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Differential Treatment
Despite social norms in Western culture that call for parents to treat their children equally, parental differential treatment (PDT) of offspring is pervasive throughout the life course. Over the past 30 years, scholars have investigated the nature and implications of PDT for individuals and family well-being. This entry summarizes the broad findings from this work, by first describing how differential treatment is manifested at various points of the life course and then explicating the implications of differential treatment for children’s, adolescents’, and adults’ individual and relational adjustment.
What Is Differential Treatment?
PDT encompasses instances in which parents treat their children differently and, potentially, inequitably. In childhood and adolescence, differential treatment is most often conceptualized into two broad domains: (a) differences in how parents rear and relate to ...
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- Adult Attachment
- Aggression
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- Beanpole Family
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- Dating
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- Divorce
- Domestic Violence/Partner Violence
- Dyadic Regulation
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- Familism
- Family Chaos
- Family Contexts
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- Family Synchrony
- Family Systems
- Fathering
- Filial Anxiety
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- Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Issues
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- Glass Ceiling
- Grandchildren
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- Household Chaos
- Household Economics
- Indirect Aggression
- Indiscriminate Social Responsiveness
- Interactions, Interpersonal
- Intergenerational Programs
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- Intergenerational Transmission
- Internal Working Model
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- Intersubjectivity
- Kinship
- Marital Conflict
- Marital Relationships
- Marriage
- Mattering
- Mentoring
- Multigenerational Family
- Neurobiology of Affiliation
- Neurobiology of Mothering
- Nuclear Family
- Online Communication
- Organization of Relationships: Messiness and Reparation
- Ostracism
- Parent–Child Conflict
- Parent–Child Interactions
- Parent–Child Synchrony
- Parental Authority
- Parental Conditional Regard
- Parenting
- Parenting by Lesbians and Gay Men; Outcomes for Children and Youth
- Parenting Style
- Peer Rejection
- Peer Victimization
- Peers
- Pets
- Popularity
- Public Engagement
- Remarriage
- Romantic Relationships
- School–Family Links
- Siblings, Sibling Relationships
- Single Parenthood
- Social Capital
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- Stepfamilies
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- Transactions
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- Census
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- Deception
- Discipline
- Dissent
- Empathy
- Ethics
- Familism
- Forgiveness
- Free Will
- Gender
- Generosity
- Glass Ceiling
- Human Rights
- Identity Development
- Ideology
- Inequality
- Insurance
- Justice
- Law
- Leadership
- Leisure
- Liberalism
- Materialism
- Mattering
- Media
- Morality
- Negotiation
- Norms
- Organizations
- Ownership
- Paradox
- Philanthropy
- Politics
- Property
- Public Engagement
- Reciprocity
- Rejection Versus Acceptance
- Sin
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- Social Inequality
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- Specificity Principle
- Status Hierarchy
- Stereotype (Stereotyping)
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- Time
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- Aggression
- Anger
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- Child Abuse and Neglect
- Child Maltreatment
- Closure and Grief
- Compassion
- Coping
- Crying
- Cyberbullying
- Difficult Children
- Discriminating Sociability
- Discrimination/Prejudice
- Disgust
- Doubt
- Emotion Regulation
- Emotion Socialization
- Emotional Expression
- Emotional Intelligence
- Emotion-Focused Coping
- Emotions
- Empathy
- Fear
- Gender Development
- Gender Identity Development
- Gratitude
- Grief
- Guilt
- Happiness
- Hope
- Jealousy and Envy
- Life Goals
- Life Satisfaction
- Loneliness
- Love
- Parent–Child Interaction
- Persuasion
- Phobias
- Prosociality
- Psychological Needs
- Psychosexual Stages of Development
- Psychosocial Development
- Psychosocial Moratorium
- Regret
- Sadness
- Self
- Self-Actualization
- Self-Deception
- Self-Esteem
- Self-Perceptions
- Self-Regulation
- Self-Worth
- Sensation Seeking
- Sex Differences
- Sex Education
- Sexual Assault
- Sexual Attitudes
- Sexual Identity
- Sexual Risk Behaviors
- Shame
- Smile
- Social and Emotional Behavior
- Social Anxiety
- Social Development
- Social Understanding
- Sympathy
- Theory of Mind
- Trust
- Theory
- Activity Theory
- Developmental Theory
- Diathesis–Stress Model
- Dynamic Systems Theory
- Eriksonian Theory
- Ethnotheories
- Evolutionary Theories of Aging
- Information Processing
- Life History Theory
- Piaget’s Theory
- Programmed Theories of Aging
- Psychoanalytic Theory
- Relational Developmental Systems
- Social Cognitive Theory
- Social Equity Theory
- Socioemotional Selectivity Theory
- Solidarity Theory
- Specificity Principle
- Universals
- Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory
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