Parental styles and psychosocial development in high school students

The purpose of this study was to develop an instrument to evaluate parental styles perceived by mexican youngsters using Baumrind and Buri's approach, and to determine the relationships between parental styles and several measures of psychosocial development. Multivariate and univariate analysis of variance showed significant effects of parental styles on all areas, and of gender on school competence and school problem-behavior. Results indicate that students who characterized their parents as authoritative or permissive scored highest on measures of socio-affective competence and lowest on measures psychological and behavioral dysfunction. Opposed results were obtained by youngsters who described their parents as neglectful. The youngsters of authoritarian families had a good performance on measures academic competence, and self-reliance.