Predicting XXXX and discipline practices in a nationally representative sample.

@entity1 @entity734
OBJECTIVE: According to sociological and ecological models of abuse, typically nonabusive parents could behave abusively towards their @entity1 under certain circumstances. The purpose of this study was to examine factors that place parents at risk of abusing their @entity1 by predicting parents' use of discipline practices and attitudes that may bias parents towards abusive behaviors, which we refer to as abuse-proneness. METHOD: A telephone interview was administered by the Gallup Organization to a nationally representative sample of 1,000 parents. Using a set of theoretically relevant risk factors, multiple regression was used to predict variations in parental attitudes (i.e., attitudes towards physical discipline and attitudes that devalue @entity1 ) and parental discipline practices (i.e., physical discipline, nonphysical discipline, and @entity734 ). RESULTS: The findings confirmed the importance of examining elements of parental attitudes, history, personality characteristics, as well as religion and ideology in predicting @entity734 . @entity1 age also was an important predictor in all analyses except predicting parental attitudes that devalue @entity1 . The findings suggest also, however, that it may be unduly simplified to regard parents as somewhere on a continuum of nonpunitive to punitive disciplinarians. Social isolation was not a significant predictor in any of the analyses. CONCLUSIONS: Although many important theoretical predictors of @entity734 were confirmed, many questions arise regarding the diversity of discipline practices that parents use, and the relevance of @entity1 's age and social isolation in predicting @entity734 . Implications for practitioners and future research are discussed.
