Parent-child interaction as a power contest

We explored parental use of child derogation as a means of power assertion. Parents interacted with children (own and unrelated) after a judgment task in which competitive ideation was primed or unprimed. Evaluations included (a) face-to-face verbal derogation versus praise and (b) judgments of children's task performance. When primed, fathers with low perceived power (as measured by the Parent Attribution Test) were more likely than other fathers to derogate the performance of both related and unrelated children. Similar trends were found for mothers. Results were interpreted as suggesting that parents with low perceived power use child derogation as a means of attempted power repair.

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