Assessment of Perceived Parenting Behaviors: The Exposure to Abusive and Supportive Environments Parenting Inventory (EASE-PI)

• NCJ Number: 168559
• Journal: Journal of Family Violence Volume: 12 Issue: 3 Dated: September 1997 Pages: 275-291
• Author(s): K B Nicholas; S L Bieber
• Date Published: 1997
• Length: 17 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

Due to an awareness of the frequency of child abuse and lack of a single instrument to assess the extent of exposure to both the abusive and supportive environments provided by parents, a 70-item inventory was developed; it is a self-report on how both mother and father treated the child.

Abstract

Using a rational/intuitive approach based on a review of prior research, clinical work, and knowledge of family abuse, a research group composed of faculty members and graduate students in clinical psychology generated a large number of items that represented examples of abusive or negative parenting behaviors and examples of supportive or positive parenting behaviors. From a larger pool of items that were generated, 130 items on the negative end and 64 items on the positive end of parenting behaviors were selected, on the basis of face validity, to be included in scale development. To determine the preliminary structure underlying the 194 items, data were collected from 130 male and 141 female undergraduates. In order to determine if the factors could be replicated in a larger population and to investigate gender differences, data from 207 male and 311 female students, who reported on the behaviors of both their mothers and their fathers, were factor analyzed for gender of parent and gender of subject similarities, using the multigroup factorial invariance procedure developed by Bieber (1986). To investigate its reliability, the 110-item inventory was administered to 115 female and 101 male undergraduates on two separate occasions 10 weeks apart. Using the results of the studies, items for the final inventory were then selected. The factor analysis revealed three abusive factors (representing emotional, physical, and sexual abusiveness) and three supportive factors (love/support, promotion of independence, and positive modeling/fairness). The same factors emerged regardless of gender of respondent and gender of parent. The inventory provides a means to investigate the differential and interactive effects of exposure to emotional, physical, and sexual abusiveness and the possible mitigating effects of various types of supportive behaviors by each parent. 6 tables and 39 references