Chinese children's effortful control and dispositional anger/frustration: relations to parenting styles and children's social functioning

Relations among authoritative and authoritarian parenting styles, children's effortful control and dispositional anger/frustration, and children's social functioning were examined for 425 first and second graders (7-10 years old) in Beijing, China. Parents reported on parenting styles; parents and teachers rated children's effortful control, anger/frustration, externalizing problems, and socially appropriate behaviors: and peers rated aggression and leadership/sociability. High effortful control and low dispositional anger/frustration uniquely predicted Chinese children's high social functioning, and the relation of anger/frustration to social functioning was moderated by effortful control. Authoritarian parenting was associated with children's low effortful control and high dispositional anger/frustration, which (especially effortful control) mediated the negative relation between authoritarian parenting and children's social functioning. Effortful control weakly mediated the positive relation of authoritative parenting to social functioning.