The purpose of this study was to determine whether a significant correlation existed between parental authoritativeness and adult children's attitudes towards academic dishonesty and infidelity. The researchers recruited 109 psychology students and used survey measures to test their hypothesis. An analysis of the data revealed a significant negative correlation between parental strictness/supervision and attitudes towards infidelity. The researchers discuss these findings in the context of previous research on authoritative parenting.

**********

According to work by Baumrind and Maccoby and Martin (as cited in Baumrind, 2005), parenting styles are categorized along two dimensions: the degree of parental warmth and involvement, and the degree of parental strictness and supervision. The authoritative parenting style is one in which parents display both a high degree of warmth and involvement and a high degree of strictness and supervision. This is in contrast with the authoritarian parenting style, characterized by low warmth/involvement and high strictness/supervision; the permissive parenting style, characterized by high warmth/involvement and low strictness/supervision; and the neglectful parenting style, characterized by low warmth/involvement and low strictness/supervision.

The effects of parenting styles on children's development are well-documented. Authoritative parenting has been associated with numerous positive outcomes in children. For example, Lamborn, Mounts, Steinberg, and Dornbusch (1991) found a significant positive correlation between authoritative parenting and levels of positive adjustment and psychosocial development. Furthermore, Lamborn et al. found a significant negative correlation between authoritative parenting and levels of problem behavior and psychological and physical pathology. Slicker (1998) found a significant positive correlation between authoritative parenting and high school seniors' positive behavioral adjustment, such that an increase in authoritative parenting was related to lower rates of alcohol use and deviant behaviors. Furthermore, Slicker found a significant positive correlation between neglectful parenting and children's negative behavioral adjustment. These findings, as well as others, lend support to the idea that authoritative parenting exerts a protective influence on children, steering them away from deviant behavior.

Researchers appear to be steadfast in their support for authoritative parenting and its ability to keep children from acting out in deviant ways. The effectiveness of authoritative parenting to deter deviant behavior may lie in its ability to ingrain children with a sense of self-control. Patock-Peckham, Cheong, Balhorn, and Nagoshi (2001) found a significant positive correlation between mothers' authoritativeness and adult daughters' ability to self-regulate. Furthermore, Patock-Peckham et al. found a significant negative correlation between mothers' permissiveness and adult daughters' ability to self-regulate. Similar trends were found for fathers' parenting styles and adult sons' self-regulatory ability.

Authoritative parenting may also protect against deviance via social learning. The high degree of warmth and involvement, coupled with the high degree of strictness and supervision characteristic of authoritative parenting may encourage children to identify with their parents, thereby facilitating the transmission of authoritative parents' prosocial values. As children identify themselves more with their authoritative parents and accept their parents' values, the likelihood of their identifying with deviant peer groups decreases, as does the likelihood that they will engage in deviant behavior.

Simons, Whitbeck, Conger, and Conger (1991) found a...