Poster #48 - Maternal Sensitivity, Mother-child Co-construction Skills, and Mothers’ Reasoning About own and Others’ Perspective in Conflicts

• In Event: Poster Session 19

Abstract

Different theoretical perspectives (e.g., Ainsworth et al., 1978/2015; Wainryb, 2017) regard the ability to consider others and own’s mental processes and internal experiences an important factor influencing social interactions and how we reason about them. Indeed, such ability has been found to be associated with social exchanges (e.g., mother-child interactions) and reasoning about others (e.g., moral agency). Answering the question of whether such ability applies to all kinds of interactions or whether is domain-specific (e.g., mother-child exchanges) has both theoretical and practical implications. We investigated whether mothers’ ability to consider their children’s perspective (perceive and accurately interpret the signals and communications implicit in children’s behavior and gear their behavior to the child’s moods and preferences in an appropriate and timely manner -i.e., sensitivity) is related to maternal reasoning about hers and others’ actions and psychological features in interactions other than those with her children. Specifically, we studied the associations, among maternal sensitivity, maternal ability (co-construction skills) to create a partnership with her child during a story-telling task, and aspects of mothers’ sense of moral agency concerned with understandings of acts as connected with intentions, emotions, beliefs, and judgments.
Sixty-three mother–child dyads (34 girls) from Bogotá, Colombia participated. Maternal age ranged from 18-40 years (M = 28.93, SD = 5.99 years). Child age ranged from 18–24 months (M = 21.41, SD = 1.91). Mothers’ sensitivity during 90-minute home interactions was assessed with the Maternal Behavior Q-Sort (Pederson & Moran, 1995). Maternal verbal co-construction skills were evaluated during a mother–child storytelling task during which dyads created stories about mother-child interactions using picture prompts. Mothers’ verbal contributions to the storytelling were assessed by independent researchers using three scales: Creating a co-construction atmosphere, Encouraging content elaboration, and Supporting an explanatory framework. A composite Maternal verbal Co-construction skills score was created. Finally, mothers provided narrative accounts about a time when they hurt/upset a friend, and an experience of being hurt/upset by others. To capture the interpretations that mothers produce in their narratives, independent researchers coded those accounts for: Factual information (i.e., statements that could be objectively verified), Interpretations of self, and Interpretations of others.
Maternal sensitivity was significantly related to mothers’ verbal co-construction skills (Table 1). Findings showed that sensitivity was inversely and significantly associated with factual content scores in maternal narratives about interactions with others. Further, sensitivity was significantly associated with interpretations that consider mothers’ perspectives when they have been upset by others. Last, mothers’ co-construction skills and their reasoning about upsetting/harm experiences were significantly related. Scores for co-construction skills were significantly related to factual content and interpretation of self during interactions with others, both as the recipient and source of upsetting exchanges (Table 1).
We discuss the importance of understanding others and oneself as interpretative beings with their own mental states in different kinds of social interactions. Results indicate that maternal sensitivity and the ability to create a mother-child partnership are associated with reasoning that integrates and balances both facts and interpretations giving rise to behavior in oneself and others.

Authors

• Jennifer Andrea Malaver, Universidad Nacional de Colombia
  Presenting Author

• German E Posada, Purdue University, West Lafayette

• Roberto Posada, Universidad Nacional de Colombia