From leadership to parenthood: The applicability of leadership styles to parenting styles.

Abstract

Lewin's (1948) three styles of leadership and group dynamics provided the basis for Dreikurs' (1995) formulation concerning parental styles. Baumrind's (1971) later parenting typology, also based on Lewin, focused on parent-child dyads, whereas Dreikurs referred to the total family patterning with parents as group leaders. The present article measured young adults' perceived parenting values that occurred in childhood and corresponded to Dreikurs' and Lewin's leadership styles: autocratic, democratic, and laissez-faire. This investigation was the foundation for a long-term program of research. Two large samples of college students in a midwestern university provided data that partially supported the Lewin-Dreikurs three-factor formulation for leadership styles and that, interestingly, also revealed an independent individualism factor described by Triandis (1995). Implications of the findings are discussed.

Asian culture in transition: is it related to reported parenting styles and transitivity of simple choices?

“…On a similar note, parental value measures were altered in order to increase construct validity. The original 15‐item measure was found to have a slightly different factor structure than originally hypothesized for students in the United States (see Ferguson et al., ). The 40‐item measure was constructed in order to better capture the parenting styles across cultures in the 21st century.…”

“…Following the TR task, participants received the Parental Values (PV) scale that asked for ratings on 15 items as described by Ferguson et al. (). The earlier report on the scale (Ferguson et al., ) concluded that the three significant factors were not the same as those reported by Lewin et al.…”

“…(). The earlier report on the scale (Ferguson et al., ) concluded that the three significant factors were not the same as those reported by Lewin et al. () but rather involved a combination of democratic and laissez‐faire items (along with autocratic and individualistic factors).…”

“…As in the Ferguson et al. () investigation, five items each were intended to measure autocratic, democratic, and laissez‐faire categories. A high score on each item denoted a strong parental value reported for a given category.…”

“…We tested for the parental patterns (autocratic, democratic, laissez‐faire) described by Lewin, Lippit, and White (). A 15‐item scale, reported by Ferguson, Hagaman, Grice, and Peng (), was used in the initial tests, and later tests used a longer 40‐item scale that had been factor analyzed and proven reliable. In addition to the 15‐item or the 40‐item scale, in some of the testing, the participants also made global choices that required the participants to select which one of three parental value descriptions best represented their parents' values up to their childhood age of 9 years.…”