Evidence of Socialization between Mothers’ and Older Offspring’s Mastery Orientations

• In Event: Poster Session 01
  In Poster Session: PS 01 Topic - Parenting & Parent-Child Relationships

Abstract

Mastery orientation involves having a sense of control over one’s life events and experiences (Pearlin & Schooler, 1978). Mastery orientation is positively associated with active coping and locus of control, and negatively associated with emotion dysregulation and depressive and anxious symptoms (Hobfoll et al., 2002). Mastery-oriented individuals often develop successful achievement strategies that shape how they tackle challenging roles (i.e., parenting) and feel they have the psychological resources to manage the challenges of those roles (Aunola et al., 1999). Like many values that can be directly socialized and indirectly modeled for children, mastery orientations can be internalized and long-retained by offspring (see Grusec, 2011). This is important, because mastery orientations are broadly associated with adjustment for youth and adults (e.g., Miu & Yeager, 2015).
We considered the ways mastery orientations may be similar between mothers and offspring (a sign of socialization and internalization within families) and investigated the ways older adolescent and adult offspring—individuals who are spending less direct time with parents (see Laursen & Collins, 2009)—may show signs of internalizing mothers’ mastery orientations. That is, we had the opportunity to consider possible long-term socialization effects of mothers’ mastery. Using a secondary, longitudinal, and multi-cohort analysis, we addressed a) whether mothers’ reports of mastery orientation were associated with adolescent and adult offsprings' reports of mastery and b) whether the associations between mothers’ mastery orientation and offsprings’ mastery orientation were moderated by offspring demographics (i.e., gender, age, ethnic background). We hypothesized that mothers’ reports of mastery would be uniquely and positively associated with offsprings' reports of mastery. We did not have a priori hypotheses of moderation effects.
We considered data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, 2019) and particularly reports of mastery collected by mothers in 1992 and offspring (ages = 15 – 42; 49.4% girls/women) between 1994 and 2012. Using hierarchical linear models, we tested for differences in reports of offspring mastery given demographics and mothers’ reports of mastery.
Mother reports of mastery and offspring age had positive, main effects on offspring reports of mastery. Further, there was a two-way interaction between mother reports of mastery and offspring age, such that older offspring showed larger benefits from mothers’ mastery. That is, older offspring—older adolescents and adults more likely to be out of the home—had the highest reports of mastery, when their mothers had higher mastery scores.
Our findings reinforce the importance of maternal socialization for mastery-orientation and suggest that mothers influence long-impacting trajectories of value-internalization for offspring. This is important given a) intergenerational effects of parenting behaviors (e.g., Booker et al., 2018) and b) the ways mastery has been linked to domains of psychological adjustment (e.g., Korte et al., 2012). Questions remain on the processes that contribute to mothers’ socialization and offsprings’ internalization of mastery orientations specifically. Future work should address the ways mothers model and directly encourage mastery-related values in routine family behaviors (i.e., problem-solving, family storytelling).

Authors

• Mikayla Arda Ell, University of Missouri - Columbia
  Presenting Author

• Jordan Ashton Booker, University of Missouri - Columbia
  Non-Presenting Author