Perception of parents' behavior and children's general fearfulness

A study was conducted to investigate the relationship between perception of parents' support, punishment, control, and encouragement of autonomy and general fearfulness in ten- to eleven-year-old girls. Subjects included 68 girls in the fifth and sixth grades. The Cornell Parent Behavior Description Questionnaire was used as a measure of the girls' perception of their parents' support, punishment, control, and autonomy-granting. Geer's Fear Survey Schedule II-Modified was used as a measure of the girls' general fearfulness. A low significant positive correlation (r = 0.215) between the girls' perception of their parents' punishment and the girls' general fearfulness was observed. Also observed were: a low significant negative correlation (r = -0.201) between the girls' perception of their parents' encouragement of autonomy and the girls' general fearfulness and, contrary to expectation, a slight negative correlation (r = 0.173) between the girls' perception of their parents' support and the girl's general fearfulness. A slight negative correlation (r = -0.109) appeared between the girls' perception of their parents' control and the girls' general fearfulness. An auxiliary finding was that the girls perceived their mothers as more supportive, punitive, and controlling than their fathers. Upper middle-class parents were viewed by their daughters as less punitive and more autonomy-granting than lower middle-class parents.