title: Contemporary research on parenting. The case for nature and nurture.
abstract: Current findings on parental influences provide more sophisticated and less deterministic explanations than did earlier theory and research on parenting. Contemporary research approaches include (a) behavior-genetic designs, augmented with direct measures of potential environmental influences; (b) studies distinguishing among children with different genetically influenced predispositions in terms of their responses to different environmental conditions; (c) experimental and quasi-experimental studies of change in children's behavior as a result of their exposure to parents' behavior, after controlling for children's initial characteristics; and (d) research on interactions between parenting and nonfamilial environmental influences and contexts, illustrating contemporary concern with influences beyond the parent-child dyad. These approaches indicate that parental influences on child development are neither as unambiguous as earlier researchers suggested nor as insubstantial as current critics claim.
authors.affiliation: National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, University of Minnesota 55455-0345, USA. wcollins@tc.umn.edu
authors.forename: W A
authors.initials: WA
authors.lastname: Collins
authors.forename: E E
authors.initials: EE
authors.lastname: Maccoby
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Steinberg
authors.forename: E M
authors.initials: EM
authors.lastname: Hetherington
authors.forename: M H
authors.initials: MH
authors.lastname: Bornstein
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002648:Child; D002657:Child Development / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D007360:Intelligence; D008425:Maternal Behavior / Q000502:physiology / Q000523:psychology; D009769:Object Attachment; D016487:Parenting / Q000523:psychology*; D010379:Peer Group; D013694:Temperament