Poster #21 - Cultural variances in parental behaviors and their effects on 3-year-old children’s mastery motivation

• In Event: 2-001 - Poster Session 1 during Breakfast

Abstract

Purpose: Mastery motivation is an individual’s innate drive to master and influence the environment; the development of mastery motivation can be shaped by various conditions and environments, especially children’s social experiences with caregivers (Barrett et al., 1993; Busch-Rossnagel et al., 1995). Previous studies have overlooked the cultural variance in parents' influences on children’s mastery motivation, through either using homogeneous sample with mainly European American families, or evaluating the overall effects by lumping all the ethnic and SES groups together. Comparing between European-, African-, and Hispanic-American families, the current study aims to investigate the cultural variance in parental autonomy supportiveness, cognitive stimulation, and intrusiveness during children's challenging puzzle game tasks; and how culture moderates the effects of these behaviors on child mastery motivation (child persistence and frustration).

Methods: Drawing the sample from the Early Head Start Research and Evaluation (EHSRE) project, multiple methodological approaches were used to identify cultural differences. First, I used one-way ANOVA (a variable-oriented approach) to investigate group differences in each parental behavior. Because this approach cannot capture within group variance and consider multiple dimensions together, I then used Latent Profile Analysis (LPA) to identify the typology of parenting response styles with the three parental behaviors, and the common and unique styles across cultures. Further, I used Structure Equation Modeling (SEM) and multi-group SEM to identify the cultural moderation of the effects of parental behaviors.

Results: ANOVA showed that European American parents were higher on parents' autonomy supportiveness and cognitive stimulation, and lower on intrusiveness than parents from the other two groups. The LPA results identified the same typology across three cultural groups, and also that the "restrained group" is the most common group across cultures (Figure 1). Multi-group SEM showed similarity across cultures in the effects of parental autonomy supportiveness and cognitive stimulation on child’s persistence, but intrusiveness has weaker effects on child persistence for African- and Hispanic-American families than for European-American families (Figure 2).

Conclusion: The functions of two different approaches (variable-oriented approaches and person-oriented approaches) in cross-cultural studies were discussed: the two approaches have different advantages; and parts of the results are complementary. The study found the culturally specific meanings of parental intrusiveness or control, which should inform both future methods of examining parenting behaviors, as well as our reasoning about the role of parental control in socialization. Further, the limitation of the current data and study, as well as future studies were discussed.

Authors

• Wen Wang, Michigan State University
  Presenting Author

• Claire Vallotton, Michigan State University