Parenting, Children’s Behavioral Problems, and the Social Information Processing Among Children

The aim of the present research was to investigate the relationship between parenting, children’s social information processing, and their behavioral problems. Sample of the study consisted of 106 children (n = 52 boys; n = 54 girls), the age range of 8 to 11 years, their mothers, and their teachers. Parent Questionnaire (Doyle & McCarty, 2002), Home Interview with Child (Dodge, 1986), and Child Behavior Checklist (Achenbach & Rescorla, 2001) were used to assess parenting behaviors, children’s social information processing, and their behavioral problems respectively. It was hypothesized that negative parenting will positively predict children’s behavioral problems, positive parenting will negatively predict children’s behavioral problems, and finally children’s hostile social information processing will positively predict their behavioral problems over and above parenting. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses was used for hypotheses testing. The results of the study provided support for the hypotheses.