Marjorie Lindner Gunnoe

Calvin University · Psychology

Co-sleeping, regressive parenting, and punishment in the first year post-adoption were used to predict externalizing, internalizing, attachment disturbances, and full-scale IQ at 5 years post-adoption for 38 children adopted internationally at ages 0 through 11. Co-sleeping predicted less internalizing. Regressive parenting predicted fewer attachme...

The reputation of psychological science depends on the adequacy of the science underlying its policy recommendations. This commentary raises concerns about the science used by Heilman et al. (2021) in their recent narrative (not meta-analytic) review that encourages spanking bans worldwide. By reviewing controlled longitudinal studies, Heilmann et...

The purpose of this study was to examine religious motivation to adopt and how this relates to decisions families made while adopting, firm discipline, attachment, parent stress and affect, and child externalizing and internalizing. Within the United States, 44 internationally adopted children and their parents participated in this six-year, longit...

In our initial article (Larzelere et al., 2017) we raised concerns about a paradigm we called “Exclusively Positive Parenting” (EPP). This paradigm opposes all negative disciplinary consequences, including timeout and privilege removal. We argued that the empirical support for EPP was insufficient. Researchers should not rely on insufficient causal...

In our initial article we raised concerns about a paradigm we called “Exclusively Positive Parenting” (EPP). This paradigm opposes all negative disciplinary consequences, including timeout and privilege removal. We argued that the empirical support for EPP was insufficient. Researchers should not rely on insufficient causal evidence to replace well...

Gershoff et al. (2018) recently summarized the scientific evidence against disciplinary spanking, using epidemiological and psychological criteria for causal validity. Unfortunately, the evidence they cited would make most actions to correct serious problems appear to be harmful, whether implemented by parents (e.g., timeout) or professionals. The...

To evaluate and improve the validity of causal inferences from meta‐analyses of longitudinal studies, two adjustments for Time‐1 outcome scores and a temporally backwards test are demonstrated. Causal inferences would be supported by robust results across both adjustment methods, distinct from results run backwards. A systematic strategy for evalua...

Internationally adopted children show higher rates of disinhibited social behaviors (DSB) (Rutter et al., 2007). Two competing explanations for DSB include: difficulties in attachment specifically and deficits in inhibitory control more generally. This four wave longitudinal study (a) documented the persistence of DSB among internationally adopted...

Cross-sectional research on internationally adopted children has indicated an association between early attachment disturbances and language deficits. Raaska et al. (201322. Raaska, H., Elovainio, M., Sinkkonen, J., Stolt, S., Jalonen, I., Matomäki, J.,… & Lapinleimu, H. (2013). Adopted children's language difficulties and their relation to symptom...

Children adopted internationally following deprived early care have an elevated risk for difficulties with inattention/overactivity (Kreppner et al., 2001). The current study sought to identify predictors of inattention/overactivity and child and adoptive family challenges that co-occur with inattention/overactivity difficulties in a sample of inte...

This article critiques the empirical evidence for the emerging view in nonclinical parenting research and in popular books that parents should use only positive methods of parenting and rarely resort to any disciplinary consequences. Four methodological fallacies pervade research used to support this viewpoint: the correlational fallacy (inferring...

Most existing research on children adopted internationally has focused on those adopted as infants and toddlers. The current study longitudinally tracked several outcomes, including cognitive, behavioral, emotional, attachment, and family functioning, in 25 children who had been internationally adopted at school age (M = 7.7 years old at adoption,...

Recollections of physical discipline as absent, age-delimited (ages 2-11), or present into adolescence were associated with youths' evaluations of their mothers' and fathers' parenting styles and their own adjustment. Data were from the Portraits of American Life Study-Youth (PALS-Y) a diverse, national sample of 13- to 18-year-olds (N = 158). The...

The purpose of the study was to determine whether well-established associations between authoritarian parenting and adolescent adjustment pertain to conservative Protestant (CP) families. Structural equation modeling was used to test paths from biological fathers' authoritarian parenting to adolescent adjustment in 65 CP versus 170 comparison famil...

Caucasian stepchildren (aged 10-18) in the Nonshared Environment and Adolescent Development (NEAD) project rated noncustodial (NC) parents' socioemotional involvement. Stepfamilies had been together at least 5 years. Adolescents with NC mothers (n = 56) reported more phone calls, mail, overnight visits, and social support than adolescents with NC f...

Predictors of youth religiosity were developed from eight domains: childhood training, religious schooling, cognitive ability, psychodynamic need, parenting style, role models, family life cycle, and background demographics. Data are from the National Survey of Children (NSC). Predictors were assessed when participants were 7–11 and 11–16 years of...

Findings from comparisons of joint and sole custody families that do not control for predivorce differences in demographic and family process variables (factors that may predispose families to choose or be awarded joint custody) are of limited generalizability, since obtained group differences may be attributable to predisposing (self-selection) fa...

The hypotheses that parental religiosity would predict authoritative parenting and adolescent social responsibility were tested using data from fathers, mothers, and adolescents 10 through 18 years of age from 486 mostly Caucasian middle-class families participating in the Nonshared Environment (NSE) Study. Ratings of authoritative and authoritaria...

This study examined three predictors of attitudes toward divorce using data from 150 college students (55 males, 95 females) with a mean age of 18. Participants completed a questionnaire that measured parental conflict experienced during elementary school and secondary school, type of parental conflict resolution (positive or negative), and expecte...

To challenge the application of an unqualified social learning model to the study of spanking, positing instead a developmental-contextual model in which the effects of spanking depend on the meaning children ascribe to spanking. Population-based survey data from 1112 children aged 4 to 11 years in the National Survey of Families and Households. Co...

Almost half the children born in the last decade will experience the divorce of their parents, and many of these children will also go through the changes associated with their custodial parent's remarriage. Most children initially experience their parents' marital rearrangements as stressful; however, children's responses to their parents' marital...

Almost half the children born in the last decade will experience the divorce of their parents, and many of these children will also go through the changes associated with their custodial parent's remarriage. Most children initially experience their parents' marital rearrangements as stressful; however, children's responses to their parents' marital...