Role of parental anger in low-income women: Discipline strategy, perceptions of behavior problems, and the need for control

Examined anger and other variables known to be related to physical abuse by describing common child-rearing challenges to 199 low-income mothers and observing relations among their responses. Maternal anger varied extensively across the situations explored, and it was significantly related to the use of physical discipline in one third of the situations sampled. Anger was also positively related to perceived frequency of child behavior problems, and tendency to use physical discipline increased with number of perceived behavior problems. Child behaviors that underlined a challenge to the mothers' control (e.g., defiance or disobedience of a direct command) provoked the most anger. The implications of these findings for abuse prevention and positive parenting interventions for low-income families are discussed.