Poster #80 - Parents’ Implicit Theories of Intelligence and Children’s Response to Academic Challenge in Economically Disadvantaged Families

• In Event: 2-110 - Poster Session 07
  In Poster Session: PS 07 Section - Education, Schooling

Integrative Statement

The present study examined the link between parents’ and children’s implicit theories of intelligence in 367 parent-child dyads. Dweck and colleagues have identified two types of implicit theories of intelligence: an entity theory (i.e., the individual views intelligence as a fixed trait and tends to avoid challenges) and an incremental theory (i.e., the individual views intelligence as a malleable trait and tends to persist through challenges) (Dweck & Leggett, 1986). Such implicit theories may matter especially for children from economically disadvantaged families, who are more likely to lack persistence in the face of challenges (see Herbers et al., 2012).
The children in the study were attending a Head Start preschool (mean age = 49 mos); 98% of the children were poor or low-income, based on income-to-needs ratio. Parents completed a demographics questionnaire and Dweck and Leggett’s (1988) brief (6-item) rating scale of implicit theories of intelligence. A sample item is “You have a certain amount of intelligence, and you really can’t do much to change it”. Children completed tasks that tapped response to challenge, including four puzzles and a tower building task.
A helpless/hopeless index representing children’s performance on these tasks was created to test relations between caregivers’ implicit theories and children’s response to challenge.
Caregivers’ level of education was positively associated with their implicit theory of intelligence (r = .167, p < .001). Helplessness/hopelessness was significantly and negatively correlated with caregivers’ implicit theories (r = -.143, p < .01) as well as level of education (r = -.102, p < .05). The first regression tested whether parents’ implicit theories would predict children’s response to academic challenge, as measured by the hopelessness/helplessness index. After controlling for child sex, age, ethnicity, caregiver level of education, and income-to-needs ratio, parents’ implicit theories were a significant, negative predictor of children’s helplessness/hopelessness (β = -.138, p < .05). This model explained 11% of the variance in helplessness/hopelessness. Further testing with Sobel’s test statistic (-2.05, p < .05) suggests that parent implicit theory mediated the influence of caregiver education on child helplessness/hopelessness responses.

The second regression tested the notion that responses to academic challenge are distinct from ability, as measured by the PPVT. Using the same controls as in the first regression, this model explained 13.8% of the variance in Fall PPVT scores. Parent education was a significant, positive predictor of child PPVT scores (β = .181, p < .01); however, this relationship was not mediated by parents’ implicit theories of intelligence. Moreover, neither parents’ implicit theories nor children’s helplessness/hopelessness were significant predictors of PPVT scores, suggesting that ability is distinct from these variables.

Results suggest the importance of parent views of intelligence for predicting their children’s emergent theories of intelligence as early as the preschool years. Implications concern understanding the mechanisms of effect that link parent and child implicit theories of intelligence and promoting positive academic outcomes for economically disadvantaged children.

Authors

• Dawn K Kriebel, Immaculata University
  Presenting Author

• Eleanor Brown, West Chester University of Pennsylvania
  Non-Presenting Author

• Anjali Paramesh Menon, West Chester University of Pennsylvania
  Non-Presenting Author