A study of Himachal Pradesh: Parenting Style and Social intelligence of adolescents

The present study was undertaken to assess the existing “A study of Himachal Pradesh: Parenting Style and Social intelligence of adolescents”. The data were collected from randomly selected two blocks of Kangra District. A total of 200 adolescents in the age group of 13-19 years were randomly selected as a sample in the study. Interview schedule was used for background information and two standardised scales were used to assess the Social Intelligence as suggested by Chadha and Genesan’s (1971). Parenting Styles was assessed by using Parenting Styles Scale (Bharadwaj et al. 1998). Results of present study revealed that Social Intelligence was found statistically significant with Sex of adolescents, Family type, Caste, Religion and Urban/ Rural and Parenting style was also found statistically significant with Sex of adolescents and Urban/Rural. Dimensions of Parenting Styles and Social Intelligence showed a significant regression with sex of the respondents. INTRODUCTION Parenting is the process of promoting and supporting the physical, emotional, social and intellectual development of a child from infancy to adulthood. Parenting refers to the activity of raising a child rather than the biological relationship. Parenting style plays a very vital role in the upbringing of children. It is the duty of the parents to properly rear their children and up bring them to be a very responsible person in the society. Parenting is a very serious social phenomenon as it determines the future of the children. Parenting Styles as used by the parents are different in types and there are Indulgent parents (also referred to as “permissive” or “nondirective”) “are more responsive than they are demanding. They are non-traditional and lenient, do not require mature behaviour, allow considerable self-regulation, and avoid confrontation”. Authoritarian parents are highly demanding and directive, but not responsive. “They are obedienceand status-oriented, and expect their orders to be obeyed without explanation”. Authoritative parents are both demanding and responsive. “They monitor and impart clear standards for their children’s conduct. They are assertive, but not intrusive and restrictive. Their disciplinary methods are supportive, rather than punitive. They want their children to be assertive as well as socially responsible, and self-regulated as well as cooperative”. Uninvolved parents are low in both responsiveness and demandingness. In extreme cases, this parenting style might encompass both rejecting–neglecting and neglectful parents, although most parents of this type fall within the normal range. According to Gardner’s (1983) theory of multiple intelligences, intelligence is not a unitary cognitive ability but that there are seven (and perhaps more) quite different kinds of intelligence. Two are explicitly personal and social in nature i.e. intrapersonal and interpersonal. Gardner defines interpersonal intelligence as the individual’s ability to notice and make distinctions among other individuals. Social intelligence is also explicitly represented in Steinberg’s (1984 and1985) triarchic view of intelligence. According to the triarchic theory, intelligence is composed of analytical, creative and practical abilities. “Social intelligence is the ability to understand and manage men and women, boys and girls, to act wisely in human relations; it is equivalent to interpersonal intelligence, it deals with knowledge of social situations and more properly called social cognition”. Relationship between social intelligence and parenting style is of a great important in affecting the behaviour of adolescents. Social Intelligence of adolescents wholly depends upon the parenting styles adopted by parents. The education of parents is one of the important factor which play an important role in constructing the social intelligence in adolescents, because the well educated parents can develop a social intelligence in their children better than uneducated parents, which further helps them in the buildup of their carriers. Social Intelligence of adolescents also depends upon the behaviour of parents, style of upbringing parents-child relationship, emotion of parents, time devotion for adolescent etc. Dealing with social situations depends upon the person’s ability. Socialization of the child starts when the child is born. It is the family which acts as first socializing agent. In the socialization the mother plays an important role in transition of egocentric child to the socialized one. She is the first informal teacher of the child who prepares the child to face the strange world with confidence. The child rearing practices used by parents contributed a lot in the social development of the child. Methods and Material The study was conducted in Kangra District of Himachal Pradesh. Two blocks namely Panchrukhi and Bhawarna were randomly selected. Four schools from each block were selected randomly from the list of schools. A list of schools adolescents in this school belonging to age group of 13-19 years was procured. Samples of 200 adolescents from blocks were selected. Two Standardized Scales were used to collect data on children’s Social Intelligence (SIS), Chadha and Ganesan (1971) and Parenting Styles Scale (PSS), Bharadwaj et al. (1998). RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Relationship between Parenting Styles and Social Intelligence with Ecological Variables The results of correlation showing relationship between ecological variables with Social Intelligence and Parenting style have been presented in Table 1 Social Intelligence of the respondents was significantly and postively correlated with sex of respondents. This shows that sex of respondent had a di-


INTRODUCTION
Parenting is the process of promoting and supporting the physical, emotional, social and intellectual development of a child from infancy to adulthood. Parenting refers to the activity of raising a child rather than the biological relationship. Parenting style plays a very vital role in the upbringing of children. It is the duty of the parents to properly rear their children and up bring them to be a very responsible person in the society. Parenting is a very serious social phenomenon as it determines the future of the children.
Parenting Styles as used by the parents are different in types and there are Indulgent parents (also referred to as "permissive" or "nondirective") "are more responsive than they are demanding. They are non-traditional and lenient, do not require mature behaviour, allow considerable self-regulation, and avoid confrontation". Authoritarian parents are highly demanding and directive, but not responsive. "They are obedience-and status-oriented, and expect their orders to be obeyed without explanation". Authoritative parents are both demanding and responsive. "They monitor and impart clear standards for their children's conduct. They are assertive, but not intrusive and restrictive. Their disciplinary methods are supportive, rather than punitive. They want their children to be assertive as well as socially responsible, and self-regulated as well as cooperative". Uninvolved parents are low in both responsiveness and demandingness. In extreme cases, this parenting style might encompass both rejecting-neglecting and neglectful parents, although most parents of this type fall within the normal range.
According to Gardner's (1983) theory of multiple intelligences, intelligence is not a unitary cognitive ability but that there are seven (and perhaps more) quite different kinds of intelligence. Two are explicitly personal and social in nature i.e. intrapersonal and interpersonal. Gardner defines interpersonal intelligence as the individual's ability to notice and make distinctions among other individuals. Social intelligence is also explicitly represented in Steinberg's (1984 and1985) triarchic view of intelligence. According to the triarchic theory, intelligence is composed of analytical, creative and practical abilities.
"Social intelligence is the ability to understand and manage men and women, boys and girls, to act wisely in human relations; it is equivalent to interpersonal intelligence, it deals with knowledge of social situations and more properly called social cognition".
Relationship between social intelligence and parenting style is of a great important in affecting the behaviour of adolescents. Social Intelligence of adolescents wholly depends upon the parenting styles adopted by parents. The education of parents is one of the important factor which play an important role in constructing the social intelligence in adolescents, because the well educated parents can develop a social intelligence in their children better than uneducated parents, which further helps them in the buildup of their carriers. Social Intelligence of adolescents also depends upon the behaviour of parents, style of upbringing parents-child relationship, emotion of parents, time devotion for adolescent etc.
Dealing with social situations depends upon the person's ability. Socialization of the child starts when the child is born. It is the family which acts as first socializing agent. In the socialization the mother plays an important role in transition of egocentric child to the socialized one. She is the first informal teacher of the child who prepares the child to face the strange world with confidence. The child rearing practices used by parents contributed a lot in the social development of the child.

Methods and Material
The study was conducted in Kangra District of Himachal Pradesh. Two blocks namely Panchrukhi and Bhawarna were randomly selected. Four schools from each block were selected randomly from the list of schools. A list of schools adolescents in this school belonging to age group of 13-19 years was procured. Samples of 200 adolescents from blocks were selected. Two Standardized Scales were used to collect data on children's Social Intelligence (SIS), Chadha and Ganesan (1971) and Parenting Styles Scale (PSS), Bharadwaj et al. (1998).

Relationship between Parenting Styles and Social Intelligence with Ecological Variables
The results of correlation showing relationship between ecological variables with Social Intelligence and Parenting style have been presented in Table 1 Social Intelligence of the respondents was significantly and postively correlated with sex of respondents. This shows that sex of respondent had a di-rect relationship with the social intelligence of respondents. Further correlation value for social intelligence of the respondents were statistically significant with type of family. Caste of respondents also showed significant postive correlation with social intelligence. A significant positive association was also found between the residence area (rural/urban) and social intelligence of respondents. However, it was observed that social intelligence of respondents was negatively correlated with the religion of respondents. Further on assessing the relationship between parenting style and socioeconomic variable in Table 1 it was observed that only the sex of respondents and residence area (rural/urban) of respondents were found to be significantly positivily correlated with parenting style of respondents. The present findings are also supported by Dwairy et al. (2006) who observed three combined parenting patterns: inconsistent (permissive and authoritarian), controlling (authoritarian and authoritative), and flexible (authoritative and permissive) and found that the mean score of the authoritarian style was higher among males, whereas, the mean score of the authoritative style was higher among females. They also observed the effects of urbanization, parents' education, and the family economic level on parenting. Rai (2000) was also of the same view who studied perceived parenting style among boys and girls and observed significant sex differences.

Association of combined influence of Ecological Variables on the Parenting Styles and Social Intelligence of respondents
On applying regression coefficient to find out the influence of ecological variables on parenting styles and social intelligence of respondents presented in Table 2 indicated that sex of respondents had a significant correlation with social intelligence. However, rest of the ecological variables of respondents did not show any significant correlation with social intelligence. Further, a significant positive correlation was observed between parenting style and sex of respondents. In contrary to the results of present study Badigar et al. (1996) found that there was no significant difference in perception of boys and girls towards parenting style. They also observed that boys perceived their mothers as more demanding and different compared to girls.