Parental styles, emotional instability, and aggressiveness in children in social vulnerability in Argentina and Spain

The objective of this work is to study whether the pattern of the relation between parental behaviour and children s socio-emotional development remain invariant through different socioeconomic and national contexts (Argentina and Spain). The Argentine Scale of Children Perception of Parental Relationships, the Physical and Verbal Aggression Scale and the Emotional Instability Scale, were administered to 583 Spanish and Argentine 8 to 12 year old children. Results indicate that: 1) aggression and emotional instability are highly related; 2) parental style dimensions are related in different ways with emotional instability and aggressiveness and this relationship follows approximately the same patterns in socially vulnerable and middle class children; 3) a mother and a father s behaviour is differently related to emotional regulation in children; 4) psychological models that associate some parental behaviours with children s socio-emotional development, remain invariant through the different socioeconomic strata and national cultures here studied.