Referensi

1. Beliefs about parental authority,
parenting styles, and parent–adolescent
conflict among Iranian mothers of
middle adolescents
Seyed Mohammad Assadi,1
Judith Smetana,2
Nazila Shahmansouri,1
and Mohammad Mohammadi1
Abstract
Associations among parenting styles, parental authority beliefs, and adolescent–parent conflict were examined in 426 mothers of middle
adolescents from 3 cities in Iran. Consistent with past research, mothers judged parental authority as less legitimate for personal than for
conventional or prudential issues. Poorer, less educated mothers were more authoritarian in their parenting, and more authoritarian and
less authoritative parenting and poorer maternal mental health were uniquely associated with more frequent and more intense conflicts.
Conflicts were more frequent among mothers who evaluated parental authority as less legitimate for prudential issues and more legitimate
for personal issues, particularly among mothers of boys. Despite broad variation in mothers’ education and social class, conflicts reflected
concerns about drawing boundaries between mothers’ legitimate authority and adolescents’ personal jurisdiction.
Keywords
adolescents, authority, authoritarian control, authoritative parenting, culture, generations conflict, legitimacy, parenting style, relationship
between parents and adolescents
Adolescence is an important period of transition in parent–child
relationships. Much research has shown that bickering and dis-
agreements between parents and their children typically increase
during adolescence, and conflict, at least at moderate levels and
in the context of supportive family relationships, has been hypothe-
sized to transform family relationships to allow the child more
autonomy (Youniss & Smollar, 1985). Indeed, moderate amounts
of conflict during adolescence have been associated with better
adjustment than either no conflict or frequent conflict (Adams &
Laursen, 2001). A meta-analysis has shown that conflict fre-
quency peaks in early adolescence and then declines, whereas
conflict intensity increases from early to middle adolescence (see
Laursen & Collins, 2009; Laursen, Coy, & Collins, 1998; Sme-
tana, Campione-Barr, & Metzger, 2006). Although this research
was based primarily on European American families (reflecting
the research up to that point), similar findings have been obtained
among American youth of different ethnicities (Fuligni, Hughes,
& Way, 2009). Much less research has examined adolescent–
parent conflict in other cultures, particularly in the Middle East.
The present study examined associations among parenting styles,
beliefs about parental authority, and adolescent–parent relation-
ships in a diverse sample of mothers of middle adolescents in the
rapidly changing society of Iran.
Parenting, parent–adolescent conflict, and
authority beliefs
Links between increased adolescent–parent conflict and adolescent
autonomy have been examined in terms of variations in
adolescents’ and parents’ beliefs about parental authority, as exam-
ined within the framework of social domain theory (Smetana, 2006;
Turiel, 2002, 2006). Studies in the United States have shown that
both parents and teenagers affirm parents’ legitimate authority
to regulate conventional issues (defined as pertaining to arbitrary
and contextually relative social norms like etiquette and modes of
address), and prudential issues (pertaining to comfort, safety, and
harm to the self). Both parents and adolescents also believe that
adolescents should have some authority over personal issues (per-
taining to privacy, control over one’s body, and preferences
and choices, i.e., regarding recreational choices and appearance;
Smetana & Asquith, 1994), although they do not agree on how
much. Parents and adolescents disagree most over whether parents
have the right to control multifaceted issues, which involve over-
lapping concerns in different domains. That is, conflicts typically
occur over issues that parents view as conventional (or prudential)
and that teens treat as personal, leading to the renegotiation of the
boundaries of parental authority (and hence transformations in
family relationships).
1
Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Iran
2
University of Rochester, USA
Corresponding author:
Judith Smetana, Department of Clinical & Social Sciences in Psychology,
University of Rochester, P.O. Box 270266, Rochester, NY 14627-0266,
USA.
Email: smetana@psych.rochester.edu
International Journal of
Behavioral Development
35(5) 424–431
ª The Author(s) 2011
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DOI: 10.1177/0165025411409121
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2. Parents’ parenting styles also differentiate conceptions of
parental authority. Authoritarian parents construct the boundaries
of parental authority much more broadly than do authoritative
parents; authoritarian parents also moralize conventional issues
(Smetana, 1995; Smetana & Asquith, 1994). In addition, in a study
of primarily European American families with early and middle
adolescents, parents’ more authoritarian and less authoritative par-
enting was found to be associated with more frequent and more
intense conflicts (Smetana, 1995).
Cultural variations in parenting and
parent–adolescent conflict
Some have assumed that concerns about greater autonomy, agency,
and personal choice (as well as parent–adolescent conflict) are
more characteristic of families in individualistic rather than collec-
tivist cultures (Markus & Lin, 1999; Phinney, Kim-Jo, Osorio, &
Vilhjalmsdottir, 2005). Research has shown, however, that these
concerns are evident in non-Western societies as well (Helwig,
2006; Kagitcibasi, 1996, 2005; Wainryb, 2006) and that individu-
als’ judgments within societies are heterogeneous. Individuals may
affirm cultural traditions and values and also make claims regarding
autonomy (Turiel, 2002; Wainryb, 2006). Although the boundaries
and content of the personal domain may vary in different cultures,
individuals in all cultures treat some issues as personal (Nucci,
1996; Smetana, 2002, 2011; Turiel, 2002). Thus, contextual and
cultural variations in conflicts are primarily in their outward
expression—their frequency, intensity, and resolution. But across
cultures, conflicts are typically about how much legitimate authority
parents ought to have. Therefore, it would be expected that beliefs
about parental authority would be associated with adolescent–parent
conflict, even in cultures that are assumed to be collectivistic.
Authority beliefs, parenting beliefs, and adolescent–parent con-
flict have been examined extensively among ethnic majority and
minority youth in the United States (reviewed in Fuligni et al.,
2009; Smetana, 2002, 2011), but very little research has examined
their intersections cross-culturally. Research has shown that Asian
(Chinese as well as Japanese) adolescents do have moderate levels
of conflict with their parents and that like U.S. teens, they reason
about them as issues of personal jurisdiction (Yamada, 2009; Yau
& Smetana, 1996, 2003; Zhang & Fuligni, 2006). Only one study
that we know of conducted outside of the United States, however, has
examined associations between parental authority beliefs and
adolescent–parent conflict (Zhang & Fuligni, 2006). Furthermore,
authoritarian parenting has been examined extensively in different
cultures and among North American parents from varied cultural
backgrounds (Rudy & Grusec, 2001, 2006; Steinberg, 2001), but this
research has focused primarily on links with adjustment (Steinberg,
2001) rather than on associations with adolescent–parent
relationships.
Thus, little research has examined connections among domain-
specific authority beliefs, parenting beliefs, and adolescent–parent
conflict in different cultures. Such research is needed to further our
understanding of how autonomy claims are associated with changes
in family relationships. Furthermore, the available cross-cultural
research has been conducted primarily from teens’ perspectives
(Yamada, 2009; Yau & Smetana, 1996, 2003; Zhang & Fuligni,
2006); parents’ views rarely have been assessed. This is surprising,
given that parenting beliefs are important in parents’ socialization
of their children (Goodnow & Collins, 1990) and determine both
parenting styles and particular parenting practices (Darling & Stein-
berg, 1993). Parents’ perceptions also are important, as longitudinal
research has demonstrated that although adolescents push for
greater autonomy, parents ultimately decide when to grant it (Dad-
dis & Smetana, 2005). Studying parents’ beliefs about legitimate
parental authority provides an assessment of the outward limits of
adolescents’ developing autonomy.
The current study
Studies of adolescent–parent relationships in other cultures have
focused heavily on Asian cultures. Surprisingly little research has
examined adolescent–parent relationships among parents or teen-
agers in the Middle East, although historically, culturally, and
politically, these cultures are quite divergent from both the U.S.
and Asian cultures. In the present study, we examined mothers’
beliefs about legitimate parental authority, parenting styles, and
adolescent–parent conflict in the culturally distinctive, diverse,
and rapidly changing society of Iran. We focused on mothers’
beliefs, as mothers traditionally are more involved and bear most
of the responsibility for child rearing; furthermore, research on
adolescent–parent conflict has shown that in the United States and
elsewhere, mothers typically have more conflicts with their teen-
agers than fathers do (Laursen & Collins, 2009). Historically, Iran
has been a patriarchal society (Fathi, 1985) and strongly empha-
sizes highly authoritarian parenting, respect for elders, and uncon-
ditional loyalty to family over personal needs, as well as deference
to parental authority (Sharifzadeh, 1998). Youth are expected to
sacrifice their personal aspirations to adhere to parental expecta-
tions (Assadi et al., 2007).
During the past century, however, Iran has undergone large
socioeconomic and cultural changes, although modernization has
been uneven (Abrahamian, 1983). Although larger cities have mod-
ernized rapidly, traditional neighborhoods also are found in cities,
partly due to the migration of millions of peasants who uphold tra-
ditional values and who have moved to the cities looking for work
(Inglehart, 1997; Inglehart & Baker, 2000). Iran is an extremely
diverse context in which to examine the interplay among authority
beliefs, parenting styles, and adolescent–parent conflict. These
were examined here among mothers of middle adolescents from
three cities varying in modernity and social class.
Conceptions of parental authority were examined regarding con-
ventional, prudential, personal, and multifaceted friendship issues,
which potentially involve overlaps between prudential or conven-
tional and personal issues. As individuals in different cultures both
uphold social conventions and desire autonomy and personal juris-
diction (Helwig, 2006; Wainryb, 2006), we hypothesized that regard-
less of sociodemographic background, Iranian mothers would have
differentiated judgments of parental authority and would view par-
ents as having more authority to regulate conventional, prudential,
and possibly, friendship issues, than personal issues.
We also examined associations between the sociocultural con-
text and parenting beliefs and styles. Sampling eighth graders from
three socioeconomically diverse districts in Tehran, Assadi et al.
(2007) found that teens from poor families who upheld traditional
values had more authoritarian attitudes, whereas teens from rich
families who had adopted more modern values perceived their par-
ents as less authoritarian. Consistent with this, we hypothesized that
less educated mothers from more traditional backgrounds would be
more authoritarian and less authoritative in their parenting.
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3. Previous research (Smetana, 1995) led us to expect that authoritar-
ian parents would grant adolescents less control over personal and
multifaceted issues than would authoritative parents.
We also hypothesized that more authoritarian and less authorita-
tive parenting and a broader conception of the boundaries of parental
authority would be associated with more frequent and more intense
conflicts. Furthermore, better maternal mental health consistently has
been associated with more effective parenting, better adolescent
adjustment, and better relationships (Compas & Reeslund, 2009;
Laursen & Collins, 2009). Therefore, we tested our hypotheses while
controlling for the effects of maternal mental health.
Finally, we examined gender differences in mothers’ beliefs and
relationships. Males in hierarchical, non-Western societies are
granted much more personal freedom than females (Wainryb,
2006), and in contrast to U.S. samples, conflicts are greater among
Chinese adolescent boys than girls (Zhang & Fuligni, 2006). There-
fore, we hypothesized that boys would be seen as having more
jurisdiction over personal issues and that conflicts would be more
frequent among mothers of boys than girls.
Method
Participants
The sample consisted of 426 mothers (M age ¼ 38.69 years, SD ¼
6.02) of eighth graders (approximately 14 years old and evenly
divided between boys and girls). The majority of mothers (51%,
and 58% of fathers) had at least a high school diploma, with
20% (and 28% of fathers) having gone beyond high school. Moth-
ers’ and fathers’ educational levels (scored on a 4-point scale)
were highly correlated, r(424) ¼ .69, p < .001. Fathers were the
main wage earners in nearly all families (93%), and most mothers
(70%) did not earn independent wages. Mothers reported having
an average of three children (SD ¼ 1.68), although fertility ranged
from one to 13 offspring.
Participants were drawn from three different areas of Iran that
are distinctly different in levels of modernization and/or social
classes, ranging from traditional and lower socioeconomic status
to modernized and upper socioeconomic status (Madanipour,
1998). One group of mothers (n ¼ 82, 33 of boys, 49 of girls) was
recruited from the northern area of Tehran, a more modernized
metropolis with a population of 7,700,000 (according to the 2006
census). Mothers also were recruited from three different districts
in Isfahan, a big city in central Iran with a population of
1,580,000. There were 76 mothers (46 of boys, 30 of girls) from
District 2, which was relatively traditional but primarily upper mid-
dle and upper class. There were 96 mothers (47 of boys, 49 of girls)
from District 3, which also was primarily upper middle and upper
class but relatively modernized. Another 85 mothers (44 of boys,
41 of girls) were from District 4, a relatively traditional and lower
middle class district. Finally, 87 mothers (43 of boys, 44 of girls)
were recruited from the small, traditional town of Khomeinishahr
(population: 280,000), which is located south of Isfahan. Mothers
from the three districts in Isfahan as well as Tehran were better edu-
cated than mothers from Khomeinishahr, F(4, 419) ¼ 73.31,
p < .01, M ¼ 2.49, 1.88, 1.40, 2.13, .87, SD ¼ .70, .68, .80, .68,
.45, respectively (where 0 ¼ illiterate and 3 ¼ more than a high
school diploma). Mothers’ education (as a proxy for social class
and scored on this 4-point scale) was examined in analyses. A
dummy variable of traditional versus modern neighborhood (scored
as 0 or 1, respectively) also was used.
Measures
Parenting styles. Mothers responded to Buri’s (1991) 30-item
Parental Authority Questionnaire (PAQ), which has been shown
to be reliable and valid in Iran (Assadi et al., 2007). Based on
Baumrind’s (1971) definitions of parental prototypes, the PAQ con-
sists of 10 (each) permissive, authoritarian, and authoritative state-
ments each rated on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly
disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). Cronbach’s alphas were .81 for the
authoritative scale and .68 for the authoritarian scale. However,
dropping one authoritarian item (‘‘As my child was growing up,
I did not allow him or her to question any decision that I
had made’’) resulted in a more reliable 9-item scale (Cronbach’s
alpha ¼ .77), which was used in the present analyses. Due to low
reliability (.57) as well as lack of cultural relevance, the permis-
sive scale was dropped.
Legitimacy of parental authority. Based on Smetana and
Asquith (1994), mothers rated the legitimacy of parental authority
regarding 19 items, including six hypothesized conventional items,
three prudential items, four friendship items, and six hypothesized
personal items (see Table 1 for the original items). Mothers rated
whether it was OK or not OK (on a 3-point scale with 3 ¼ OK) for
parents to decide or make a rule about each issue.
Principal components analysis with varimax rotation was
employed to examine whether the items cohered into the expected
domains. Based on eigenvalues greater than 1, the scree test, factor
coefficients greater than .40, and lack of cross-loadings, a 3-factor
solution fit the data best. As expected and as shown in Table 1, four
of the six hypothesized conventional items and unexpectedly, one
friendship item, all loaded significantly on the conventional factor
(eigenvalue ¼ 2.61, 13% of the variance). The other two hypothe-
sized conventional items just missed the criterion level and
were dropped, resulting in a 5-item conventional scale (a ¼ .62).
Prudential and friendship items all loaded significantly on a single
prudential factor (eigenvalue ¼ 4.04, 21% of the variance),
resulting in a 6-item prudential scale (a ¼ .90). The hypothesized
personal items all loaded significantly on the personal factor
(eigenvalue ¼ 2.48, 13% of the variance; a ¼ .70).
Adolescent–parent conflict. Using a shortened version of the
widely used Issues Checklist (Robin & Foster, 1989), mothers rated
the frequency of discussion of 23 hypothetical issues over the past 2
weeks on a 3-point scale ranging from never (1) to often (3). The
items were identical to those used by Smetana (1995), except that
three items (‘‘drinking alcohol,’’ ‘‘having a party when parents are
away,’’ and ‘‘using the car’’) were omitted because they lacked cul-
tural relevance. Cronbach’s alpha was .87. For each topic discussed,
mothers also rated conflict intensity (‘‘how hot did the discussions
get?’’) on a 5-point scale ranging from very calm (1) to very angry
(5). As mothers rated somewhat different items, and in keeping with
past research employing the Issues Checklist, reliability was not
estimated for intensity.
General Health Questionnaire. The General Health
Questionnaire (GHQ-12) is a 12-item measure of current mental
health (Goldberg, 1992; Goldberg & Williams, 1988), which has
been extensively validated in different cultures including Iran
(Montazeri et al., 2003). Items were rated on a 4-point scale (0 to
3). Higher scores indicated poorer mental health (a ¼ .88).
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4. Procedure
The questionnaires were all completed in Farsi, the primary
language in Iran. The PAQ and the GHQ-12 had been translated
into Farsi and used in previous research (Assadi et al., 2007;
Montazeri et al., 2003). In prior research, the PAQ was translated
from English to Farsi by two separate teams; the instrument was
pretested and revised after a pilot study and was found to be valid.
Two bilingual translators translated the remaining instruments used
in the present study. They discussed their translations and arrived at
a consensus.
Permission to conduct the study was obtained from the Ministry
of Education. Fifty students were randomly selected from the eighth
graders present on the sampling day from each of two schools, ran-
domly selected in each district. Students were given the question-
naires (placed in sealed envelopes and including an introduction
and instructions), and asked to give them to their mothers. Mothers
put the completed questionnaires in a sealed envelope and returned
them to school. All mothers provided written consent. The response
rate was 85.2%.
Results
Conceptions of parental authority
A 2 (Adolescent Gender) x 3 (Domain) mixed-model ANOVA with
domain as a repeated measure was run to examine whether mothers
held domain-differentiated beliefs about parental authority.
The expected significant domain main effect was obtained,
F(2, 828) ¼ 32.27, p < .001, Z2
p ¼ .07. Mothers viewed parents
as having more authority to make rules about conventional than
other issues and about prudential than personal issues (all ps <
.01, means are in Table 2). A significant gender main effect, F(1,
414) ¼ 4.85, p < .05, Z2
p ¼ .03, indicated that mothers viewed
Table 2. Correlations among study variables
M SD 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11.
1. Mothers’ education 1.74 .87 1.00 .21** .25** .16** .20** .12* .09þ .22** .09þ .02 .04
2. Child gender (female) .50 .50 1.00 .44** .07 .09þ .11* .05 .03 12* .12* .04
3. Traditional/modern .42 .49 1.00 .23** .17** .11* .03 .09þ .12* .12* .13
4. Authoritative 3.02 .68 1.00 .14** .14** .16** .04 .17** .12* .13**
5. Authoritarian 4.35 .45 1.00 .21** .28** .12* .00 .08þ .22**
6. Conflict frequency 1.59 .37 1.00 .28** .24** .07 .12* .24**
7. Conflict intensity 1.82 .58 1.00 .04 .04 .01 .31**
8. Authority – PrudþFriend 2.40 .69 1.00 .19** .07 .00
9. Authority – Conv 2.53 .40 1.00 .50** .00
10. Authority – Personal 2.27 .43 1.00 .05
11. GHQ-12 .98 .54 1.00
Note: Prud ¼ prudential; Friend ¼ friendship; Conv ¼ conventional. Higher scores on traditional/modern ¼ more modern and on the GHQ-12 indicate poorer mental
health.
þ p .10, *p .05; **p .01.
Table 1. Hypothesized items and domain placement for legitimacy of parental authority belief items
Hypothesized conventional items Actual conventional items Factor loading
How teen talks to parents How teen talks to parents .67
Type of language teen uses Type of language teen uses .67
Time for getting up Time for getting up .57
When teens cleans bedroom When teens cleans bedroom .55
Chores Who should be friends .54
Manners
Prudential items Prudential items
Doing drugs Doing drugs .89
Smoking cigarettes Smoking cigarettes .85
How late at night to stay out How late at night to stay out .79
Friendship items
Friendships w/ unsuitable persons Friendships w/ unsuitable persons .90
Going places with friends Going places with friends .79
How much time is spent with friends Time spent with friends .56
Who should be friends
Personal items Personal items
Choice of clothes Choice of clothes .74
How teen spends money How teen spends money .72
Choice of music Choice of music .60
Choice of TV programs Choice of TV programs .58
How teen spends free time How teen spends free time .52
How teen wears or styles hair How teen wears or styles hair .47
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5. parental authority as more legitimate for males than for females, Ms
¼ 2.45, 2.37, SDs ¼ .36, 35. The interaction was not significant.
The analysis was rerun with mothers’ education and traditional
versus modern background as covariates. The domain main effect
remained significant, F(2, 822) ¼ 10.08, p .001, Z2
p ¼ .02, but
gender did not, F(1,412) ¼ 1.39, ns.
Associations among sociocultural context, parenting
styles, beliefs, and conflicts
Table 2 provides means, standard deviations, and correlations
among the study variables. Mothers’ education and neighborhood
of residence were significantly but moderately correlated, and these
variables were significantly associated in the expected ways with
parenting styles.
Next, we conducted hierarchical regression analyses separately
on conflict frequency and intensity. Mothers’ education, traditional
versus modern neighborhood, and child gender were entered in the
first step, and mothers’ mental health was entered in the second
step to control for their effects. Authoritarian and authoritative
parenting and authority concepts were added in the third step.
To examine whether gender moderated these effects, we centered
the variables and created five interaction terms (for Adolescents’
Gender Parenting Styles and Gender x Three Domains of Paren-
tal Authority), which were entered as a block in the fourth step.
Only the Personal Concepts x Gender interaction was significant
and was therefore retained in the analyses. Interactions between tra-
ditional versus modern neighborhood and authority concepts also
were tested but were not significant. Results are in Table 3.
Conflict frequency. Mothers’ education and neighborhood of
residence both contributed significantly to the regression equation
when first entered, b values ¼ .10, .13, ps .05, but became
nonsignificant in later steps. Mothers who reported poorer mental
health had more conflicts with their teens. As expected, more fre-
quent conflict was found among more authoritarian and less author-
itative mothers and among mothers who viewed authority as less
legitimate for prudential issues but more legitimate for personal
issues.
Hypothesized gender differences were not obtained, but there
was a significant Gender x Personal Authority Belief interaction.
This was interpreted by plotting the regression lines for the pre-
dicted high (þ1 SD) versus low (1 SD) values of the moderator.
For mothers of boys, conflict frequency increased as the legitimacy
of parental authority regarding personal issues increased, b ¼ .20,
p .01. Among mothers of girls, the regression slope did not differ
significantly from 0.
Conflict intensity. Poorer maternal mental health and more
authoritarian parenting were uniquely associated with more intense
conflicts. The interaction term approached significance, but simple
slopes analyses did not yield significant effects.
Discussion
The present study examined conceptions of parental authority,
parenting styles, and parent–adolescent conflict in the novel and
understudied context of Iran. Mothers were drawn from three cities
that varied greatly in modernity and socioeconomic status; mothers
were very diverse in terms of education, fertility, social class, and
modernity. They ranged from women with little education living
in more traditional neighborhoods of small cities to very well-
educated mothers living in upper middle-class, modern neighbor-
hoods in the capital city of Tehran. The results were consistent with
recent claims about universal and culturally specific aspects of ado-
lescent–parent relationships (Fuligni et al., 2009; Smetana, 2011).
That is, like others (Assadi et al., 2007), we found that sociodemo-
graphic characteristics were significantly associated with parenting
styles and that less educated mothers and mothers living in tradi-
tional neighborhoods were more authoritarian and less authoritative
in their parenting. Overall, and consistent with Iran’s prevailing
cultural orientation, mothers strongly endorsed authoritarian par-
enting. Although demographic background was significantly asso-
ciated with conceptions of parental authority, Iranian mothers of
varying educational levels distinguished among different domains
of parental authority.
Iranian mothers viewed parents as having considerable authority
to make rules about various issues. Nevertheless, both the principal
Table 3. Regressions of conflict on parenting styles and parental authority concepts
Conflict frequency Conflict intensity
DF R2
b DF R2
b
Step 1 3.75* .03 .39 .00
Mothers’ education .03 .02
Traditional vs. modern .08þ .07
Child gender .02 .04
Step 2 21.70** .08 38.24** .10
Mental health (GHQ-12) .20** .25**
Step 3 9.26** .18 4.11** .15
Authoritative parenting .11* .09þ
Authoritarian parenting .11* .21**
Legitimacy – Conventional .10þ .08
Legitimacy – Prudential .24** .02
Legitimacy – Personal .11* .06
Step 4 4.05* .19 3.38þ .16
Gender x Legitimacy – Personal .09* .09þ
Note: Betas are for the final step. Higher scores on traditional/modern ¼ more modern and on the GHQ-12 ¼ poorer mental health.
þ p .10, * p .05, ** p .01.
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6. components analysis and the ANOVA supported the validity of the
social-domain model in different cultures (Turiel, 2002), as the
parental-authority items cohered into domains in theoretically
meaningful but contextually sensitive ways. Separate factors per-
taining to conventional, prudential, and personal issues were found.
Surprisingly, the items pertaining to manners and doing chores,
which are considered to be prototypically conventional issues in the
United States, did not reach the criterion level for inclusion in the
conventional factor, perhaps because these items were so taken for
granted as conventions. In addition, unlike in the United States,
choice of friends was treated as a conventional rather than a personal
issue. This may be because parents retain more control of friendships
in Iran than in the United States, as has been found in other cultures
such as Japan (e.g., Hasebe, Nucci, Nucci, 2004). Furthermore, the
reliability of the conventional factor was modest.
The second factor reflected a combination of prudential and
friendship items. That these two types of items cohered together
here was not surprising, as some friendship issues typically are
treated as prudential and pertaining to safety concerns by parents
in the United States. Contrary to previous research (Smetana,
1988, 2000; Smetana Asquith, 1994), where parents typically did
not differentiate between the legitimacy of prudential and conven-
tional items, however, we also found that mothers viewed parents as
having more authority over conventional than prudential issues.
This may reflect the importance of cultural norms in a traditional
culture like Iran, but this finding also may reflect the inclusion of
friendship items in the prudential category. Because we did not
obtain teens’ perspectives, we could not determine if adolescents
also distinguished friendship issues from prudential issues of risk.
Mothers viewed parents as having the least authority, although
still a considerable amount, over personal issues. Some of these
issues (like choice of clothes) are strongly regulated in Iran, but rules
regarding these issues may be subverted by both adults and children
because they are seen as unwarranted intrusions into the personal
sphere (Nafisi, 2004; Turiel, 2002). It is interesting to note that the
items that loaded on the personal factor were similar to those found
in previous research in other cultures (Smetana, 2002, 2011).
Although variables reflecting the sociocultural background
showed significant bivariate associations with parent–adolescent
conflict, their effects became nonsignificant when parenting styles
and beliefs were included in the analyses. As in the United States
(Smetana, 1995), more authoritarian parenting was associated
with both more frequent and more intense conflicts. There have
been debates about whether more authoritarian parenting is adap-
tive in some cultural contexts (Steinberg, 2001). However, these
debates pertain primarily to academic achievement and not to psy-
chosocial well-being, which seems to be consistently adversely
affected by authoritarian parenting. Our results are consistent with
this conclusion.
Consistent with research on ethnic-minority adolescents in the
United States and elsewhere (Fuligni, 1998; Yau Smetana,
1996, 2003; Zhang Fuligni, 2006), Iranian mothers reported hav-
ing conflicts with their middle adolescents over everyday issues of
family life, but disagreements were low in frequency (as assessed in
terms of discussion frequency during the previous 2 weeks) and
moderate in intensity. Conflict intensity may have been underesti-
mated here, at least as compared to adolescents’ views, as has been
found consistently in previous research (Laursen et al., 1998; Sme-
tana, Daddis, Chuang, 2003). Thus, it would be beneficial in the
future to compare Iranian adolescents’ and parents’ perspectives on
conflict.
Mothers’ beliefs about legitimate parental authority in different
domains were differentially associated with conflict frequency.
Conflicts were more frequent when Iranian mothers believed that
parents had less authority to control prudential (and friendship)
issues but more authority to regulate personal issues, particularly for
boys. When mothers grant adolescents more autonomy over pruden-
tial issues, adolescents may have more latitude to engage in behaviors
that mothers view as undesirable. On the other hand, adolescents may
view restrictions on their personal domains as particularly unwar-
ranted. Boys in non-Western societies typically are granted more
autonomy than girls (Wainryb, 2006); consistent with this research
and our hypotheses, conflicts were more frequent among mothers of
boys than girls. Therefore, when given less autonomy, boys may
rebel against mothers’ restrictions in order to gain more control.
Mothers’ mental health, which was included primarily as a con-
trol variable, was strongly associated with both conflict frequency
and intensity. Our findings are consistent with past research in the
United States, which has shown that better maternal mental health
is associated with a wide range of more positive outcomes, includ-
ing better adjustment and better parent–adolescent relationships
(Compas Reeslund, 2009; Laursen Collins, 2009).
Some study limitations should be noted. Because this study was
cross-sectional, we could not determine the causal direction of the
findings. Longitudinal research is needed to examine whether par-
ents’ more restrictive beliefs about the legitimacy of parental
authority and more authoritarian parenting leads to greater adoles-
cent–parent conflict (Smetana Asquith, 1994). In addition to
examining the influence of parenting beliefs and practices on
conflict, it also would be worthwhile to examine bidirectional
associations to determine whether conflict, in turn, leads to trans-
formations in parental authority, particularly regarding the per-
sonal domain (Smetana, 2002, 2011). Although the focus on
mothers is a potential limitation of this research, mothers do deter-
mine when and how much autonomy adolescents can be allowed
(Daddis Smetana, 2005) and thus provide a valuable perspec-
tive on autonomy development in family contexts. Given that Iran
historically has been a patriarchal society, fathers as well as ado-
lescents also should be included in future research.
In addition, the present study focused on mothers’ beliefs about
social conventional, prudential, and personal issues, but we did not
examine their moral beliefs (Helwig, 2006). Given the dramatic
social and political changes occurring in Iran, this would be an
interesting direction for future research. Finally, although we can-
not determine whether the present findings generalize beyond the
Iranian context, the findings are highly consistent with theoretical
claims made by others (Helwig, 2006; Turiel, 2002; Wainryb,
2006) about the role of culture in children’s, adolescents’, and
adults’ construals of their social world. The present study demon-
strated that Iranian mothers, who are predominantly authoritarian
in their parenting styles, report moderate levels of conflict with
their middle adolescents. Although Iranian mothers believed that
their adolescents legitimately have some control over personal
issues, everyday conflicts were about the boundaries of parental
authority. Further research should examine in more detail how
autonomy is negotiated in different family contexts in the very
diverse, rapidly changing, and understudied society of Iran.
Acknowledgments
We wish to thank the personnel of the Ministry of Education for
their cooperation with this research.
Assadi et al. 429
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7. Funding
This study was supported by a grant from Tehran University of
Medical Sciences.
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