Prediction of Preschoolers’ Maternal Acceptance from Maternal and Paternal Positive Parenting and Discipline

• In Event: Poster Session 04
  In Poster Session: PS 04 Topic - Social, Emotional, Personality

Abstract

Maternal acceptance is related to a variety of childhood outcomes (e.g., emotion regulation; Bayindir et al., 2017). Positive parenting practices, such as verbal warmth and affection, can foster feelings of maternal acceptance in children (Putnick et al., 2012). However, as parents and children share genes, it is possible that links between parenting and maternal acceptance are genetically influenced. In an earlier monozygotic twin difference study of self-esteem, we showed that paternal affection differences were related to self-esteem in adults. Thus, there is limited evidence that differences in parenting are related to differences in self-esteem. Although relationships between parenting and various forms of self-esteem have been studied extensively in children, these relationships have not been studied in a monozygotic twin difference framework.
The primary goal of the present study was to examine relations between parenting practices at age 4 and child perceptions of maternal acceptance at age 5. A secondary goal of the present study was to use a monozygotic twin difference design to examine 4-year-old positive parenting behaviors and authoritative discipline in relation to maternal acceptance at age 5. It was hypothesized that positive parenting and authoritative discipline would be positively related to children’s perceived maternal acceptance.
At age 4, a parent-child interaction protocol was used to measure various parenting behaviors, including sensitivity, verbal warmth, positive affect, and parents’ authoritative discipline. A total score for parent positivity was created by summing the average scores for sensitivity, verbal warmth, and positive affect across the session; disciplinary style was calculated as the percent of time parents exhibited authoritative discipline. Maternal acceptance was measured at age 5 using the Pictorial Scale of Perceived Competence and Social Acceptance for Young Children (Harter & Pike, 1984). As part of this measure, a tester shows children two competing pictures and children are asked which one is more like their mother (on a 1-4 scale), providing a child self-reported score for maternal acceptance. The final sample consisted of 259 children who were tested at ages 4 and 5.
Multilevel modeling (MLM) was used to control for the nested nature of the sample (siblings). Results showed that maternal parenting (β = .53, p = .002) and maternal discipline (β = .23, p = .037) were significantly related to children’s ratings of maternal acceptance (see Table 1). Interactions with sex were not significant. A second MLM showed that paternal discipline was positively related to maternal acceptance in these children (β = .73, p = .001), and girls reported higher maternal acceptance (β = -.45, p = .008) than did boys. Monozygotic twin difference regressions were not significant.
These results indicate that positive parenting behaviors from mothers, as well as an authoritative disciplinary style from both mothers and fathers, significantly predicted feelings of maternal acceptance in young children. These feelings of acceptance may, in turn, correspond with more positive outcomes in social development, like self-esteem (Li & Meier, 2017). Further, the lack of significance in the monozygotic twin difference regressions suggests that genetic influences may be important to this process.

Authors

• Riley Marshall, Southern Illinois University
  Presenting Author

• Rachel Weisbecker, Southern Illinois University Carbondale
  Non-Presenting Author

• Matthew R. Jamnik, Southern Illinois University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Lisabeth Fisher DiLalla, Southern Illinois University
  Non-Presenting Author