The Role of Maternal Connectedness-oriented Behaviors in Predicting Adjustment in Chinese Children: a Longitudinal Study

• In Event: 1-070 - Exploring Links between Family Processes and Child Development in China

Integrative Statement

Social connectedness refers to a sense of social belongingness and association with others. As one of the basic human needs, establishing social connectedness is considered important for adaptive human development in various areas such as socioemotional and cognitive functions (e.g., Keller, 2012). Because parents are influential socialization agents, it is important to investigate how parents encourage connectedness and how parental connectedness orientation affects individual development, especially, in collective countries such as China where group interest and social harmony are valued. The current study investigated connectedness-oriented behaviors during mother-child interaction and their associations with children’s later social and school adjustment in China. It was a longitudinal study, with data collected at three time periods.
Participants were 110 children (50 boys, 60 girls), at 2 years old and their mothers took part in the original study. Information on maternal encouragement of connectedness was obtained through the observation of mother-child interactions (Time 1). Data on children’s social participation, prosocial behavior, aggression, and organization/leadership in peer interactions were collected in a follow-up study when the children were 4 years of age (Time 2). Data on school adjustment including peer liking, school attitude, loneliness and teacher-rated school-related competence and problems were collected when the children were aged 7 (grade 1) (Time 3). Because maternal encouragement of connectedness may promote children’s affiliative and co-operative behaviors, which may in turn provide children with opportunities to interact with others and consequently learn necessary social skills for group activities, we expected that maternal encouragement of connectedness when children were aged 2 would be associated with children’s social competence, leadership/organization and prosocial behaviors such as helping and sharing in peer interactions at age 4. We also hypothesized that maternal encouragement of connectedness would have positive meanings to school adjustment when children were age 7. Specifically, we expected that maternal encouragement of connectedness when children were aged 2 would be positively associated with positive school attitude and peer liking, and negatively associated with adjustment problems such as loneliness and teacher-rated school-related problems at age 7.
Longitudinal analyses revealed that maternal encouragement of connectedness significantly predicted children’s sociability and organization/leadership behavior at age 4. Maternal encouragement of connectedness significantly predicted children’s prosocial behaviors for those children who displayed higher level of behavioral connectedness originally at age 2. In addition, maternal encouragement of connectedness significantly predicted children’s positive attitudes about school and peer liking at age 7. Maternal encouragement of connectedness was negatively associated with children’s learning problems and self-reported loneliness in girls at age 7. The results suggest that encouragement of connectedness is reflected in maternal parenting behaviors when children are at a very young age. Moreover, maternal connectedness-oriented behaviors have important developmental significance to individual development in the Chinese society.

Authors

• Mowei Liu, Trent University
  Presenting Author

• Ruixin Cao, Renmin University of China
  Non-Presenting Author

• Shujie Zheng, LuDong University
  Non-Presenting Author