Abstract
Baumrind (1971) proposed three distinct patterns of parental authority (permissiveness, authoritarianism, and authoritativeness) and measured these parenting styles through interviews with parents and their children and through observations of parents interacting with their children. This study was undertaken to develop a readily-accessible, standardized measure of Baumrind's parental prototypes. Forty-eight questionnaire items were constructed based upon Baumrind's descriptions of the permissive, authoritarian, and authoritative prototypes. Items were stated from the perspective of an individual evaluating the patterns of authority exercised by his or her parents. Professionals (N=21) in the fields of psychology, social work, sociology, and education evaluated the accuracy of the items and accepted 36 of the items for the final pool of items. From this pool, 10 permissive, 10 authoritarian, and 10 authoritative items were retained for the Parental Authority Questionnaire (PAQ). Two forms of the questionnaire were constructed to evaluate the parental authority of mothers and of fathers. Seven studies were conducted to test the PAQ's reliability, internal consistency, content-related validity, criterion-related validity, discriminant-related validity, and its correlations with the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale. The results of these studies showed the PAQ to have highly respectable measures of reliability and validity. The PAQ should be useful for assessing the parental authority exercised by both mothers and fathers and it is appropriate for both females and males who are older adolescents or young adults. (The Parental Authority Questionnaire Pertaining to Fathers is included.) (NB)