Poster #149 - The Impact of Environmental Threat on Children’s Perceptions of Controlling Practices and Motivations: An Experimental Study

• In Event: 3-206 - Poster Session 13
  In Poster Session: PS 13 Section - Parenting & Parent-Child Relationships

Integrative Statement

Controlling parenting (pressuring, intrusive and dominating practices; Grolnick & Pomerantz, 2009) has been repeatedly shown to impair the quality of children’s motivations by promoting external and introjected regulations as well as amotivation (i.e., absence of clear purpose for emitting a behavior; Ryan & Deci, 2017). In turn, these motivations have been associated with reduced skill learning and less effective self-regulation in important areas of children’s development (e.g., less persistence and competence in a task, reduced executive functioning, and impaired emotional regulation and social adjustment; see Joussemet et al., 2008, for a review). Although the adverse impact of controlling parenting on children is well documented, research unfortunately shows that even parents who aim to support their children’s autonomy are not immune to the pressures prompting controlling practices (Robichaud et al., 2018). In order to nurture children’s optimal development, it is thus essential to unravel the risk factors leading to these suboptimal practices, with the ultimate goal of developing effective interventions to prevent them.

Past studies looking at the antecedents of controlling parenting have shown an association between parents’ controlling practices and their perceptions of the environment as threatening the future of their children (i.e., perceptions of the environment as worrying, competitive, harsh, resource-scarce, and unstable; Gurland & Grolnick, 2005). Yet, the causal impact of environmental threat on controlling practices has yet to be investigated. To fill this gap, the present study relies on an experimental design to test the impact of mothers’ perceptions of environmental threat on children’s perceptions of maternal controlling practices during a guided-learning task and own motivations toward that task.

Method. A total of 101 mother-child dyads participated in this study (children’s Mage= 10.20 years; 49 boys). We first manipulated mothers’ perceptions of environmental threat through journalistic reports (supposedly designed for another study) and subsequently asked them to help their children complete a task situated in children’s zone of proximal development. Children’s perceptions of their mothers’ parenting practices during the task, argued to determine the actual impact of parenting on children’s outcomes (Soenens et al., 2015), were then assessed in addition to their level of autonomous and controlled motivations and their amotivation (Guay et al., 2000).

Results. Structural equation modeling showed that mothers in the threat condition were perceived by their children as more controlling than those in the neutral condition. These perceptions in turn predicted higher levels of controlled motivations and amotivation (see Figure 1). A bootstrap analysis also revealed significant indirect links from environmental threat to children’s controlled motivations and amotivation, through perceived maternal controlling practices.

Conclusions. These results suggest that when parents perceive that the environment threatens the future of their children, they are more likely to be controlling, which in turn negatively affects children’s motivations. Showing these relations with an experimental design confirms for the first time the causal impact of environmental threat on controlling parenting. These results are important because they suggest that becoming controlling may be an automatic, but counterproductive, parental reaction to perceived threat.

Authors

• Genevieve A. Mageau, University of Montreal
  Presenting Author

• Jean-Michel Robichaud, Université de Montréal
  Non-Presenting Author

• Mélodie Roy, Université de Montréal
  Non-Presenting Author

• Francis Ranger, Université de Montréal
  Non-Presenting Author