Poster #216 - What Predicts Preschoolers' Feelings of Maternal and Peer Acceptance: Similarities and Differences

• In Event: 3-159 - Poster Session 12
  In Poster Session: PS 12 Section - Social, Emotional, Personality

Integrative Statement

Justification: While a great deal of the research on self-development focuses on the school years and adolescence, there much happening during early childhood as well. This study examined predictors of an understudied aspect of self-concept, young children’s feelings of acceptance by mothers and peers, using a bio-psycho-social lens. Based on a review of the literature, we hypothesized that Theory of Mind (ToM), attachment, temperament, and a temperament x attachment interaction would all contribute. Specifically, we expected that a fully developed (as opposed to transitioning or undeveloped) ToM, difficult temperament and insecure attachment, as well as the difficult temperament by attachment interaction would predict low feelings of acceptance. Further, we predicted that these variables would better predict maternal acceptance than peer acceptance as children at this age are still more focused on mothers than they are on peers. This prediction is especially salient for attachment as it is a direct reflection of the mother-child relationship. Method: Participants were 102 preschoolers (52 females and 50 males), ranging in age from 4.0 to 5.73 years, of varying economic and cultural backgrounds. The measures included the Smarties Test (Gopnick & Astington, 1988) to measure ToM; the CBQ-SF (Putnam & Rothbart, 2006), to measure temperament, and the PRQ-P (Kamphaus & Reynolds 2006), a parent rating of attachment. The criterion variables, self perception of maternal and child acceptance were measured using the PSPCSA for young children (Harter & Pike, 1984). Results: Six Individual dimensions of temperament associated with literature derived difficult temperament were subjected to a Principle Components Analysis. The analysis yielded 3 components accounting for 81.2% of the variance. Factor one, consisting of high anger/frustration, reactivity, discomfort, and fear, was labeled difficult temperament. Using age as a control, two hierarchical multiple regressions was used to test the hypotheses. Age, was entered on the first step, the three predictors on the second and the interaction on the third. Results of these analyses are presented in Tables 1 and 2. For maternal acceptance, all three predictors were significant such that a fully developed ToM, insecure attachment and difficult temperament were predictive of low feelings of maternal acceptance. Neither age nor the interaction was significant. For feelings of peer acceptance, age was the strongest predictor followed by difficult temperament and ToM. The relation between the ToM and peer acceptance was in the same direction as maternal acceptance. Implications: Predicting young children’s feelings of being accepted by their mothers and peers is complex and not surprisingly appears to derive from interconnecting developmental processes. While in general, as expected, maternal acceptance was better explained by the predictors than peer, our most unique finding was that a fully developed ToM predicts feelings of being less well accepted by both mothers and peers than an undeveloped ToM. This suggests that as ToM becomes more sophisticated children are less optimistic, perhaps more realistic. Interestingly, while secure attachment predicts feelings of maternal acceptance, it does not predict feelings of peer acceptance. This supports contextual organizational and activation models currently embraced by some attachment theorists.

Authors

• Rose DiBiase, Suffolk University
  Presenting Author

• Denise Kyte, Suffolk University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Alexander Wheeler, Suffolk University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Patrice Marie Miller, Salem State University
  Non-Presenting Author