Validation of the psychological control disrespect scale with emerging adults: Psychometric properties and sex measurement invariance of the PCDS

ABSTRACT

The current study is the first to describe the validation of the Psychological Control Disrespect Scale (PCDS; Barber etal., 2012) with a large age-range of emerging adults, in an attempt to broaden the usage of the scale to late and post-adolescence population. The sample consisted of 364 participants (184 females and 179 males; 1 unknown sex), whose age ranged between 18 and 29 (M = 24.38, SD = 3.03). Subject to the exclusion of one item, the PCDS exhibited acceptable to good model-fit indices when used with emerging adults reporting on their mothers, and its psychometric properties were found to be principally equal across child’s sex (i.e. respondent’s sex measurement invariance). The PCDS also displayed good reliability indexes, including the first evidence of the scale’s test–retest reliability. Finally, the PCDS was tested for convergent validity against conceptually corresponding parenting scales, which reinforced the scale’s validity as a measure of maladaptive parenting construct.

KEYWORDS:

• Psychological control
• parenting
• adolescent
• measurement invariance
• test–retest

Introduction

Parental psychological control is defined as excessive practices of manipulation, coercion, and disrespect that intrude on the psychological development of the child in terms of thinking, expressing, feeling, and attaching to parent (Barber, 1996; Barber et al., 2012). According to Barber (1996), parental exertion of psychological control is typically expressed in three main patterns of behaviour: ‘(a) manipulation and exploitation of the parent–child bond (e.g. love-withdrawal and guilt induction), (b) negative, affect-laden expressions and criticisms (e.g. disappointment and shame), and (C) excessive personal control (e.g. possessiveness, protectiveness)’ (Barber, 1996, p. 3297). Parental psychological control is also likely to reside with various parental maladaptive practices, such as hostility, arbitrary discipline, and physical punishment (Baumrind, 2012; Kuppens & Ceulemans, 2019), and it therefore typically appears in more authoritarian and coercive styles of overall parenting. Psychological control is distinct from other types of parental control that are developmentally adaptive and positive, such as the well-known form of behaviour control (Barber et al., 1994). The latter concept refers to ‘parental behaviors that are intended to regulate children’s behaviours in accord with prevailing family or social norms’ (Barber et al., 2005). It includes practices such as behaviour regulation, limit setting, monitoring, and autonomy granting, and it is normally associated with the child’s competence and other positive developmental outcomes, such as low externalizing behavioural problems (Baumrind, 2005; Gray & Steinberg, 1999). Conversely, parental psychological control is associated in the research literature with numerous adverse outcomes in children and adolescents, especially internalizing behavioural problems such as depression and anxiety disorders (Barber, 1996; Chyung et al., 2022). Not only do these two forms of parental control differ by the quality (i.e. the types of parental practices) and the quantity (i.e. the extent to which a parent regulates a child’s behaviour) of the parental controlling behaviours, they are also distinguished in terms of the child’s developmental aspects to which the parental control is referring (Barber, 1996). Parental psychological control might be experienced as intrusion into the child’s personal domain (that is, contents in the child’s life are perceived as belonging to the child’s jurisdiction and therefore beyond legitimate parental authority), thus defying his/her senses and perceptions of age-based autonomy and individuality (Smetana, 2017). Indeed, some research findings drawn from the body of research on the social-domain model have shown that parental regulation of actions related to the child’s personal domain are identified by adolescents as part of a psychologically overcontrolling style of parenting (i.e. authoritarianism), which is, in turn, associated with maladaptive behaviour (Kakihara & Tilton‐Weaver, 2009; Smetana & Daddis, 2002).

Barber’s parental Psychological Control Scale (PCS; Barber, 1996) is perhaps the prominent and widely used measure for assessing the parental construct in question in recent decades. Its shorter updated version contains eight items assessing the aspects of invalidating feelings, constraining verbal expression, personal attack, and love withdrawal (Barber et al., 2012). More recently, Barber and his colleagues have introduced disrespect as the specific mechanism of parental psychological control underlining the several adverse effects in adolescents. The researchers composed an 8-item variant scale of a different measure of psychological control, labelled the Psychological Control – Disrespect Scale (PCDS; Barber et al., 2012), which particularly measures acts of hostility and indifference as opposed to a more subtle measurement of psychological control. They found this construct to account for the unique variance in adolescents’ depression and antisocial behaviour above and beyond the psychological control (PCS) as well as parental behavioural control and support did. Not only was the PCDS found to be conceptually and psychometrically distinct from the traditional psychological control scale, but it was also shown to be far more predictive of the adolescents’ psychological maladjustment. The new psychological control scale encompasses numerous parental behaviours that were identified by adolescents as disrespectful of their individuality, including ridiculing, violation of privacy, comparing to others, ignoring, and embarrassing in public.

Lately, a few research studies have used the disrespect scale with young mature participants. This evidence demonstrated the possible long-term effects of parental psychological control in late adolescence and emerging adulthood (Beyarslan & Uzer, 2020; Parise et al., 2017), suggesting that the adverse consequences of that kind of parenting experience in childhood and adolescence might persist into adulthood and even compromise individuals’ emotional well-being and interpersonal relationships. These studies and a few others signify the potential adverse role played by parental psychological control in various psychological contexts among emerging adults, highlighting the importance of understanding its significance and effects in post-adolescence periods. Arnett (2000) first coined the term ‘emerging adulthood’ to describe an age period from the late adolescence to the mid-20s as a new period of the life course with distinctive developmental characteristics, which includes five main features: exploration, instability, self-focused, feelings of in-between, and possibilities (Arnett, 2007). During the past decade, there is growing recognition that the post-adolescence period of emerging adulthood up to stable adulthood lasts between the ages of 18–29, reflected in developed countries’ populations experiencing ‘not just a brief transition to adulthood but a new life stage between that of adolescence and of young adulthood’ (Arnett et al., 2014, p. 569). Due to numerous social factors delaying adolescents’ transition into full adulthood, many parents do not treat their 18- to 25-year-old children as adults (Nelson et al., 2007). Indeed, young adults nowadays become increasingly dependent on support from their parents to accomplish the developmental tasks of emerging adulthood (Booth et al., 2011), especially in various contexts of academic performance in higher education. This fact extends the relevance and validity of parental control to later periods of emerging adulthood. Another theoretical interest is to understand the long-term effects of negative childhood parent–child relation experiences (Yaffe, 2021). Either way, in dealing with the consequences of past and present parents’ psychological control on psychological adjustment amongst older populations, it is vital to foster and develop the measurement abilities designed for this construct. With respect to the PCDS specifically, while a few studies have provided some evidence supporting the measurement validity of the PCDS in emerging adults (see Chou & Chou, 2020; Rodríguez-Menéndez et al., 2021), most of them used the scale with middle to late adolescents. Thus, more methodological information regarding the scale’s psychometric properties, especially when used with a wider range of young adult groups, is lacking. Also, while there is compelling evidence supporting the scale’s measurement invariance across cultures (Barber et al., 2012; Chou & Chou, 2020), so far there is only limited evidence regarding its measurement equality across genders (Rodríguez-Menéndez et al., 2021). Finally, there is a constant need to further explore and expand the psychometric data of the PCDS as derived from the single works testing its validation (Barber et al., 2012; Rodríguez-Menéndez et al., 2021). In this regard, given the scale’s culturally proved viability, there is great merit in utilizing its versions in different cultures and languages.

In light of the above, this brief study aims to test the psychometric properties and measurement invariance across sex of the PCDS in Hebrew-speaking, emerging adult descendants. Apart from enlarging the limited existing data of the scale’s psychometric properties, especially in international settings (i.e. in the Hebrew language version), the study’s general goal is to provide evidence for the PCDS’s validity in a wide age-range of emerging adults (i.e. 18–29; Alexander & Lowe, 2022), within which this scale’s psychometric properties have not been tested previously. In particular, the study aims to test the fit of the one factor (dimension) scale with eight items of the new parental psychological control scale (disrespect) with respect to mothers, along with confirming its measurement invariance across sexes. The study also aims to collect more data on the PCDS’s internal consistency and test–retest reliability, as evidence regarding the scale’s latter index is still lacking. Since parenting styles and practices may differ by the parent’s genders (Yaffe, 2020), this exploratory study focuses first on maternal psychological control. Finally, the study sought to extend the evidence regarding the scale’s construct validity, by testing its convergence against other conceptually corresponding valid parenting scales normally used with adolescents and young adults. In this regard, we hypothesized that the participants’ scores on the PCDS scale regarding their mothers would positively and negatively correlate (respectively) with the PAQ’s authoritarian and authoritative parenting scales.

Method

Participants and procedure

The following research procedure was approved by the author’s institutional review board (IRB) (Ref. number 7/2021–5) as part of a broader study on parent–child relations. The sample comprised 364 participants (184 females and 179 males; 1 participant failed to report his/her sex), whose age ranges between 18 and 29 (M = 24.38, SD = 3.03). All the participants were Israeli emerging adults, with about 93% of them speaking Hebrew as their native language. Of the sample’s participants, 87.3% reported growing up with two parents in the family, while the rest reported growing up in single-parent families. The sample’s mean family size (in terms of number of children) was 3.80 ± 2.35. The study’s questionnaires were administered as an anonymous online survey in Hebrew between April and May 2022 by a professional survey company. Participants were young adults registered in the Israeli national comprehensive database of the survey provider, who were invited by the company to take part in a research survey based on their demographic characteristics (according to the study’s criteria variables for inclusion, which mainly referred to age, sex, and Hebrew language literacy). Recruited participants were given a link to an online research form, where they could find information about the study and their rights. Participants signed a digital informed consent form, confirming their will to take part in the study based on the details they had read and understood. Participants were allowed to withdraw at any stage. They were also provided with the researchers’ details, whom they could contact in case of they needed more information or faced an unexpected problem or distress. Participants completed a battery of questionnaires (as detailed below), including demographics. Each participant was automatically given a random identifying number by the system for the purpose of matching/pairing the responses for a partial second round designed to test the PCDS’s reliability. Fifty participants’ numbers were randomly selected for a second-round administration of the PCDS scale, of whom 41 participants responded and completed the questionnaire for the second time.

Instruments

Psychological control scale disrespect (PCDS; Barber et al., 2012)

The participants’ perceptions regarding their mothers’ rearing behaviours in their family were assessed using Barber’s new Psychological Control Scale – disrespect. Participants were instructed to ‘think about the relationships with their mothers’ and determine the extent to which each of the scale’s eight statements (e.g. ‘my mother tried to make me feel guilty for something I’ve done or something she thought I should do’) describe her well. The scale was originally validated against several measures of parenting and the child’s outcome, including the child’s antisocial behaviour and depression (Barber et al., 2012). In the current study, the response for an item was given on a 5-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 – Not like her at all to 5 – Very much like her, with a higher response representing a higher expression of maternal psychological control. The translation and adaptation process of the English PCDS into Hebrew was carried out by the author and a professional bilingual English translator, using the three steps back-forward translation procedure in accordance with the guidelines for test translation provided by Van de Vijver and Hambleton (1996). The three consecutive translation stages included translation from English into Hebrew, followed by translation from Hebrew back into English, and finally translation from English back into Hebrew. Each of these translation steps was overseen by a proficient bilingual English translator. The final Hebrew version utilized in this study was reviewed and approved by an educational psychologist whose native language is Hebrew. The PCDS scale’s scores and psychometric data appear in Table 2.

Table 1. Goodness-of-fit indexes for the psychological control disrespect (PCDS) scale with 7 and 8 items.

Model	Items	χ2	df	χ2/df	RMSEA (90% CI)	SRMR	TLI	CFI	GFI
One-factor	7^a	52.04*	13	4.00	.091 (.066, .117)	.035	.944	.965	.959
One-factor	8	123.75*	19	6.51	.123 (.103, .144)	.054	.882	.920	.919

Note: χ2 Chi-square, df degrees of freedom, RMSEA root mean square error of approximation; SRMR standardized root mean square residual, TLI Tucker–Lewis fit index, CFI comparative fit index, GFI Goodness of fit index.

*p<.001.

^bExcluding item 6.

Table 2. Factor loadings and descriptive statistics for the psychological control-disrespect scale (PCDS) by the child’s sex (N = 363).

Item number and content^a	Loadings (F/M)	Mean (F/M)	SD (F/M)	CITC (F/M)
1. Ridicules me or puts me down (e.g. saying I am stupid, useless, etc.).	.72/.81	1.42/1.41	.94/.77	.85/.84
2. Embarrasses me in public (e.g. in front of my friends).	.76/.74	1.66/1.68	1.08/1.05	.84/.84
3. Doesn’t respect me as a person (e.g. not letting me talk, favoring others).	.73/.76	1.33/1.31	.85/.77	.85/.84
4. Violates my privacy (e.g. entering my room, going through my things, etc.).	.59/.67	1.93/2.04	1.30/1.30	.87/.84
5. Tries to make me feel guilty for something I’ve done.	.73/.70	2.10/2.00	1.40/1.30	.85/.83
7. Often unfairly compares me to someone else (e.g. to my brother or sister).	.70/.60	2.02/2.02	1.32/1.34	.85/.85
8. Often ignores me (e.g. walking away from me, not paying attention to me).	.77/.64	1.40/1.46	.98/.89	.84/.84

Note. Item’s response scale ranges between 1 and 5. CITC = corrected item-total-correlations; All factor loadings are significant at < .001.

Item 6 (“Expects too much of me (e.g. to be a better person, etc)”) was excluded due to low factor loading.

Parental Authority Questionnaire (PAQ; Buri, 1991)

The PAQ originally contains 30 items and is used to classify parents into to one of Baumrind’s three parenting styles (Baumrind, 1971), based on the child’s self-report. For the purposes of the current study (that is, to test the convergent validity of the PCDS against the PAQ scales), only the Authoritative style (10 items, e.g. ‘As I was growing up, once family policy had been established, my parents discussed the reasoning behind the policy with the children in the family’), and the Authoritarian style (10 items, e.g. ‘As I was growing up my parents did not allow me to question any decision they had made’), were used. The response scale for an item ranges from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). The index for each parenting style is the sum of the relevant items of each scale. Thus, the total score for each parenting scale ranges from 10 to 50, with a higher score reflecting a higher specification of the style. This is a valid questionnaire with relatively high internal consistency and test–retest reliabilities (see Buri, 1991; Smetana, 1995), widely used internationally either with adolescents or young adults (see Janik McErlean & Lim, 2020) to assess Baumrind’s three parenting styles using child’s reports. Previous research has provided evidence for the PAQ’s validity in its Hebrew version, including adequate rates of reliability and internal consistency (Mayseless et al., 2003; Yaffe, 2018). In the current sample, we recorded Cronbach’s Alpha coefficients for the authoritarian and authoritative scales of .93 and .87 (respectively), which are even slightly higher than the reliability data reported for these scales in past research.

Results

The section briefly describes several validation procedures aiming to test the psychometric properties and goodness-of-fit of the PCDS when used with emerging adults. It starts with examining the scale’s fit to the data using CFA, while verifying its measurement invariance across the child’s sex. Next, the scale’s statistics and psychometric properties are presented, including its internal consistency reliability and test re-test reliability indexes. To reinforce the construct validity of the PCDS, we also tested the scale against other valid parenting scales for child’s report normally used with adolescents and young adults, seeking convergence between the participants’ scores on the two instruments.

CFA

To begin with, Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin measure of sample size adequacy (KMO = .88) (Kaiser, 1974) and Bartlett’s test of sphericity (χ2(28) = 1324.60, p < .001) indicated that the sample meets the minimal standards for conducting a factor analysis (DeVellis, 2003). The primary CFA with eight items yielded inadequate model fit indices, with its item 6 loading failing to reach the threshold of 0.6 (Dash & Paul, 2021). While permitting item 6 to covariate with another individual item (using modification indices) slightly improves the model fit indices, this item’s loading on the PCDS scale still failed to reach the desired threshold. Upon excluding this item, the PCDS with a 7-item model provided a good fit to the data, with its CFI and GFI indices exceeding .95, the TLI exceeding .90, and the SRMR falling below the value of .80 (Hu & Bentler, 1999; Kline, 2016; McDonald & Ho, 2002). The specific results of the CFA analyses are displayed in Table 1, separately for the PCDS with 7 and 8 items. Subject to the borderline value of fit of the RMSEA index (which failed to reach the cut-off value of .60), the combination of whole other indices suggests an acceptable fit of the 7-item of the PCDS when used with emerging adults. The differences in goodness-of-fit between the two scales’ models (i.e. with and without item 6) were significant (CMIN-χ2(6) = 71.71, p < .001), indicating that the 7-item model of the PCDS is statistically favourable.

Internal consistency reliability and item analysis

Table 2 displays the factor loadings and descriptive data for the PCDS by informant’s sex, after excluding one item. The remaining items all reached the 0.6 threshold in the general sample. For both sexes, a good internal consistency reliability was obtained (Cronbach’s α), with its coefficients ranging from .86 to .87 for males and females, respectively. The results also reveal a total-item-correlation of the scale’s seven items that meets the standard to support internal consistency (i.e. the threshold of .30; DeVellis, 2003), indicating a good aptitude of these items to discriminate between male and female emerging adults’ descendants who are low and high on the measure of their mother’s psychological control.

Measurement invariance across the child’s sex

Measurement invariance across the child’s sex of the PCDS scale was examined by dividing the full sample of respondents into two subgroups of 179 males and 184 females. Table 3 presents the fit indices for the configural invariance, metric invariance, and scalar invariance, generally exhibiting an adequate fit for all three invariance models with regard to the PCDS scale measurements across the child’s sex. In this regard, all the model-fit indices exceed the .90 threshold, indicating an adequate model-fit at three levels of model constraint. Also, the chi-square values of the differences between the models were statistically insignificant for the metric and the scalar invariance models, both indicating a measurement indifference between males and females reporting their mothers. Further evidence for the scale’s measurement invariance across sexes is derived from the model-fit change in the CFI indices between the models (Cheung & Rensvold, 2002), which in this case does not decrease as a result of the imposition of equality constraints between models. Taken together, the findings support measurement equality for the PCDS across sex at the three levels of invariance.

Table 3. Model fit indices of measurement invariance for the PCSD across sex.

Model	χ2 (df)	χ2/df	RMSEA (90% CI)	TLI	CFI	Comparison	Δ χ2	ΔCFI
M1: Configural invariance	91.33* (26)	3.51	.083 (.07–.10)	.910	.943	-	-	-
M2: Metric invariance	97.04* (32)	3.03	.075 (.06–.09)	.926	.944	M1, M2	5.71	.001
M3: Scalar invariance	100.15* (39)	2.57	.066 (.05–.08)	.943	.947	M3, M2	3.11	.003

Note: χ2 Chi-square, df degrees of freedom, RMSEA root mean square error of approximation; TLI Tucker–Lewis fit index, CFI comparative fit index.

*p<.001.

Convergent validity and scale’s test–retest reliability

In general, the PCDS scale was not statistically correlated in the current sample with either the participants’ age (r= −.07, p > .05) or with the size (r= −.07, p > .05) of their origin families. As part of exploring the PCDS convergent validity in the current sample, the scale’s scores were tested against the participants’ corresponding scores on the authoritarian and authoritative scales of the Parental Authority Questionnaire (PAQ) separately for males and females. Consistent with our hypothesis, we observed medium to strong positive correlations between the PCDS and the PAQ authoritarian scale, ranging from .67 to .80 for males and females (respectively). Consistently, we observed medium negative correlations between the PCDS and the PAQ authoritative scale, with their coefficients ranging from −.52 to −.65 for males and females (respectively).

Of the current sample, 41 participants (25 females and 16 males) were randomly selected to recomplete the PCDS at a time interval of 3 weeks, for the purpose of evaluating the scale’s test–retest reliability. The ICC index was calculated using two-way mixed effects of the absolute agreement type, with the average measure as an overall index of the scale’s test–retest reliability, and a 95% confidence interval (CI). In general, ICC values between 0.5 and 0.75 indicate moderate reliability, values between 0.75 and 0.9 indicate good reliability, and values greater than 0.90 indicate excellent reliability (Koo & Li, 2016). Accordingly, Table 4 unveils excellent test–retest reliability indices for the PCDS when used with emerging adults reporting their mothers. Consistently, the bivariate correlation between the scale’s first test and re-test scores was r = .92 (p < .001).

Table 4. Intraclass correlation coefficients between each test occasion of the PCDS with 95% CI (N = 41).

	Between occasion 1 and 2 (3 weeks interval)
	ICC	(95% CI)	p
Single Measures	.92	(.84–.96)	<.001
Average Measures	.96	(.91–.98)	<.001

ICC = Intraclass correlation coefficient; CI = confidence interval

Discussion

The study is among the first to test the validity of the variant of psychological control (disrespect) scale (Barber et al., 2012), and the very first to test its psychometric properties and convergent validity in a large age-range of emerging adults. This discussion briefly describes the study’s main findings and their significance, while pointing out its limitations and the necessary direction for further research. First, according to our findings, the model that best fits the data contains seven items, with item number 6 excluded due to inadequate factor loading on the latent variable of psychological control. While one might consider this item, ‘Expects too much of me (e.g. to do better in school, to be a better person, etc.)’, as less relevant for emerging adults, a low (and the lowest) factor loading of this item was also the case observed in testing the scale with cross-cultural early to late adolescents (Barber et al., 2012). Subject to the exclusion of the item in question, the model fit indexes indicate a good fit of the PCDS when used with emerging adults, which accords with the data reported for this scale with adolescents and younger adults in previous studies (Barber et al., 2012; Rodríguez-Menéndez et al., 2021). The scale also exhibited equivalent psychometric properties across sex (that is, sex measurement invariance), meaning that sex differences in PCDS scores can be attributed to differences in perceived maternal psychological control between male and female descendants per se rather than to a discrete measurement of this variable between sexes. This finding enhances the limited evidence regarding the PCDS measurement invariance across sex (Rodríguez-Menéndez et al., 2021), allowing us to properly interpret child’s sex differences in perceived parental psychological control when using the scale in future research. Similarly, the current study obtained more supportive data regarding the scales’ reliability, especially evidence demonstrating its excellent test–retest reliability (i.e. scores’ stability/consistency measured for the same group of informants over time) when used with emerging adults reporting their mothers’ psychological control.

The current study, whose findings are based on a large age-range of emerging adults, can contribute to broadening the research on parental psychological control in post-adolescence periods using the PCDS, whose predictive ability of emotional variables was demonstrated to be above and beyond those of the measure of psychological control (PCS) (Barber et al., 2012). Its findings are especially meaningful given the importance of studying parent–child relationships’ variables in emerging adulthood (Chou & Chou, 2020; Nelson et al., 2007; Yaffe, 2021), particularly the short- and long-term effects of parental psychological control on the descendants’ social well-being (Beyarslan & Uzer, 2020; Parise et al., 2017).

Finally, aside from its sound psychometric properties, the PCDS also exhibited a strong convergence with conceptually analogous valid scales of parenting (that is, the authoritarian and authoritative styles), which strengthens the scale’s validity as a measure of maladaptive parenting construct, especially in mothers of emerging adults. These findings are consistent with previous research (mainly with middle to late adolescence), documenting a convergence between the PCDS and other measures of parental control/support and family concept, and also concurrent validity against emotional and behavioural outcome indexes (Barber et al., 2012; Rodríguez-Menéndez et al., 2021).

The study’s findings are limited in two major respects, principally deriving from the exploratory nature of the study. First, the sample’s participants were included in the current study on a convenience sampling basis, which might not be representative of the local population of emerging adults. This fact could somewhat restrict the generalizability of the study’s conclusions regarding the PCDS’s validity among this group of reference. Also, in testing the scale’s validity as a child’s report measure of parental psychological control in emerging adults, we opted to focus first solely on mothers rather than fathers (as reasoned in the introduction section). Despite previous research indicating comparable psychometric properties of the PCDS for mothers and fathers (see Rodríguez-Menéndez et al., 2021), complementary research to the study’s findings with a similar age-range emerging adults is required to reinforce the scale’s validity with respect to fathers. This is also the case with respect to using the PCDS with emerging adults across different cultures, in which the scale’s validity and psychometric properties need to be further verified in several languages forms and cultural settings with young adults. The prior evidence suggesting measurement invariance across a few cultures (Barber et al., 2012; Chou & Chou, 2020) should be extended to older descendants’ population from different nationalities to further generalize the current findings regarding the PCDS measurement with emerging adults. Subject to the study’s limitations, its findings, integrated with previous research, suggest that the PCDS is a sound instrument for assessing parental psychological control across ages and sexes, which can also be used with a wide age-range of emerging adults beyond middle and late adolescence.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Yosi Yaffe

Yosi Yaffe (Ph.D.) holds a senior lecturer position in the departments of special education and educational psychology at Tel-Hai Academic College. His area of expertise lies in family measurement, with a particular interest of parent-child relationships in various contexts of emotional well-being and educational performance of adolescents and emerging adults with and without special needs.