Domineering parents may damage their children's social skills
Countless unmade beds and unfinished homework can indicate that children need rules. However, the way parents set their demands can greatly affect the children's social skills. Psychologists from the University of Virginia came to this conclusion at the end of a study that examined the infamous transition from girls to adulthood.
At the beginning of the study, 184 13-year-old boys and girls filled out several questionnaires, including one that assessed the frequency with which their parents used psychological control tactics such as creating a feeling of guilt in the child or threatening to withhold affection. The children rated, for example, how typical it was for the father to imply that "if you really cared about me, you wouldn't do things that worried me," or for the mother to be less friendly when the child disagreed with her.
The researchers approached the subjects again when they were 18 to 21 years old. They asked the young people to come with a close friend or, if possible, with a spouse. The couples were asked to answer hypothetical questions that were deliberately written to provoke controversy. "We wanted to see if they would deal with the disagreement in a healthy way," says Barbara Odekirk, who led the study and now works at the US Department of Justice's Bureau of Statistics.
In the October 2014 issue of the Journal of Child Development, Odekirk and her colleagues reported that 13-year-olds whose parents were very authoritarian had difficulty dealing with disagreements between friends at age 18. They had difficulty voicing their opinions in a balanced and confident way compared to children whose parents were not authoritarian. When they nevertheless stood their ground, they often failed to express themselves in a warm and helpful way.
The researchers hypothesize that manipulative parents undermine their children's ability to express an opinion in other relationships. There is no doubt that parents must set boundaries, but domineering methods mean that any disagreement will damage the relationship itself. Findings by other researchers show that parents who explain the reasons for the rules they set and bring disputes to conversations, prepare their children better for future conflicts.
The results of strained or tyrannical relationships seem to accumulate over time. The study also found that social difficulties at age 18 imply even worse communication skills at age 21. Psychologist Shmuel Shulman of Bar Ilan University, who is not among the researchers in this study, believes these findings convincingly explain how patterns of relationships "carry over" to new friendships.
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In the case of an even more tyrannical society, one can expect that the boys will express more intense fear and avoid confrontation altogether, and therefore will not express a different opinion but rather the will of someone who is perceived as controlling or in indirect manipulative ways such as lies (a style of lack of coping)
Another question arises and that is whether research carried out in a certain country is adapted to the social views of that country?
A large part of social research is carried out in Western countries. Does this have an effect?
Because in many cases these studies tend to describe what the correct model is for the entire human society, not only specifically for the country,
In a company such as the Far Eastern companies, a different type of person is needed who is able to work under a rigid system of rules
It is very possible that a person who is a product of our society, the number of options open to him in the social fabric in the workplace will be smaller than a local person (of course, this is only a matter of frequency, there is also the opposite), so that there the creation of boundaries that starts from the first moment gives the individual the tools to succeed in the society in which he lives,
There are even stricter companies that rebelliousness and excess questions can come to your mind as well,
If the research was carried out in another country, would the research method and conclusions be different?