When Parents Practice What They Preach: A Theory of Digital Adab Credibility in Muslim Families
Keywords:
digital adab credibility, digital parenting, behavioral integrity, moral hypocrisy, parental word-deed congruence, rule legitimacyAbstract
Digital parenting increasingly involves a paradox in which parents regulate children’s digital conduct while remaining highly visible digital users whose behavior may contradict the standards they prescribe. Existing research explains parental mediation, behavioral modeling, and technoference but insufficiently theorizes how children evaluate the moral credibility and legitimacy of parental digital rule-givers. This conceptual paper develops Digital Adab Credibility Theory (DACT), a middle-range theory explaining how parental digital word–deed alignment shapes children’s normative responses to morally framed digital rules in Muslim families. Integrating parental mediation, social learning, behavioral integrity, and moral hypocrisy perspectives, DACT specifies two asymmetric pathways of credibility construction and erosion. Perceived word–deed congruence generates digital adab credibility, strengthening rule legitimacy and normative acceptance, whereas salient incongruence may activate hypocrisy attribution, erode credibility, delegitimize parental rules, and stimulate resistance. By theorizing rule-giver credibility as a legitimacy-generating mechanism, DACT extends digital parenting and behavioral integrity research into intergenerational moral socialization and establishes a testable research agenda on credibility dynamics, developmental boundaries, moralization, and culturally embedded digital parenting.
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