Tests of differences in the SDM by gender, race/ethnic, or income groups have found very little evidence for differences in the structural relations (Fleming, Catalano, Oxford, & Harachi, 2002; Skinner, Haggerty, & Catalano, 2009), lending some support to the model. However, further tests using invariant measures of parenting are still needed to better illustrate how race/ethnicity influences the social developmental process. For instance, African American parents may use certain culturally sanctioned parenting strategies more frequently than European American parents. They might include more guilt induction or directives without the need for explanations. Such behaviors should be reflected in mean differences in observable behaviors between parents and teens. Likewise the relationship between the key construct of rewards/costs (detailed below) and teen behavior may be different for African Americans than European Americans. If African American parents use important parenting behaviors more frequently, but the expected teen outcomes are not more frequent, then perhaps that is because the relationship between that parenting behavior and the teen outcome is not as strong for African Americans as European Americans. A randomized test of an SDM-inspired
