivity. Furthermore, the magnitude of the difference was uncorrelated with various indicators of the family and home environment, including parental education and occupational prestige, type of housing and crowding in the home, and progressive versus traditional childrearing attitudes. This pattern of results was consistent with three previously published sibling studies utilizing similar methods. The results point to the importance of examining child effects and within-parent differences in subjective aspects of the parenting experience.

Two studies explored the application of feature-matching and cancellation models to self-other comparisons. College participants completed a questionnaire about their religious behaviors and saw another questionnaire supposedly completed by another student. Participants in Study 1 (N = 114) who were explicitly provided direction of comparison instructions showed a direction of comparison effect, rating the person whose questionnaire they saw last as more religious. Participants in Study 2 (N = 103), who were not given explicit direction of comparison instructions, did not. Most important, in both studies, the extent to which self and other overlapped on shared features affected self- and other judgments asymmetrically. Participants appeared to cancel out behaviors shared by the self and other when rating the other person (i.e., they gave lower ratings when there was more overlap) but not when rating themselves.

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