Parental disrespect: the italian validation of a new misure of perceived parenting

This study was conducted with the aim to assess the validity of a new parenting measure in the Italian family context: the Parent Disrespect Scale (PDS). This scale was built following an emic approach via group interview with adolescents in five different cultural background (Thailand, Costa Rica, and three cultural groups in South Africa) who responded to questions about if and with which specific behaviours their parents engage in psychological control. Based on a set of psychologically controlling behaviours mentioned by the respondents, a corresponding set of 8 survey items was written and then administered to more than 2,000 adolescents in the same five cultural groups in order to validate the items. Analyses conducted to assess the item-level equivalence of the scale across the 5 cultural groups, revealed full conceptual, functional and configural equivalence, and partial metric and scalar equivalence of the scale. In order to assess the validity of the scale in the Italian context data were collected from 714 youths in northern Italy. Analysis revealed construct, content and predictive validity of the measure. The Parental Disrespect Scale can be use as a valid measure of disrespect in the Italian family context .