Performance Feedback and Mothers’ Controlling Behaviors: An Experimental Study

• In Event: 2-027 - Understanding the Complexity of Parental Control: Definitions, Measures, Outcomes, and Moderators

Integrative Statement

There is evidence that performance pressure can influence parents’ use of controlling practices. Parents tend to be more controlling when they perceive their environment as highly evaluative and when an integral part of their own self-worth is based on their children’s success. While the role of perceived evaluative threat has been examined, it is unclear how feedback for children’s performance, when provided directly to parents, may influence parents’ use of control and children’s subsequent task engagement and performance. Three questions guided the current research. First, do mothers’ controlling behaviors change as a consequence of the nature of the feedback they receive? Second, do parents’ controlling practices predict changes in their children’s task engagement and performance? Third, what underlies the role of feedback in parents’ interactive style with their children?

Participants were 121 mother-child dyads. Children (mean age = 12.11) and their mothers (mean age = 40.45) were invited to visit a research laboratory on a typical school day and were told that they would be working on a few cognitive tasks alone and together. Dyads were randomly assigned into one of three groups -- positive feedback (i.e., performing higher than the group norm), negative feedback (i.e., performing lower than the group norm), and no feedback. Children worked on a cognitive task before their mothers joined them for a 15-minute reunion. Children’s work was ostensibly scored and mothers were informed of their children’s performance according to the experimental condition in which they were assigned. During the reunion, children were asked to work on several additional logical reasoning problems and mothers were free to provide assistance if they wished. The 15-min. mother-child interaction was videotaped and subsequently coded by observers who were blind to the research hypotheses. Randomization check indicated that participants across the three conditions did not differ on key demographic and psychological variables before the experimental manipulation.

Consistent with our expectation, mothers in the negative (vs. positive) feedback condition used more controlling practices (e.g., tell answers), ts > 2.30, p < .05. In contrast, mothers in the positive (vs. negative) feedback condition were more likely to use autonomy supportive practices (e.g., wait to be needed), ts > 2.18, p < .05. Regression analysis indicated that mothers’ involvement was associated with children’s performance on the cognitive task, above and beyond children’s earlier performance, for dyads in the positive feedback condition only, b = .45, p < .05. Surprisingly, mothers in the negative (vs. positive and no feedback) condition were more likely to view their children as highly competent at the task, F = 9.05, ps < .001, after the reunion. However, such a belief did not explain differences in their use of controlling practices between mothers’ the positive and negative feedback conditions.

Findings indicate that performance feedback may serve as an evaluative threat, which may lead mothers to be more controlling when their children are perceived as trailing behind. Importantly, their controlling involvement does not predict gains in children’s performance, even though they may view their children as competent.

Authors

• Cecilia Cheung, University of California, Riverside
  Presenting Author

• Vanessa Zavala, University of California, Riverside
  Non-Presenting Author

• Yena Kyeong, University of California, Riverside
  Non-Presenting Author