Leon Kuczynski

• Phd
• Professor Emeritus at University of Guelph

Contemporary psychological theories about socialization. Each chapter written by leading experts.

Annotated Bibliography introducing research into dynamic models of socialization. Parent-child dynamics and role of children as active agents in the socialization process

We propose in this article an Enhanced Agentic Diversity Perspective (EADP), which is derived from the concept of agentic resources in social relational theory. EADP recognizes that all human beings are equally agents, that agentic expressions differ due to variation of individual access to power resources (individual, relational and cultural) and...

This study investigated neglected processes by which parents create, set, and enforce rules for their children in middle childhood. Forty mothers reported their interactions with children aged 9-13 in the context of setting and enforcing rules and expectations. Data consisted of a five-day digital event diary and a semi-structured interview on pare...

This study explored mothers' perceptions of their children's resistance to their requests and defiance of parental authority during middle childhood and early adolescence. We were interested in parental perceptions of change in resistance, their interpretations of the meaning of resistance, and parental responses to these behaviors. Forty Canadian...

Children’s influence on the purchase of mobile phones, particularly among poor children, received little research attention. To study the dilemma children from poor home face between strong desire to be part of the media peer culture within the context of family’s financial distress, and hence, limited access to mobile phones, this paper utilized v...

Media researchers have studied how parents and children influence and guide each other’s media use. Although parent and child socialization and influence are thought to be bidirectional, they are usually studied separately, with an emphasis on parental socialization, influence, and guidance of the child’s media use. In this article, we present resu...

Purpose: Developmental research suggests that children’s early non-compliance can be understood as “resistance”, an agentic response to parental control where children express their autonomy within a close relationship context. Research with toddlers and adolescents suggests that children’s resistance strategies can be differentiated using the dime...

Purpose: This study explored the phenomenon of children’s nonconforming behaviours from the perspective of parents who sought clinical services for children’s severe noncompliance. Method: Mothers from 25 families who accessed clinical services were interviewed about their relationship with their children aged 8–13 and their experiences of their ch...

Research on Jamaican socialization of children has primarily focused on parental discipline practices. Little is known about children’s responses to parental attempts to control their behavior. The present study investigated mothers’ perceptions of children’s strategies for resisting their rules and requests. Thirty mothers living in Kingston and S...

BACKGROUND This study aims to examine the adaptive process of children and mothers from multi-stressed low-income families in Singapore. It aims to bridge the knowledge gap left by existing poverty studies which are predominately risk focused. Through a sequential longitudinal mixed method design, we will differentiate children and mothers who demo...

Background: This study aims to examine the adaptive process of children and mothers from multistressed low-income families in Singapore. It aims to bridge the knowledge gap left by existing poverty studies, which are predominately risk focused. Through a sequential longitudinal mixed-methods design, we will differentiate children and mothers who d...

The concept of agency is relevant in family therapy. As family therapists we approach each family member as a full agent, which means that what each person thinks and feels, makes sense, and that each person contributes in a significant way to the construction of a relationship. A person's sense of relational agency is constructed in relationships...

Research on Jamaican mother–child relationships has had a limited focus on authoritarian parenting styles and selected discipline practices such as corporal punishment. This study examined Jamaican mothers’ experiences of closeness and connectedness with their children to provide a holistic perspective on Jamaican-parent–child relationships. Thirty...

Background Estimates of picky eating are quite high among young children, with 14-50% of parents identifying their preschoolers as picky eaters. Dietary intake and preferences during the preschool years are characterized by slowing growth rates and children developing a sense of autonomy over their feeding and food selection. We argue that the curr...

This mixed-method study examined parents’ experiences of their children’s influence on parent’s continuing adult development. Mothers and fathers from 30 families were separately interviewed regarding two of their children who were between 8 and 14 years old. Parents reported on recent events when their younger and older child successfully requeste...

Youth engagement is increasingly recognized as a preferred approach and often necessary step in the treatment of emotional and behavioral disorders. The purpose of this study was to explore the degree and quality of youth engagement in the therapeutic process, compare engagement scores between youth accessing residential and day treatment, and expl...

Few empirical studies have explored men’s experiences of sexual desire, particularly in the context of long-term relationships. The objective of the current study was to investigate the factors that elicit and inhibit men’s sexual desire. Semistructured interviews were conducted with 30 men between the ages of 30 and 65 (average age 42.83 years) cu...

Despite contemporary acceptance that children are active agents in their own socialization, that causality between parents and children is bidirectional, and that context matters, basic concepts used in socialization research continue to reflect an underlying mechanistic ontology. In this chapter we propose that a dialectical relational systems con...

There is little detailed information regarding noncompliance and resistance with children over the age of six. This study examined parent’s perspectives on children’s resistance during middle childhood. Forty parents of children, 8-13 years of age, participated for a one-week period in a study that focused on parents’ rules and expectations and chi...

This study investigated teachers’ experiences of closeness during interactions with the group of children in child care. Structured interviews were conducted with 24 female teachers who were teaching children between the ages of three and five (mean age = 3.9) regarding their perceptions of closeness with the group of children in the class. Qualita...

The child in contemporary urban China is experiencing an increasingly exclusive focus on academic achievement at the expense of non-academic activities, particularly housework. In-depth interviews with caregivers (including grandparents and parents) from 9 three-generational families (n = 34) and parents from 10 nuclear families (n = 20) were condu...

Research on the phenomenon of parentification has focused on the positive and negative outcomes of imposing tasks and responsibilities on children that are typically ascribed to adults. This qualitative research instead explores processes underlying parentification in low-income families in Singapore using the perspective that children are active a...

Forty parents of children, 8-13 years of age, participated for a one-week period in a study that focused on parents’ rules and expectations and children’s expression of resistance. Overt strategies included direct assertive resistance (arguing, refusal), passive noncompliance, and (negotiation). New categories were resistant compliance where childr...

Traditional approaches to the study of parent-child relationships view intergen- erational transmission as a top-down phenomenon in which parents transfer their values, beliefs, and practices to their children. Furthermore, the focus of these unidirectional approaches regarding children's internalisation processes is on continuity or the transmissi...

This study investigated teachers' experiences of tension in close relationships with individual children in early childhood education (ECE) settings. Structured interviews were conducted with 24 female teachers of children between ages of 3 and 5 (mean age = 3.9) regarding their conceptions of closeness and specific interactions where they experien...

Thirty-two adolescents between the ages of 13 and 19 participated in a semistructured interview regarding their perspectives on parental expectations and their strategies for expressing resistance. Thematic analyses indicated that adolescents perceive parental expectations as flexible and coconstructed rather than as firm, explicit, standing rules....

Socialization is the process by which children are prepared to become successful members of society. This requires the learning of skills, behavior patterns, ideas, and values needed for competent functioning in the society in which a child is growing up. More broadly, socialization is a process by which culture is transmitted or reproduced in each...

This study investigated teachers’ experiences of closeness during interactions with children in child care. Structured interviews were conducted with 24 female teachers who were teaching children between the ages of three and five (mean age = 3.9) regarding their conceptions of closeness, and their perceptions of their own and the child’s contribut...

This study investigated parents’ experiences of closeness in their interactions with their children in middle childhood. Structured, open-ended interviews were conducted with mothers and fathers from 23 families (46 participants) with children aged between 7 and 11 years (M = 9.2 years). Qualitative analyses indicated that parents’ experiences of c...

This article presents the important, but overlooked, role that is played by grandparents in contemporary China as joint caregivers with parents in raising only children. Grounded on empirical data, collected through ethnographic and survey methods in urban China, the article identifies the ‘intergenerational parenting coalition’ as a culturally app...

Twenty children, ages 8 to 15, participated in a hermeneutic phenomenological study which examined children's lived experience of the initial placement into foster care. Using the sensitizing frameworks of life transition (Cowan, 1991) and cognitive appraisal theory (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984), the analyses identified two primary transactions resulti...

This paper examines ethnographic data collected over six months from Xiamen, China, on children as active agents in their relationships with their parents and grandparents. It explicates the usefulness of the conceptual tools of ‘agency’ and ‘interdependent power’ derived from social relational theory in demonstrating the bilateral influences betwe...

Twenty children in foster care, ages 8 to 15 years, provided advice to children in care, foster parents and child welfare workers about ways to assist service delivery during the transition into foster care. The children discussed the importance of tending to experiences such as foster home expectations, the importance of time and information, the...

It is well recognized that the transactional model proposed by Sameroff (1975a, 1975b) is a model of qualitative change. Sameroff asserted that the transactional model concerned qualitative rather than incremental change and that the underlying process was dialectical rather mechanistic in nature. Concepts such as transformation, dialectics, and th...

The sources and effects of mothers' demands upon children were examined during naturalistic interactions of 70 mothers and their 1 1/2–3 1/2-year-olds. Demands were categorized in terms of immediate function (e.g., do's vs. don'ts) and content area emphasized by mothers (e.g., competent action, appropriate behavior, caretaking). Children's age and...

The purpose of the present study was to investigate parents' perspectives of parent and child contributions to the construction and maintenance of the parent–child relationship. Twenty-four mothers and fathers, with a child between 4- to 7-years-old, completed an open-ended interview in which they described their parent–child relationship and comme...

Traditional theories of how children acquire values or standards of behavior have emphasized the importance of specific parenting techniques or styles and have acknowledged the importance of a responsive parent–child relationship, but they have failed to differentiate among forms of responsiveness, have stressed internalization of values as the des...

Qualitative methods for inductive (theory-generating) research: Psychological and sociological approaches For much of its history, research in parent-child relations has been a theory-testing enterprise. Socialization theories, with roots in psychoanalysis, behaviorism, and structural functionalism, were especially important in providing early rese...

Handbook of Dynamics in Parent-Child Relations provides an innovative, interdisciplinary perspective on theory, research, and methodology of dynamic processes in parent-child relations. Edited by distinguished scholar Leon Kuczynski, this accessible volume is divided into six parts. Part I concerns dyadic processes in parent-child relationships and...

This two-part field study compared researchers' recorded observations to mothers' perceptions of attention they received while publicly breastfeeding. In part 1, four breastfeeding and four bottle-feeding mothers each made eight restaurant visits. On average, there were more neutral looks from customers (P = .01) during breastfeeding visits, but no...

This study explored the service needs of families with a parent with an affective illness. Focus-group and individual interviews were conducted at selected locations across Canada with individuals who had an affective disorder, their partners, and their adult children. A total of 67 participants were recruited. Corresponding service providers were...

Traditional theories of how children acquire values or standards of behavior have emphasized the importance of specific parenting techniques or styles and have acknowledged the importance of a responsive parent-child relationship, but they have failed to differentiate among forms of responsiveness, have stressed internalization of values as the des...

A relational perspective on socialization explores how the distinctive parent-child relationship context affects the dynamics of parent-child interactions. Forty mothers responded to hypothetical transgressions involving short-term and long-term socialization issues in three different relationship contexts: their own child, their child's best frien...

This article discusses the dynamic that exists between interactions and relationships and explores the implications of this dynamic for the systematic study of bidirectionality in parent child relations. Global perspectives on relationships emphasize coherence and stable causes but often neglect origins in social interactions. Research on social in...

The book begins with a historical overview of parental influence and child-rearing philosophies, which sets the stage for the examination to follow. The text then turns to an exploration of the developmental context of parenting strategies in toddlers, young children, and adolescents. The next section of the book focuses on how parenting strategies...

The purpose of this chapter is to outline major perspectives on children's conformity that guide contemporary research on socialization and internalization. Four theoretical perspectives on children's conformity and resistance to parental influence will be presented. These are external control theories, internal control theories, relational theorie...

The purpose of this chapter is to examine the implications of bidirectionality for the theories of socialization and internalization. The 1st section will outline major changes in the understanding of parent–child relations that have been facilitated by the shift from a unidirectional to a bidirectional perspective on parent–child relations. Bidi...

The sources and effects of mothers' demands upon children were examined during naturalistic interactions of 70 mothers and their 1 1/2-3 1/2-year-olds. Demands were categorized in terms of immediate function (e.g., do's vs. don'ts) and content area emphasized by mothers (e.g., competent action, appropriate behavior, caretaking). Children's age and...

Maternal compliance and noncompliance to child requests, thought to represent an autonomy-granting aspect of socialization, were studied in 24 well mothers and 26 mothers with a history of depression and their 5-year-old children. Mothers continued to retain substantially more power than children in the control process. There were no differences be...

Noncompliance strategies for asserting autonomy were examined. Ss were 51 depressed and well mothers and their children, who were from 1½ to 3½ years old at Time 1 and 5 years old at Time 2. Data were coded from spontaneous interactions in a naturalistic setting. Compliance to maternal requests did not change from toddlerhood to age 5, and complian...

Control strategies of 70 well and depressed mothers were assessed twice: when their children were of toddler age (Time 1) and, for 39 of the mothers, when their children were 5 (Time 2). At Time 1 well mothers were more direct with their children, using more direct commands and reprimands, and fewer explanations than depressed mothers. At Time 2 we...

The correspondence between self-reported child-rearing attitudes and practices and actual child management was examined among 68 mothers of young children. Data on mothers' verbal and physical control techniques along with children's responses (cooperation vs. resistance) were obtained during 90 min of spontaneous interaction in a naturalistic sett...

This study examined developmental changes in maternal control strategies and children's responses to maternal directives and associations between the interactive strategies of mothers and children. The subjects were 70 dyads consisting of depressed and nondepressed mothers and their 1½- to 3½-year-old children. Data on parent and child behaviors we...

Control interactions between 87 well and affectively ill mothers and their 15- to 51-month-old children were studied. Spontaneously occurring control interventions (conceptualized as episodes of interaction between mother and child) were coded from 90 minutes of videotaped interactions in a naturalistic laboratory apartment setting. The results sug...

Normal, unipolar, and bipolar depressed women were studied to determine whether depressive cognitive schemas extend to the perception of one's own child. Depressed and well mothers reported equal satisfaction with their children, but the depressed group was less satisfied with the children's socioaffective than their cognitive development. The depr...

This study investigated the content and development of children's imitative behavior in the home in order to assess the potential role of imitation in early socialization. The data consisted of incidents of naturally occurring imitations of 16- and 29-month-old children collected by mothers trained in observational recording. Immediate imitations d...

In 20 abusive families with 4–11 yr old children and a matched control group of 20 nonabusive families, parents were trained to report children's misbehaviors, parental disciplinary and affective reactions, and children's responses to discipline for 5 consecutive days. Abused children committed more aggressive transgressions and were more likely to...

Patterns of attachment were examined in normal and depressed mothers. Mother's diagnosis (bipolar, major unipolar, or minor depression, or no psychiatric disorder), self-reported current mood states, and affective behavior in interaction with the child were considered. A modified version of Ainsworth and Wittig's Strange Situation was used to asses...

A study was conducted to investigate age changes in children's noncompliant and resistant behaviors and their relation to parental control strategies during the toddler period. Specifically, the study explored possible changes in the form of children's oppositional behavior (or "negativism") and investigated how parental control strategies adapt or...

Situational socialization goals were investigated as determinants of parental choice of disciplinary techniques. It was hypothesized that parents tend to use reasoning as a strategy when they have long-term compliance goals for their children and power-assertive techniques for short-term goals. Sixty-four mothers and their 4-year-old children parti...

The effects of varying the motivational content of verbal rationales on children's compliance to a prohibition were investigated. Sixty-four 7- to 10-year-old children received an explanation that focused either on the consequences of their behavior for themselves or on the consequences of their behavior for the experimenter. The intensity of these...

Investigated the effects of providing a different explanation for a prohibition of children's compliance. In a design that assessed durability of compliance, 54 9- and 10-yr-olds received 1 of 3 explanations requiring them to work rather than look at toys. Ss received either an other-oriented rationale stating that the experimenter might suffer neg...

40 mothers of 4-5 and 7-8 yr olds described the discipline they would use with their children in situations involving 12 misdemeanors. The situations were more likely to elicit the same discipline techniques from different Ss than was a given S to be consistent across the 12 situations. An S's reported discipline appeared to be determined more by w...

An adult model and 48 4–5 yr olds were tempted to deviate by a "talking table." On both an immediate and a delayed test, Ss who had seen the model yield deviated more quickly and for a longer period of time than control Ss who had not seen a model. Ss who had seen the model resist deviated less quickly and worked longer at a boring task. In a 2nd s...

An adult model and 4- to 5-year-old children were tempted to deviate by a "talking table." On both an immediate and a delayed test, children who had seen the model yield deviated more quickly and for a longer period of time than children in a control group who had not seen a model. Children who had seen the model resist deviated less quickly and wo...

In a study with 63 male and 63 female 7–10 yr olds, Ss were induced to donate winnings from a game to charity either by having seen a model donate, by being instructed to donate, or by a combination of the 2. They were subsequently either told they had donated because they must enjoy helping others, told they had donated because they thought they w...

In 2 experiments children played a game and either "voluntarily" punished themselves by taking away pennies for losing scores, were told to punish themselves, or were punished by the experimenter. Subsequent self-punishment, both in the presence and absence of the experimenter, was equal for the 2 groups who had punished themselves and greater than...