Parental self‐efficacy: Examining its mediating and reciprocally predictive roles in supportive emotion socialization

Abstract

This longitudinal study examined the associations between child negative affect, parental self‐efficacy (PSE), and parents’ approaches to the provision of supportive socialization. It also investigated the bidirectionality between PSE, problem‐focus socialization, and emotion‐focus socialization across two time points separated by one year. Participants were 757 Hong Kong Chinese parents (47.4% fathers) of kindergarten children. At both time 1 and time 2, parents reported their PSE, problem‐focus socialization, and emotion‐focus socialization. Additionally, parents rated their child's negative affect at time 1. Results from the cross‐lagged panel model revealed that, controlling for the effects of school's socioeconomic strata, child gender, parental age, and educational level, PSE at time 1 mediated the indirect links of child negative affect at time 1 with problem‐focus (indirect effect: β = −.02, SE = .02, p < .05) and emotion‐focus (indirect effect: β = −.02, SE = .01, p < .05) socialization at time 2 and that PSE (β = .10, SE = .06, p < .01) and problem‐focus socialization (β = .15, SE = .03, p < .05) were reciprocally associated with each other. Findings underscored the role of PSE in understanding parental provision of supportive socialization and the co‐development of belief about parenting and parenting behaviors.

Parenting self-efficacy in relation to the family check-up’s effect on elementary school children’s behavior.

“…Additionally, prior research indicates that more skilled parenting practices are longitudinally associated with increased PSE over time (Dumka et al, 2010; Glatz & Buchanan, 2015), and low PSE has been found to predict later negative parenting practices (Rominov et al, 2016). Although there are several notable exceptions (Fung et al, 2022; Glatz & Buchanan, 2015), few studies have directly tested bidirectional relationships between parenting and PSE over time. This is an important topic of future study, with a randomized and controlled trial of a parenting intervention being ideal for understanding how intervention-mediated changes in parenting skills and self-efficacy relate to each other and to child behavior over time.…”

Origins and development of maternal self-efficacy in emotion-related parenting during the transition to parenthood: Toward an integrative process framework beyond Bandura’s model.

“…Notably, the plausibility for the dynamic, transactional nature of the associations between parenting self-efficacy and related constructs (e.g., parenting competence and stress, parenting practices or behaviors, parents’ psychosocial functioning) and children’s emotional and behavioral outcomes, especially self-regulation and temperamental characteristics, has been extensively discussed elsewhere (for comprehensive reviews, see Crnic & Ross, 2017; Jones & Prinz, 2005; Kiff et al, 2011; Samdan et al, 2020; Schuengel & Oosterman, 2019; Yan et al, 2021; for theoretical perspectives, see Ardelt & Eccles, 2001; Bandura, 1986, 1997; Bell, 1979; Belsky, 1984; Bugental, 2009; Calkins et al, 2016; Lerner, 2006; Papoušek & von Hofacker, 1995; Patterson, 1982; Sameroff, 2010; Wachs & Kohnstamm, 2001). Furthermore, studies with evidence supporting the association for various pairs of these components as reciprocal, bidirectional, or transactional over time also have been accumulating, such as (a) parenting efficacy and parenting practices or behaviors (e.g., Fung et al, 2021; Glatz & Buchanan, 2015b; Glatz & Koning, 2016; Kanacri et al, 2021; Slagt et al, 2012); (b) emotion-related parenting practices or behaviors and child emotional and behavioral development (e.g., self-regulation and temperament, Baron & Malmberg, 2019; Feng et al, 2017; Hajal et al, 2015; Perry et al, 2014, 2018); (c) parenting stress and child development problems (e.g., Cherry et al, 2019; Deater-Deckard, 2004; Neece et al, 2012); (d) parenting self-efficacy and parental psychosocial functioning (e.g., affective symptoms, Kunseler et al, 2014; van Eldik et al, 2017); (e) parental psychosocial functioning and child development problems (e.g., Bagner et al, 2013; Baker et al, 2020; Gross et al, 2009); (f) parenting self-efficacy and parental physiological reactivity to child-related stressors (e.g., Buchanan et al, 2022); (g) parenting stress and parenting self-efficacy (see Crnic & Ross, 2017) that: as well as (h) parental responsiveness to child challenging behaviors and parental self-regulation processes while parenting (Zhang et al, 2022).…”