MQTHEE-CHILU ENTEEACTEQN EN A fi‘iTUA'FION SYRUCTU-RID TO ENDUCE FRUSTRATION [N THE CHILD . ' TM. a..- a“. Dog-m of M. A. MiCHEGAN STATE UNIVERSITY Thomas S. Rowland I 1953 {ESIS ABSTRACT MOTHER-CHILD INTERACTION IN A SITUATION STRUCTURED TO INDUCE FRUSTRATION IN THE CHILD by Thomas S. Rowland The purpose of the present study was threefold: to determine whether the behavior and attitudes of mothers of poorly adjusted boys differed along meaningful dimensions from the behavior and attitudes of mothers of well-adjusted boys; to assess the degree of correspondence between obser- vations of mother-child interaction and mothers' self- reports of child—rearing attitudes; and to evaluate the effectiveness of a particular technique. inducing frustra- tion in the child. in eliciting maternal behaviors of in- terest. Ss were 20 preadolescent boys and their mothers. divided into poorly adjusted and well-adjusted groups on the basis of teachers' ratings. Mothers filled out an abbreviated version of the Stanford Parent Questionnaire. l Thomas S. Rowland and they participated in a 30—minute puzzle solving session with their sons. The interaction situation was structured in such a way as to induce frustration in the child. and the mother-child interaction which developed in this situation was recorded by a concealed observer. The rating categories were designed to tap the warmth-hostility and dependency— independence encouraging dimensions of maternal behavior. with respect to which the following hypotheses were formu— lated: Mothers of poorly adjusted boys will be more hostile and less warm toward their sons than mothers of well-adjusted boys. And relative to mothers of well-adjusted boys. mothers of poorly adjusted boys will be extremely encouraging of de— pendency or extremely encouraging of independence in their sons. The results of group comparisons revealed that mothers of the well—adjusted boys scored significantly higher on Total positive interaction. Neutral interaction. and SPQ Affection demonstrated. while mothers of the poorly adjusted boys re- ceived significantly higher scores on Total negative interac- tion and SPQ Rejection. These findings were interpreted as confirming the maternal warmth-hostility hypothesis. There 2 Thomas S. Rowland were three measures of maternal dependency-independence en- couraging—-- Silent watching. Total help. and SPQ Positive demands for self-sufficiency. According to prediction. there were no significant differences between group means on these measures. and all three were the same in showing a single distinct pattern that was different for the two groups. Mothers of poorly adjusted boys fell at the extremes of the distributions for the three measures. and mothers of well- adjusted boys fell within a mid-range of values. These re— sults were taken as solid support for the hypothesis of en- couragement of dependency-independence. An additional find- ing that mothers of well—adjusted boys scored significantly higher on SPQ Self-esteem than did mothers of poorly adjusted boys was also consistent with expectation. Comparisons of SPQ scales and factor scores with appropriate behavioral categories and sum scores revealed a high degree of relationship between the self-report and observational measures. Of the six appropriate comparisons of major scores on the two measures. five were significant. Since both measures also discriminated the two groups of Ss on the same variables. it was concluded that the two inde- pendent measures yield very similar information. Although 3 Thomas S. Rowland there were no data bearing on the effectiveness of the frus— tration technique. the investigator's observations suggest that it was very successful in stimulating interaction between mother and child. Several methodological issues were discussed in the light of the present research. and it was concluded that future studies of parent-child relations should employ pre- measures of parental attitudes. observational and self- report measures as supplements to each other. and some method for the sequential analysis of observed parent—child interac— tion. MOTHER-CHILD INTERACTION IN A SITUATION STRUCTURED TO INDUCE FRUSTRATION IN THE CHILD BY Thomas S. Rowland A THESIS Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS Department of Psychology 1966 TO POLLY--- whose support and devotion that only a wife can give makes this effort worthwhile. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am sincerely grateful to all who made this research effort possible. To Dr. Lucy Ferguson. my committee chairman. goes a special expression of gratitude. Her interest and re- search knowledge concerning parent-child relations was the impetus for the present research. and her encouragement. sup- port. and technical guidance were essential to its development. I would also like to express my appreciation to the other mem- bers of my committee. Dr. C. L. Winder and Dr. John Hurley. whose help and constructive criticisms greatly improved this .study. Special thanks goes to Heidi Buss for her assistance in the collection of the data and for her advice and sugges- tions which led to improvement of the rating technique. Thanks are extended to Dr. Marvin Kaplan of Psychological Services. without whose cooperation and effort the subjects for this research could not have been obtained. And to the principals and teachers of Barnes. Pleasant View. and Wain- wright schools goes my gratitude for their help in selecting and enlisting the c00peration of the final sample of subjects. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENT. . . . . . . . . . . . . LIST OF TABLES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . LIST OF APPENDICES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chapter I. INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . II. METHOD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Subjects. . . . . . . . . . Procedure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Interaction Situation. . . . . . . . . . . Rating Technique . . . . . . . . . . . . Stanford Parent Questionnaire. . . . . . Interview with the Mother. III. RESULTS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Maternal Behavior and Attitudes Related to Child Adjustment . . . . . . . . . . . . . Agreement Between Behavior Ratings and Mothers' Self—reports. . . . . . . . . . Mother's Handling of Frustration in the Child IV. DISCUSSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Maternal Behavior and Child Adjustment. Behavior Ratings and Mother's Self-report iv Page iii vi viii l9 19 25 25 28 33 35 36 36 51 54 58 58 67 Table of Contents (continued) Chapter Page Observed Interaction Technique. . . . . . 7O Methodology and Future Research . . . . . . 72 V. SUMMARY. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 REFERENCES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 APPENDICES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 Table LIST OF TABLES Comparison of poorly adjusted and well-adjusted groups on four group characteristics. . . . . Per cent agreement between two independent ratings for each of the observational categories. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Comparison of mothers of poorly adjusted boys with mothers of well—adjusted boys on the rated behavioral categories . . . . . . . . Comparison of mothers of poorly adjusted boys with mothers of well-adjusted boys on ten SPQ scales. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Relationship between the dependency-independence encouraging variables for the behavioral ratings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Comparison of PA and WA group mothers on their absolute deviations from the composite group mean for each of the dependency-independence encouraging variables . . . . . . . . . . . Pearson product-moment correlations between the scales comprising SPQ factor I. . . . . . . Comparison of mothers of PA and WA groups on their absolute deviations from the composite means of two SPQ factor scores. . . . . . . Pearson product- -moment correlations between the Self- esteem. Rejection. and Affection demon- strated scales of the SPQ . . . . . . . . . vi Page 24 32 38 41 43 45 46 48 50 List of Tables (continued) Table Page 10. Pearson product-moment correlations of rational groupings of SPQ scales and factor scores with behavioral categories and sum scores. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 vii Appendix A-l A-2 LIST OF APPENDICES LETTER TO PARENTS OF POORLY ADJUSTED BOYS. TEACHERS' RATING FORM FOR SELECTION OF WELL- ADJUSTED CONTROLS . . . . . . LETTER TO PARENTS OF WELL-ADJUSTED BOYS. RATING SHEET FOR BEHAVIORAL OBSERVATIONS . . RATING CATEGORIES. . . . . . RATER INSTRUCTIONS . . . . . STANFORD PARENT QUESTIONNAIRE. . . . . . FACTOR LOADINGS AND RELIABILITIES FOR EIGHT SPQ SCALES. . . . . . . . . . . INTERVIEW SCHEDULE . . . . . . . viii Page 89 9O 91 93 94 98 100 109 Ill MOTHER-CHILD INTERACTION IN A SITUATION STRUCTURED TO INDUCE FRUSTRATION IN THE CHILD CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Studies of obserVed mother—child interaction are a relatively new deveIOpment in the field of research dealing with parent—child relations. The reference study for all subsequent work has been one conducted by Merrill Bishop (1946). Mother and preschool child were initially observed alone in an unstructured playroom situation. Every five seconds a behavioral observation was recorded which captured the dominant mother-child interaction for that interval. The observations were coded in accordance with a set of previously established categories calculated to describe the degree of contact between mother and child. the degree and manner with which the mother facilitated and inhibited the child's behavior. and the extent to which the mother controlled specific behaviors of the child. At a later 1 date all 85 were recalled for another session. One group of mothers was given instructions implying that their children had turned in substandard performances at the previous ses— sion ("motivated" group). and another group was given the same instructions as before (control group). It was found that the motivated mothers showed an increased dominance of and interference with their children's play. while the be— havior of the control mothers remained essentially the same. In a subsequent investigation along the same lines. Merrill Bishop (1951) attempted to elaborate upon some of the methodolOgical considerations relating to observational procedures. She observed mother-child interaction over two sessions and found both maternal and child behavior to be quite consistent. The results also demonstrated that there was a tendency for certain types of behavior to be coexist- ent in mother and child. Using the same rating scheme. Moustakas. Sigel. and Schalock (1956) attempted to increase the applicability of Merrill Bishop's system by including a larger number and greater variety of categories. They observed adult-child interaction across three different situations: therapist- child in the playroom; mother-child in the playroom; and mother-child in the home. Inter-rater reliabilities for the playroom sessions ranged from 92% to 97%. Despite the high reliabilities. a major drawback to this more comprehen— sive system is the burden which it places on the rater--he must choose from 89 adult behavior and 82 child behavior categories. Moustakas. himself. indicates that it takes considerable training to use his system. Other studies have utilized observed interaction as a means of comparing the behavior of mothers whose children differ along some measurable dimension of personality. Bing (1963) used children of comparable overall intelligence and separated them into high verbal (low nonverbal) and low ver- bal (high nonverbal) groups. The children were given tasks to perform in the presence of the mother. She was instructed to help the child if she desired and was given information which would enable her to do so. In addition to the obser- vational data there was also questionnaire and interview information from the mother. Two important findings were that the interaction situation yielded results in the pre- dicted direction much more often than did the interview or questionnaire. and that the degree of interaction was more important than the content. Because the observational and self—report sources tapped different areas. no attempt was made to compare them. Ruebush. Byrum. and Farnham (1963) compared low defen- sive and high defensive boys in terms of their performance on the Porteus Mazes (with their mothers absent) and on a jig-saw puzzle (with their mothers present). Directions to the mother stipulated that she help her son at certain times during the mother-present session. Only maternal behavior was recorded. and it was rated in terms of units of behavior. That is. every behavior which denoted a single idea or meaning was scored separately without regard to any arbitrary time inter— val. Of particular importance was the finding that the mothers of low defensive boys made more verbalizations of all types. which is quite consistent with Bing's results. The studies of observed interaction have brought out several points which are relevant to the present study and have raised some questions which should be of concern to the investigator who plans to employ observational procedures. First of all. there is the suggestion that observations of mother-child interaction in the laboratory may be a valuable source of data on parent-child relations. Secondly. mother— child interaction has been rated independently by two observ- ers with a high degree of reliability. Thirdly. the success of the procedure has been demonstrated in structured as well as relatively unstructured situations. Fourthly. it has been shown that maternal behaviors of interest may be produced by appr0priate manipulation of instructions. And finally. the method would appear to be particularly suitable for studying maternal behaviors which differentiate mothers of children who. themselves. differ in terms of clearly defined personal or emotional characteristics. Three questions suggested by these studies are: How typical is the behavior which is observed in the interaction situation? To what extent do observational and self-report procedures yield the same results? Can the method be employed in an investigation of maternal behaviors which contribute to a more global and less well-defined aspect of the child's per— sonality. namely. his social adjustment? Although Merrill Bishop (1951) demonstrated that the behavior of both mother and child is highly consistent over sessions. it could be that such behavior is consistently atyp- ical. Bearing on this problem and the related issue of self- report data vs. observational data is a study by Smith (1958). She compared dependency in the home. as it was reported by the mother in an interview. with dependency as it was observed in the laboratory situation. Evidence indicated that maternal behavior was highly consistent under observation. and that the sampling of behavior was both reliable and representative. Variability of behavior increased. however. when a task was introduced into the session. Although there was fairly close correspondence between observational data and self- reports. it was found that defensive mothers tended to give information which was misleading in its normality. On the other hand. Vidich (1956) levels a great deal of criticism toward "artificial" laboratory studies of inter- action. He asserts that in such studies the respondent is regarded as an object who responds only to the experimental conditions crucial to the design of the study. Vidich's study took place in the respondent's home and required that married couples reveal and then resolve differences of Opin- ion within a prescribed time limit. He found that the arti- ficiality of the situation led to a discussion which was. itself. essentially artificial. The couples tended to re- Spond to such artifacts of the situation as the tape recorder. the presence of the observer. and the uniqueness of the task. It would appear. however. that Vidich's criticisms are somewhat unjustified; they refer to a single and poorly conceived interaction situation. As has been illustrated by the studies reported earlier. interaction may be studied in the laboratory without the obvious presence of the observer. without the use of a tape recorder. and by utilizing tasks which are very typical of the every day experiences of mother and child. Peace and Hawkes (1960) demonstrated that the pres- ence of the observer does alter the interaction situation. and they suggest that such effects may be minimized by using a one- way observational window. In addition to the previously mentioned investigation by Smith (1958). two other studies have attempted to compare observational and self-report methods. Brody (1963) adminis- tered the Parent Attitude Research Instrument (PARI) and the Maryland Parent Attitude Survey (MPAS) to the mothers of pre- school children. and she observed the mother-child pairs in a free play situation. Taking the top and bottom quartiles of the distributions of scores on each of the parent attitude scales. she found the following behavioral categories to dif- ferentiate these extreme groups; Restriction was related to high scores on the Authoritarian factor of PARI; Nonattention was related to high scores on the Hostility-Rejection factor of PARI; Verbal interaction and Interactive play were related to low scores on the Hostility-Rejection factor of PARI: Di- rection and Restriction were related to high scores on the Disciplinarian scale of MPAS; and Forbidding was related to high scores on the Rejection scale of MPAS. The fact that very few of the posited relationships were confirmed prompted the author to conclude that her results do not support the hypothetical relationship between maternal attitudes and mother—child interaction. Levinger (1963) compared family interaction over structured tasks to clinicians' ratings of interviews with the parents and to information based upon administration of Leary's Interpersonal Check List (ICL). In general. the ob- servations agreed better with the clinicians' judgments than with those of the parents. themselves. His conclusion that circular patterns between parental expectations and behavior. and child behavior. can be suitably studied only when two in- dependent techniques are used led him to suggest the use of observational and self-report methods as supplements to each other. Many others feel that observational studies are needed. that they are a necessary supplement to the studies employing self-report. Grant and Kantor (1961) advocate controlled observation as a means of shedding some light on the variables intervening between the verbalized opinions of parents and the behavior of their children. Pease and Hawkes (1960) feel that observational studies of parent- child interaction under stress may yield valuable information on the stability of the parent-child relationship. and on the parental behaviors used to meet such situations. In support of the observational procedure. Yarrow (1963) points out the limitations inherent in the interview and questionnaire approaches. The mothers are apt to be quite ego—involved in their self-descriptions. There is also the problem of the social desirability of the responses. a partic- ularly salient problem when the mothers are middle or upper- middle class. The questions asked often involve very diffi- cult discriminations on the part of the mother and depend upon an accuracy of recall which is somewhat questionable. Furthermore. the questions are primarily concerned with modal behaviors. to the relative neglect of exceptions. variations. and stimuli from the child which initiate such behaviors. Since the mother is required to rate her own as well as her child's behavior on a rating scale. she must use a frame of reference which. itself. may be quite variable. According to Tyler (1960). such procedures necessarily involve a con- founding of variables. in that the mother supplies the data for the child as well as for herself. No studies have approached the problem of the rela- tionship between maternal attitudes and the child's social adjustment by observing the mother and child interact in a 10 structured laboratory situation. However. several studies have assessed parent attitudes and behavior via questionnaire and rating techniques in an effort to determine if the parents of well and poorly adjusted children do differ in some signif- icant ways. Leton (1958) used teachers' ratings of adjustment for elementary school children in a middle and upper—middle class sample to define a very high and a very low adjustment group. The parents of these children were given Shoben's Parent Attitude Survey (PAS). He found no significant differ- ences between the attitude scores of parents whose children received ratings of "excellent adjustment“ and those whose children were rated "poorly adjusted." Medinnus (1961) used the PARI and the Fels Parent Be- havior Rating Scales to assess the attitudes of mothers during the year prior to their child's entrance into the first grade. Teachers' ratings differentiated lO well-adjusted and 9 poorly adjusted children at the first grade level. With respect to the PARI scales. mothers of the well-adjusted children were significantly higher on Approval of activity. Irritability. and pependency of mother. The mothers of the poorly adjusted children were significantly higher on Fear of harming baby. Only one cluster of the Fels scales differentiated the two groups of mothers. with the mothers of well-adjusted children 11 scoring significantly higher on Dependency encouraging. Medinnus interprets this greater encouraging of dependency as indicative of acceptance of the child. and he feels that the lower scores on this variable in the mothers of poorly adjusted children may reflect rejection of the child. Gildea (1961) administered an abbreviated version of Shoben's scale to 645 mothers of third graders. Adjustment ratings by teachers and mothers were available for each child. She found no relationship between general adjustment of child- ren and maternal attitudes toward: responsibility; discipline; rejection; control of child behavior; or degree to which child- ren try to cope with their environment. These negative find- ings held for both teachers' ratings and mothers' ratings of symptoms. However. the results of a subsequent standardized interview with the same mothers revealed some differences be- tween the mothers of the wellmadjusted and the poorly adjusted children. The former tended to feel responsible toward and confident about their ability to deal with their children's problems. while the latter were projecting. paranoid. and likely to feel ineffectual when dealing with their children's problems. Another study which is important to the design of the present investigation is that of Winder and Rau (1962). The 12 Peer Nomination Inventory (PNI) was administered to a sample of 118 middle and upper—middle class preadolescent boys. The PNI includes four measures of social deviancy (Dependency. Ag- gression. Withdrawal. and Depression) and one measure of social adjustment (Likeability). The parents of the boys were given the Stanford Parent Questionnaire (SPQ) for the purpose of assessing their attitudes toward child-rearing. Two of the SPQ variables. Ambivalence and Maternal Self-esteem. showed a greater relationship to social deviancy than did the others. The Ambivalence scale is a combination of the Rejection and Affection demonstrated scales. a combination which is justi- fied by the finding that parents of socially deviant boys gen— erally fell above median on both measures. Regarding the Self— esteem scale. it was found that low maternal self-esteem was significantly related to social deviancy in the child. Finally. Rau. Mlodnosky. and Anastasiow (1964) used the SPQ to obtain data on the attitudes of parents of kinder- garten children and then assessed the children's behavior as second graders with respect to a maturity-adjustment syndrome. Maternal rejection. Restrictiveness. and Positive demands for §§1f3sufficiency predicted various aspects of the syndrome. with low Maternal rejection (or Maternal warmth and high Self: esteem) successfully predicting all of the more mature and adjustive behaviors. 13 The studies of parental attitudes and social adjust- ment in the child have brought out three significant points. First of all. none of the studies has employed observations of mother-child interaction in the laboratory. Secondly. with the exception of the studies by Winder and Rau (1962) and Rau et al. (1964). the results are largely negative. Only the SPQ seems to have yielded fruitful results. Finally. three par- ental attitude dimensions stand out among the significant re- lationships found. Gildea (1961). Winder and Rau (1962). and Rau et al. (1964) found maternal self-esteem to be signifi- cantly related to child adjustment. Medinnus (1961) and Rau et a1. (1964) found independence-dependency encouraging to be a significant dimension. And Winder and Rau (1962) demonstrated the importance of ambivalence. which roughly subsumes both ex— tremes of an acceptance—rejection continuum. while Rau et al. (1964) found maternal rejection to be the single most important dimension. The significant findings with regard to the acceptance- rejection and dependence—independence encouraging dimensions of parental attitudes are consistent with the work of Schaefer (1961). It seems reasonable to consider the love—hostility and autonomy-control dimensions which form the principal axes in his hypothetical circumplex model for maternal behavior as 14 the major parental attitude dimensions around which all such attitudes may be organized. This notion is not without its critics. however. Friedman (1964) concludes from his study of parent attitudes and children's social behavior that warmth and autonomy do not appear to be important determinants in the develOpment of social behavior in the child. The question of the importance of these two dimensions is explored in the present investigation. The literature reviewed above has served the purpose of bringing into focus the major issues with which the present investigation is concerned. The first question which this study attempts to answer is: Can the observed interaction and self—report techniques yield information concerning ma- ternal attitudes which is highly consistent? And if such a high degree of correspondence exists between the two sources of data. is the observational method useful in its own right? It is felt that an affirmative answer to these questions re— quires a demonstration that: (1) There is substantial agree- ment between the data of rating categories and SPQ scales which tap the same dimensions of maternal attitudes. (2) The observational method yields data which cannot be readily as- certained by self-report measures. 15 A second question toward which the present study is di- rected is: Can the observational method be extended to research dealing with an aspect of socialization which has thus far re- ceived scant attention. namely. the mother's handling of the child's frustration? Aside from the fact that very little re- search has been done along these lines. there are several rea- sons for including frustration of the child in the design of the study. First of all. if an observational study is properly designed. one of the very significant advantages which it en- joys over studies employing self-report measures is that it taps relatively spontaneous behaviors. A mother who is fill— ing out a questionnaire or even answering questions in an inter- view has a great deal of opportunity to reflect upon her re- sponses. perhaps censor or distort them. One criticism of the observational studies conducted thus far is that they have placed very little limitation on this opportunity of the mother to reflect upon or to withhold certain responses. The mother knows beforehand that her child is to work on some task. that she can help him or should help him under certain conditions. She undoubtedly has a good idea of what demands will be placed upon her and how she will react to them. It is felt that ex- perimentally induced frustration of the child in the present Study may introduce an unexpected element into the interaction 16 situation. that it may lead to child behaviors which necessi— tate responses from the mother that are unplanned. more or less immediate. and typical for that particular mother. A second rationale for frustrating the child is the be- lief that it will result in a greater variety of behaviors for both mother and child. that it will provide an opportunity for more affectively toned behaviors to emerge. Previous studies have drawn inferences about the acceptance-rejection or warmth- hostility dimensions of maternal behavior from observing only the extent to which the mother interacts with or helps the child. It is felt that the present design may increase the probability of directly observing maternal warmth and hostil— ity. Related to these considerations is the desire to assess the potential of this particular interaction situation for use as a clinical psychodiagnostic technique. A final reason for focusing on the manner in which the mother handles her child's frustration derives from the feeling that this variable may be related to the child's adjustment to school. Undoubtedly. no child is immune to frustration; and no child. regardless of his level of adjustment. is able to deal adequately with his frustrations without the help of an— other. The extent to which the mother meets this need in the child may determine whether or not he vents his frustrations 17 in ways which affect his adjustment to school. Mothers of well—adjusted and poorly adjusted children may be expected to differ in the ways in which they handle their child's frustra- tions. Related to the above consideration is the third ques— tion with which this research deals: Do the behaviors of mothers of poorly adjusted children differ along measurable dimensions from the behaviors of mothers of well-adjusted children? Previous studies of observed interaction have been concerned with relating maternal behaviors to relatively cir- cumscribed personality traits of children. Studies of the relationship between maternal attitudes and general adjust- ment in the Child have relied solely on the questionnaire and the interview. Furthermore. the results of studies employing different self-report measures have not been in agreement. The present investigation affords an opportunity to separate out some of the method bias. and perhaps by doing so. to de- fine more clearly the crucial dimensions of maternal behavior affecting the child's social adjustment. The present research. then. is concerned with three major questions. The questions regarding the agreement be- tween behavior ratings and mothers' self-reports. and the suitability of the observational procedure for the study of 18 the mothers' handling of frustration in the child concern methodology. They are "let's see" questions and there is no basis for stating them in the form of hypotheses. However. hypotheses are apprOpriate to the third question. Stated very broadly. these hypotheses are: l) 2) Mothers of well-adjusted children will be more ac- cepting of their child. they will manifest more warmth toward him. than mothers of poorly adjusted children. Mothers of poorly adjusted children will be more rejecting of their child. they will manifest more hostility toward him. than mothers of well- adjusted children. Mothers of well-adjusted children will show a moder- ate amount of encouraging dependency and independence in their child. relative to the mothers of poorly ad- justed children. Mothers of poorly adjusted children will lie at either of the two extremes of encouraging dependency or independence in their child; they will be highly encouraging of dependency or highly encour- aging of independence in their child. relative to the mothers of poorly adjusted children. CHAPTER II METHOD Subjects Subjects were 20 boys between the ages of 7 years and 10 years and the mothers of these boys. The boys were selec- ted in the following manner. From the records of Psycho- lOgical Services1 of Lansing. Michigan. the investigator culled the psychodiagnostic reports of all boy referrals for the previous 18 months who met the following criteria: (1) The boy was between the ages of 7 and 10. (2) He was re- ferred because of low achievement (LA). deviant behavior (DB)2. or both. (3) He was recommended for work with his visiting teacher. (4) He had attained a WISC or Stanford— Binet I.Q. score of 90 or above. (5) His natural parents 1Psychological Services is an agency which serves public schools in Lansing. Michigan. conducting psychodiag— nostic evaluations of children referred to them because of adjustment problems in school. Deviant behavior is a broad category of referral problem encompassing all behaviors which may be classed as "inapprOpriate acting out of impulses." 19 20 were still alive. and residing tOgether in the home. In no case was a boy selected if he had been referred to a psycho- logical agency or special school. was extremely withdrawn. or was suspected to have organic impairment. The principals of the four schools which had 5 or more boys meeting these criteria were contacted and their cooperation in the project was enlisted. Out of 30 boys in the original sample. 13 had to be drOpped either because they had moved or because they no longer met the criteria. One of the schools could not be used for this reason. The remaining three schools were in extremely homogeneous lower— middle class neighborhoods. The parents of each of the boys in the reduced sample were sent a letter4 asking that they participate in the study. and enclosed with this letter was an abbreviated version of the Stanford Parent Questionnaire for the mother to fill out. Seventy-one per cent of those who were contacted consented to serve in the study. Since many of the referrals had been made 18 months prior to the study. this rate of attrition is not surprising. 4 For the full text of the letter sent to the parents of the poorly adjusted boys. see Appendix A-l. 21 The teachers of the 12 remaining boys were visited by the investigator and were given the necessary information for selecting the well-adjusted boys or matched controls. This information and directions for guiding their selections were contained in the selection form5 which was distributed to them. They were given the name of the boy in their class- room who had been referred for evaluation and were told to select three well—adjusted boys from the same classroom who were similar to that boy in the following respects: age; general intelligence; socioeconomic class; education of the parents; and number of siblings. Four broad categories of general intelligence were used: below average (BA)--I.Q. score of less than 95; aver- age (AV)--I.Q. score of 95-105; high average (HA)--I.Q. score of 106-120; and above average (AA)-—I.Q. score of 121 plus. In cases where the I.Q. scores of well-adjusted boys were not available. the teachers used achievement tests to aid their matching on this variable. The teachers were not given any specific criteria to use in matching socioeconomic level. Without exception they assured the investigator that they had sufficient information The selection form issued to teachers can be found in Appendix A-2. 22 about the families involved to match on this variable. Since the psychological reports on the referrals contained only one of three class designations (lower. middle. or upper). and since the teachers were not asked to submit information about the father's occupation or income with their selections. finer discriminations cannot be made with certainty. Al- though the records indicate only that all of the 83 are middle class. general knowledge of the neighborhoods of the Ss. knowledge of the mother's educational level. and confirm- ations by the principals and teachers strongly suggest that the final sample of 20 boys and their mothers constitutes a homogeneous lower—middle class sample. The teachers were asked to consider four general var- iables to guide them in their ratings of adjustment. These were the child's cooperativeness. ability to get along with others in the class. emotional maturity. and the extent to which he works to capacity. They were told that adjustment ratings should pg; be made on the basis of the child's scho- lastic ability. After the selections had been made. the parents of the well-adjusted boys were sent a letter6 asking that they 6For the full text of the letter sent to the parents of the well-adjusted boys. see Appendix A-3. 23 cooperate in the study. Seventy-two per cent of those con- tacted consented to participate in the study. a respondent rate almost identical to that for the poorly adjusted Ss. Two poorly adjusted 85 and three well-adjusted 85 were used in the pilot phase. leaving 10 matched pairs or a total of 20 Ss for the study proper. l) 2) 3) 4) 5) The 10 pairs may be characterized as follows: In all of the pairs. the natural parents of both boys were still living and residing together in the home. In 9 of 10 pairs. both boys were from the same school or classroom. The number of pairs at each age level was: 7-year olds (l); 8-year olds (3); 9-year olds (4); and 10- year olds (2). The number of pairs falling within each of the cate- gories of general intelligence was: BA (4); AV (4); HA (1); and AA (1). The number of poorly adjusted boys falling within each category of referral was: DB (1); LA (3): DB &IA (6). 7In one case. the only boy in the classroom who met the necessary criteria did not wish to serve in the study. and he was replaced with a boy from one of the othe r schools. 24 In Table 1 the poorly adjusted and well-adjusted groups are compared with respect to four variables which were felt to be potentially important factors in the mother-child relationship. While "mother's education" and "number of sib- lings" were among the matching variables. the groups were not intentionally matched on "mother's age" and "birth order." Two-tailed t tests of the difference between the means of matched groups revealed no significant group differences for “mother's education." ”mother's age.“ and “number of siblings." The figures for "birth order" suggest that the poorly adjusted boys tended to be younger relative to their siblings much more often than did the well-adjusted boys. TABLE l.-—Comparison of poorly adjusted (PA) and well-adjusted (WA) groups on four group characteristics Group Mother's Education Mother's Age # of Sibs Birth Order Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD 0 M Y PA 11.5 1.3 34.6 2.7 2.7 1.8 l 3 6 WA 11.8 1.5 33.2 5.2 2.8 1.3 3 5 2 25 Procedure Interaction Situation The session with mother and son was conducted in a room equipped with a ceiling microphone and a one—way obser- vational window. The furniture was arranged so that the child sat at a small work table situated at right angles to the ob- servation window. and his mother sat directly opposite him beside a table containing magazines and ash tray. The micro- phone was placed slightly higher than the seated child's head and directly between him and his mother. The pilot study in— dicated that placement of the microphone in such an obvious position was necessary in order to hear the child. However. in most cases the child was unaware that he was being listened to and observed. In the few cases in which the child discov— ered the microphone or suspected the mirror window. his mother was very adept at distracting his attention from them or at convincing the child that they were nothing to be concerned about. When the mother-son pair arrived for their appoint- ment. the investigator met them in the clinic waiting room. The mother was handed a card containing instructions which she was to read while the investigator took her son to the room and started him on his task. The card read as follows: 26 ”This is a study of children and how they go about solving problems. It is an attempt to simulate a home situation in which the child is given the Opportunity to perform a particular task to the best of his ability. Your presence will be helpful in making your child feel more at ease in this new situation. The investigator will not be present while the child is working the prob- lem. If your son seems to need help. then you may give it to him. Feel free to act as you would in your own home under similar circumstances. The room contains an observation window which will enable the investigator to check on the child's progress without disturbing him. He is to work on a puzzle. and he will be given about 30 minutes in which to complete it. After the half hour is up. the investigator will return to the room." The investigator introduced the child into the room and asked him to sit at the work table. The boy was shown a box containing several new toys (models. army toys. boys' coloring books with crayons. toy guns) and was instructed to select one which he would like for his own. He was told that he would win the toy if he solved a puzzle. The Superman puzzle was introduced and the investigator demonstrated how it was done. and how the finished puzzle looked just like the picture of Superman. This demonstration was accomplished in a way that suggested to the child that the puzzle would be very easy to complete. Next. the test puzzle and picture 27 (Yogi Bear) were given to the child with the warning that he must solve it before the investigator returned in order to win the prize. The investigator then left the room and in— formed the mother that she could join the child. The specific instructions to the child were as follows: "First of all. _(name) . I want you to choose one of these toys for yourself. Which one would you like to keep for your own? Now. let's put it over here (on the table in plain view of the child). You can have this (ppylp. if you can solve a puzzle for me. But you'll have to work fast if you want to win the prize. See this puzzle? It works like this. If you put it together right. you get a picture just like this one. It's Super- man. You put the puzzle together so it's just like the picture. Now. here's one for you to do. It has to be just like this picture of Yogi Bear. I'm going to leave the room. and your mother will be here with you. I'll be back in 30 minutes. If you hurry real fast and finish the puzzle before I get back. you get to keep the prize." The puzzle which occupied the child for the 30 minute session was the Sliding Squares Puzzle Game. This is a mini- ature jigsaw puzzle. the solution of which involves the manip— ulation of sliding mosaic squares within a nondetachable frame. in such a way that the correct picture is produced. It was felt that the puzzle was especially suited for the present study because: (1) It is a very difficult puzzle 28 to solve. the average adult requiring more than 30 minutes to complete it. (2) The task of solving a jigsaw puzzle as well as the solution pictures (Superman and Yogi Bear) are familiar to the child. (3) It requires only minimal instructions and does not necessitate supervision. (4) The nature of the puzzle insures that the child is constantly aware of his prOg— ress. (5) The puzzle appears to be very easy to solve. and thus is not likely to be discarded after a few futile attempts at a solution. (6) The puzzle is extremely frustrating. The course of solving the puzzle generally comes to within one step of a correct solution. a point at which the final step entails an entire reworking of the puzzle to achieve the solu- tion. Rating Technique The approach to describing and quantifying the ongoing behavior in the interaction situation was similar to ones em- ployed by Merrill Bishop (1951) and Moustakas et al. (1956). A single behavioral rating was made at the end of each 10- second interval by checking one of 15 previously established categories. Two Hunter interval timers were yoked together so that they yielded a flash and a click after a constant in- terval of 10 seconds. The rater(s) was supplied with 30 29 rating sheets. one for each of the 30 minutes of observation. The rating sheet (see Appendix B—l) contained the 15 behav- ioral categories arranged in column form and reproduced 6 times for the 6 intervals covered by the 60-second period. Use of this rating sheet marked an improvement over previous rating schemes in that it simplified the rater's task consid- erably. A rating was made simply by drawing a line through one of the listed behaviors. In the present system. the mother is the reference for all of the behavior recorded. The 15 categories refer to the presence or absence of particular maternal behaviors. Although there are no categories for the rating of specific child behaviors. some of the categories of maternal behavior necessarily involve child initiated interaction. If No help is checked. it is known that the child made some overture to the mother for help and that his "request" was not met. Other categories such as Praise or Helping may or may not in- volve a sequence of interaction initiated by the child. With such categories the symbols "R“ and “S" are used to denote that the child “requested" (R) the particular maternal be- havior or that the mother acted “spontaneously" (S) without any request on the part of the child. To illustrate. the child who holds up the completed puzzle for mother to see 30 is requesting praise under the rationale of this system. If the mother praises the child's completion of the puzzle in the absence of any solicitation by the child. the praise is considered to be Spontaneous. It is recognized that in many cases maternal behaviors considered here to be spontaneous are not so in any absolute sense. "Spontaneous" is used here to indicate the Opposite of "requested." A mother's praise of her child's completed task is thought of as spontaneous. not in the sense that it wasn't initiated by a stimulus from the child (completion of the task). but in the sense that the child did not solicit such praise from the mother by hold- ing up the puzzle to her or by asking for it directly. The list of rating categories and their explanations may be found in Appendix B—2. Pilot work with these categor- ies indicated that in two cases a combination of categories was more feasible than employing them singly. It was often difficult to distinguish No comfort from Negative to frustra- Elgpe-the two were tapping the same behaviors. The mother never spontaneously "rejected" the child; and all of the child behaviors that seemed to be directed toward getting comfort were those which were regarded as manifestations of frustration. Therefore. both were combined into a single category. Negative to frustration. Because neither Criticism 31 nor Restriction occurred with great enough frequency. the two were combined into Criticism and restriction. Although these two represent different behaviors. their combination seems justifiable in that they both serve to inhibit the child's Spontaneous. independent efforts at accomplishment. Inter—rater reliability for the categories was assessed by having the investigator and another trained rater rate 8 sessions independently. Rater instructions can be found in Appendix B-3. Four sessions were done imme- diately prior to the study prOper. and the others were con- ducted during sessions with the 5th. 13th. 14th. and 17th mother—son pairs. The reliability sample comprised 3 poorly adjusted boys and 5 well-adjusted boys. Although this sample was representative of the larger sample with respect to age and intelligence. as a group they were more successful with and less frustrated over the puzzle. Consequently there was less maternal behavior in the reliability sample. Another explanation for the smaller amount of activity on the part of the mothers may be the fact that the instructions to the mother were altered after the first four reliability sessions. with the change making it clear to the mother that she could help her son. 32 Inter-rater reliability was calculated by the‘% agree- ment method. An agreement score was obtained for each of the categories by taking the total number of times rater A used the category and dividing this number into the number of times rater B had agreed upon use of the category. If rater A scored Nonattention and B scored Silent watching. the dis- agreement would count against Nonattention. The % agreement for each category. based upon the total observations for that category across eight sessions. is presented in Table 2. TABLE 2.--Per cent agreement between two independent ratings for each of the observational categories Category Total # % Category Total # % Nonattention 123 93 Suggesting 20 90 Silent watching 424 96 Ordering 48 83 Neutral interaction 207 91 Helping 154 92 Praise 14 93 Crit. & restr. 37 95 Comfort 11 82 No help 10 70 Encouragement 9 89 Neg. to frust. 30 93 Giving information 104 82 Total 1191 92 These reliabilities are only slightly lower than those obtained by Moustakas et al. (1956). They certainly 33 are high enough to warrant a great deal Of confidence in the objectivity of the rating scheme. One factor-which serves to reduce this confidence. however. is an unavoidable methodolog- ical shortcoming in the present study. Because the research- ers were limited to the investigator and another part time rater. the investigator rated all of the non-reliability cases himself. Since this investigator was also aware of both the design of the study and the status of the boys on the adjustment variable. there was an Opportunity for bias to enter into these ratings. The extent to which the ratings were biased is impossible to estimate. but the high reliabil- ities obtained suggest that bias was probably minimal. Stanford Parent Questionnaire Assessment of maternal attitudes was accomplished by use of an abbreviated version of Form MSU of the Stanford Parent Questionnaire (SPQ). The SPQ was designed by Winder and Rau (1962) for the purpose of assessing parental atti- tudes believed to be associated with social adjustment in preadolescent boys. The version Of the SPQ used in the present study (see Appendix C-l) contains 101 items which comprise 8 dif- ferent scales. These scales are: Rewarding independence 34 (I); Achievement standards (V); Contingent reward (C); Rejec- tion (R); Self-esteem (E); Restrictiveness (T); Sex anxiety (S); and Affection demonstrated (A). Factor loadings and re- liabilities based on previous studies of the SPQ can be found in Appendix C-2. ‘These factor loadings suggest the use of at least two factor scores: Positive demands for self- sufficiency (I + V + C) and Strictness (T + S). The questionnaire was introduced to the mother as a series of statements made by other parents about their child- ren. For each item. the mother was asked to indicate her own attitude toward the issue as it applied to her son. by checking Strongly agree. Agree. Disagree. or Strongly dis— agree. In a few cases. the mother had difficulty answering some of the items. When this situation arose. the investi- gator clarified the statements for her and urged her to an- swer them. The "continuous scoring" method was used such that when agreement with a statement indicated presence of the characteristic denoted by the scale. Strongly agree was scored 3. Agree was scored 2. Disagree was scored 1. and Strongly disagree was scored 0. If disagreement with the statement indicated presence of the characteristic. the scor- ing was reversed. The sum of the scores on each of the indi- vidual items of the scale was the score for that scale. 35 Interview with the Mother Subsequent to the 30 minute interaction situation. the investigator conducted and taped a brief interview with the mother. The purpose of this talk with the mother was to give her an Opportunity to explain how she would handle situ- ations that are potentially frustrating to the child. It was felt that such an interview might provide a check for the behavior observed during the interaction situation. The interview schedule is presented in Appendix D-l. The inter- view represented an exploratory effort. and no data will be reported in this paper. Impressions formed by the inter— viewer suggest that even a very short standardized inter- view may prove very useful as a supplement to observational procedures. CHAPTER I I I RESULTS Maternal Behavior and Attitudes Related to Child Adjustment Two major hypotheses were tested which related to the question of whether the behavior and attitudes of mothers of poorly adjusted boys differed along meaningful dimensions from those Of mothers of well-adjusted boys. The two hypothe- ses were: 1. Mothers of well—adjusted children will be more accept- ing of their child. they will manifest more warmth toward him. than mothers Of poorly adjusted children. Mothers of poorly adjusted children will be more re- jecting of their child. they will manifest more hos- tility toward him. than mothers Of well-adjusted children. 2. Mothers Of well-adjusted children will show a moder- ate amount Of encouraging dependency and independence in their child. relative to the mothers of poorly ad- justed children. Mothers of poorly adjusted children will fall at either of the two extremes of encourag— ing dependency or independence in the child; they will be highly encouraging of dependency or highly 36 37 encouraging of independence in their child. relative to the mothers of poorly adjusted children. 1. Warmth-hostility dimension a. Behavioral ratings: The mothers of the two matched groups of boys were compared with each other on the rated behavioral categories. Because of the small sample size (n = 9)8 and the implausibil- ity of assuming approximately normal distributions. the two groups were compared using Wilcoxin's Matched-pairs Signed- ranks Test (Siegel. 1956). Results of these comparisons are presented in Table 3. Several of the comparisons have bearing on the first hypothesis. The mothers of well-adjusted boys (WA group) were significantly higher on amount of Total positive interaction with their child (p < .01) than were mothers Of poorly adjusted boys (PA group). Regarding the subcategories of Total positive interaction. the WA group manifested significantly more Praise (p < .05) and Comfort (p < .01) with respect to their sons. while Encouragement did not differentiate the two groups of 8One of the well—adjusted controls cancelled and could not be replaced. and so all comparisons on the behavioral cate- gories will be based upon data Obtained from 9 mother-child pairs in each group. TABLE 3.--Comparison 38 of mothers of poorly adjusted boys (PA) with mothers of well-adjusted boys (WA) on the rated behavioral categories. (n = 9) Behavioral Category TPA* TWA* P** l. Nonattention 28.5 26.5 NS 2. Silent watching 17.0 28.0 NS 3. Neutral interaction 3.0 42.0 .02 4. Praise 5.5 39.5 .05 5. Comfort 0 45.0 .01 6. Encouragement 11.5 33.5 NS 7. Giving information 29.0 16.0 NS 8. Suggesting 4.5 40.5 .05 9. Ordering 33.5 11.5 NS 10. Helping 29.0 16.0 NS Criticism & restriction (ll-12) 42.5 2.5 .02 Negative to frustration (14—15) 41.5 3.5 .05 Sum Score Total positive interaction (4—6) 1-0 44.0 .01 Total help (7—10) 33.0 12.0 NS Total negative interaction (ll-15) 44.5 .5 .01 Total interaction (3-12) 19.0 26.0 NS Note: The numbers directly preceding various categories cor- reSpond to the numbers given to those categories on the data sheets. Numbers in parentheses following various summary categories refer to the categories comprising them. *Sum of the ranks for differences in favor of PA and WA groups. respectively (Wilcoxin Matched-pairs Signed- ranks Test). **P values are two-tailed. 39 mothers. Neutral interaction. which may be somewhat indirectly related to maternal warmth. also showed a significant differ- ence (p < .02) in favor of the WA group. The possibility that the greater amount of maternal warmth observed in the WA group might be due to more attempts on the part of the well—adjusted boys to elicit such behaviors from their mothers was explored by comparing the two groups of boys on Requests for positive interaction. For each boy. the number of times his mother had given him Praise. Comfort. and Encouragement that was "requested" rather than "spontaneous" was added to the mother's score on Negative to frustration. The latter score was included because it represented requests by the boy for maternal warmth which were not met by his mother. A comparison of the two groups of boys revealed no significant difference between them on Requests for positive interaction (p > .10. 2-tai1ed). Concerning hostility of mothers toward their sons. the predictions are again borne out. The PA group was in— volved in a significantly greater amount of negative interac— tion with their sons. Total npgative interaction (p < .01). Criticism and restriction (p < .02). and Negative to frustra- gégg (p < .05) all occurred more frequently in the PA group. Nonattention. which may bear some relationship to maternal 40 hostility or rejection. did not significantly differentiate the two groups. The fact that the two groups did not differ on Total interaction provides assurance that it is the quality of rather than the degree of interaction which is important here and that the observed group differences on Specific cate- gories cannot be attributed to the tendency for one group to be more active than the other. b. Stanford Parent Qgestionnaire The SPQ provided data for the comparison of mothers of poorly adjusted boys with their matched counterparts on eight scales and two factor scores. These comparisons were made using t tests for paired observations (Hays. 1963). Al— though the sample size (n = 10) is small. the Q data are con- siderably less skewed than the Observational data. Since skew— ness for the two groups of Ss is not markedly different. and tests are two-tailed. t tests of the means for matched groups seem justified in the present case. Comparisons of the PA and WA groups on the SPQ are presented in Table 4. The scales of importance to the first hypothesis are Affection demonstrated and Rejection. In line with prediction. the mothers of well-adjusted boys scored significantly higher on Affection demonstrated (p < .05) than did the mothers of poorly adjusted boys. 41 are the higher Rejection scores obtained by the PA group mothers. a difference which is significant at the The results of the questionnaire. then. Also in accordance with the hypothesis .01 level. are in agreement with those of the observed interaction in supporting hypothesis #1. TABLE 4.--Comparison of mothers of poorly adjusted boys (PA) with mothers of well-adjusted boys (WA) on ten SPQ scales. 10) Scale _ 32 s; —- t PA WA PA XWA Affection demonstrated 25.10 29.60 1.69 2.66** Rejection 27.60 15.40 3.56 3.43*** Self-esteem 17.70 23.90 3.08 2.01* Positive demands for self—sufficiency 62.90 65.90 3.76 .80 Rewarding independence 26.00 27.10 1.52 .79 Achievement standards 23.50 23 30 1.94 .10 Contingent reward 13.40 15.50 -97 2.16* Strictness 41.10 42.00 4.20 21 Restrictiveness 20.80 22.50 2.33 77 Sex anxiety 20.30 19.50 2.37 .34 Note: * p < .10 ** p < .05 *** p < .01 t tests are for paired observations and are two-tailed. 42 2. Dependency—independence encouraging dimension a. Behavioral ratings: Ratings of maternal behavior in the interaction situation yielded two indices of the extent to which mothers encouraged dependency or independence in their sons. Silent watching was considered to be a reflection of degree of inde- pendence encouraging by the mother. such that mothers who were high on this variable were felt to be promoting their son's independence by not interfering with what he was doing. The other dependent variable which is relevant to the dimension under consideration is Total help. It was felt that mothers who scored high on this variable were fostering dependency in their sons. while the low scorers were viewed as accomplishing the same purpose served by Silent watching. namely. encourag- ing their sons to be independent. If these assumptions about the two dependent variables are valid. a high negative correlation between them would be expected. Reference to Table 5 indicates that it is precisely this kind of relationship which exists between Silent watching and Total help. Those who scored high on one of these vari- ables obtained a low score on the other. and vice versa. Table 5 also indicates that a high positive correlation ex- ists between Direct help (Ordering and Helping) and Indirect 43 he1p_(Giving information and Suggesting). This relationship suggests that the mothers were very consistent across these two different approaches in the amount of help which they gave to their sons. And for this reason. Total help was not broken down into its subcategories for the present analysis. It was predicted from hypothesis #2 that the mothers Of the PA and WA groups would not differ significantly from each other on their mean scores for Silent watching and for Total help. but that a distinctive pattern would emerge for each group which would be the same for both variables. The mothers of poorly adjusted boys would score extremely high or extremely low on both variables. while the mothers of well- adjusted boys would fall in the middle of both distributions of scores. TABLE 5.--Re1ationship between the dependency-independence encouraging variables for the behavioral ratings. (n = 18) Category Grouping Pearson Product-Moment r Silent watching vs. Total help _‘74**** Direct help vs. Indirect help ,79**** Note: All tests are two-tailed. **** p < .001 44 The first of these predictions is clearly supported by the group comparisons in Table 3. There are no signifi- cant group differences in means for Silent watching. Total help. Giving information. Ordering. or Helping. Only Suggest- ipg_differentiates the two groups. with the mothers of the well—adjusted boys scoring significantly higher on this cate- gory (p < .05). The second prediction from the hypothesis was tested by combining the PA and WA groups to form a single distribu- tion of scores for Silent watching and one for Total help. A derived score was calculated for each mother which repre- sented her absolute deviation from the mean of the combined group. The PA and WA groups were then compared on their ab- solute deviations from the composite mean for each distribu- tion. and these results are presented in Table 6. The mothers of poorly adjusted boys showed a significantly greater amount of absolute deviation from the composite means of the distri- butions of both dependent variables. The second prediction was confirmed for both Silent watching (p < .01) and for Total help (p < .05). With respect to Total help there is the possibility that the distinctive patterns isolated for the two groups of mothers may be a function of analOgous patterns in their sons 45 for soliciting maternal help. In order to explore this pos- sibility. Requests for help was calculated for each child. The number of times he had requested and received help from his mother was added to his mother's score on No help. the latter category representing all of the child's requests for help to which his mother did not respond. The scores for both groups of boys were combined in a single distribution. the absolute deviations of those scores from the composite mean were calculated. and a group comparison of the absolute deviations was made. The absolute deviations for the PA and WA groups did not differ significantly in magnitude (p > .10. 2—tailed). The analysis suggests that the patterns of help- ing in the two groups of mothers cannot be attributed to cor- responding patterns for requesting help in the sons. TABLE 6.-—Comparison of PA and WA group mothers on their abso- lute deviations from the composite group mean for each of the dependency—independence encouraging variables. (n = 9) Behavioral Category Absolute Deviation p** TPA* TWA* Total help 400 5.0 .05 Silent watching 43.0 2.0 .01 *Sum of the ranks for differences in favor of PA and WA groups respectively (Wilcoxin Matched-pairs Signed-ranks Test). **P values are two-tailed. 46 b. Stanford Parent Questionnaire Two factor scores on the SPQ were considered to be relevant to the dependency-independence encouraging dimen- sion of maternal attitudes toward child rearing. Positive demands for self—sufficiency which comprises the Rewarding independence. Achievement standards. and Contingent reward scales is self-explanatory in this respect. A look at the relationship of these scales to each other (Table 7) suggests that their combination in a factor score is justified in the present study. TABLE 7.—-Pearson product-moment correlations between the scales comprising SPQ Factor I. (n = 18) Rewarding Achievement Independence Standards Achievement standards .44* Contingent reward .33 .56** Note: All tests are two-tailed. * p < .10 ** p < 005 The second factor score felt to be relevant is Strict- ness. which includes both Restrictiveness and Sex anxiety. The two scales included in this score show a strong positive 47 relationship with each other in the present data (r = .55. p < .05). It was assumed that mothers who scored high on Strictness were likely to suppress their sons' efforts toward independent activity. and that low scorers were likely to en- courage or demand such independent behavior from their sons. If the assumption is correct. the two factor scores should bear an inverse relationship to each other. For the present data. however. a high positive rather than a high negative correlation exists between Positive demands for self- sufficiency and Strictness (r = .53. p < .05). This finding mitigates against consideration of Strictness as an index of mother's discouragement of independence in her son. The same procedure was used for testing hypothesis #2 with regard to Positive demands for self-sufficiency and Strictness as was employed with the two dependent variables derived from the behavioral ratings. Table 4 shows that a comparison of group means for the two SPQ variables revealed no significant group differences. In Table 8 the absolute deviations for the PA and WA groups from the mean of the dis- tribution for the combined groups were compared for both de- pendent variables. While both differences were in the direc— tion predicted by hypothesis #2. only the difference for Positive demands for self-sufficiency approached significance "‘ ‘4'! .. 48 (p < .10). The mothers of poorly adjusted boys fell at the extremes on this variable. while the mothers of well-adjusted boys fell more toward the middle. These findings with respect to the SPQ give at least partial support to those based upon the behavioral ratings. and the two taken tOgether provide solid evidence in favor of hypothesis #2. TABLE 8.-—Comparison of mothers of PA and WA groups on their absolute deviations from the composite means of two SPQ factor scores. (n = 10) Factor Score Absolute Deviation t x - s- -— PA XWA XPA—iqm Positive demands for self- sufficiency (I + V + C) 7.90 3.90 1.90 2.12* Strictness (S + T) 8.81 5.71 2.34 1.32 Note: t tests are for paired observations and are two-tailed. * p < .10 3. Maternal self-esteem dimenSion Although no hypotheses were stated concerning the self-esteem dimension. the research on maternal attitudes and child adjustment reported earlier suggested that maternal self- eSteem ranks in importance with the two variables thus far con— sidered. Reference to Table 4 shows that mothers of poorly 49 adjusted boys were lower on Self-esteem than mothers of well- adjusted boys (p < .10). a finding which is consistent with the results of previous research. Self-esteem is involved in several interesting rela- tionships with others of the SPQ variables. Appendix C-2 in- dicates that previous studies of the SPQ have delineated a rejection—low self-esteem factor for mothers. The question is raised as to whether or not high Self-esteem is related to maternal warmth. The relationships between these variables are presented in Table 9. The figures give support to a rejection-low self-esteem factor for the SPQ. but Affection demonstrated shows little relationship to either Rejection or Self-esteem. The negative relationship between Rejection and Affection demonstrated argues against a combination of the two in an Ambivalence scale. a procedure suggested by a previous finding (Winder and Rau. 1962) that mothers of socially deviant boys scored high on both scales. It was felt that maternal Self-esteem might be related to two of the other SPQ variables. Restrictiveness and Achieve- ment standards. that in both cases there would be an inverse relationship between the variables. A mother who has little confidence in herself would be expected to restrict the child's activities. to keep closer tabs on him. so that he would not 50 get into situations which the mother fears that neither he nor she is capable of handling. The high negative correlation (r = -.57. p < .05) between Self-esteem and Restrictiveness adds support to this notion. It would also be expected that a mother who sees herself as essentially unsuccessful would have a greater need for her child to be successful than a mother who feels herself to be a success. This expectation is supported by the Obtained correlation between Self-esteem and Achievement standards (r = -.52. p < .05). It is quite likely that the results of the standardized interview with the mothers will provide more evidence on the maternal self- esteem dimension. TABLE 9.—-Pearson product-moment correlations between the self- esteem. Rejection. and Affection demonstrated scales of the SPQ. (n = 18) Affection demonstrated Self-esteem Self-esteem .03 Rejection -,28 -.83**** Note: All tests are two-tailed. **** p < .001 51 Agreement Between Behavior Ratings and Mothers' Self—repprts A second major question toward which the present re- search was directed was whether or not there is a substantial relationship between observational data on mother—child inter- H action and data on maternal attitudes toward child-rearing as reported by the mother. Instead of comparing every SPQ scale with every behavioral category. an attempt was made to explore the relationship between scales and categories grouped together on some rational basis. In most cases. these groupings pair dependent variables of the SPQ and behavior ratings which fall under either the warmth-hostility or the dependency-independence encouraging dimensions of maternal attitudes and behavior. Rewarding independence vs. Silent watching and Total help is such a grouping. In a few instances. groupings comprise scales and categories which by definition should be tapping some of the same things. An example of this type of grouping is Egg strictiveness vs. Criticism and restriction. Finally. group- ings such as Self-esteem vs. Criticism and restriction and Achievement standards vs. Criticism and restriction were made on the basis of the investigator's reasoned expectation that some logical relationship would emerge. if the scales and 52 categories were measuring what they were intended to measure. All groupings and their correlations are presented in Table 10. The relationships of primary importance are those be— tween the major dependent variables for the SPQ and behavior ratings. within the three dimensions of maternal behavior and attitudes considered in this research. With regard to the warmth—hostility dimension. Affection demonstrated shows a high positive correlation with Total positive interaction (r = .58. p < .05). and Rejection bears a similar relation- ship to Total negative interaction (r = .66. p < .01). The results concerning the dependency—independence encouraging dimension. however. are somewhat disappointing. Although Positive demands for self-sufficiency is related to Silent watching as predicted (r = .41. p < .10). its predicted negative relationship to Total help is not significant. The third dimension. maternal self-esteem. does not lend itself to any obvious SPQ vs. behavior rating compari— sons. There is no behavioral category which can pr0perly be considered a measure of maternal self~esteem. However. if Total ppsitive interaction is considered analogous to Affection demonstrated. Total negative interaction analagous to Rejection. and Criticism and restriction analogous to 33: strictiveness. comparison of the Self—esteem groupings in 53 TABLE lO.-—Pearson product-moment correlations of rational groupings of SPQ scales and factor scores with behavioral categories and sum scores. (n = 18) Grouping r Affection demonstrated vs. Neutral interaction .32 Total positive interaction .58** Total negative interaction -.37 Rejection vs. Nonattention -.15 Neutral interaction -.57** Total positive interaction —.51** Total negative interaction .66*** Criticism & restriction .70*** Negative to frustration .21 Self-esteem vs. Neutral interaction .48** Total positive interaction .17 Total negative interaction -.44* Criticism & restriction -.56**' Positive demands for self-sufficiency vs. Silent watching .41* Total help - -.10 Direct help -.07 Indirect help -.15 Rewarding independence vs. Silent watching .19 Total help -.04 Achievement standards vs. Criticism & restriction .41* Total help -.06 Strictness vs. Silent watching .11 Total help .05 Criticism & restriction .53** Restrictiveness vs. Criticism & restriction .38 Sex anxiety vs. Criticism & restriction .36 Note: All tests are two-tailed. * p < .10 **,p < .05 *** p < .01 54 Table 10 with the correlations between Self—esteem and other SPQ variables reported in Table 9 indicates two very similar patterns. Self-esteem appears to have only a minimal rela- tionship to "demonstrative affection." a highly negative re- lationship to "hostility." and a highly negative relationship to “restricting the child's activity." and this pattern is apparent for both the SPQ and behavior ratings. A final im- portant grouping indicates that Strictness bears a high posi- tive relationship to Criticism and restriction (r = .53. p < .05). a result expected from consideration of the similar definitions for the two measures. In sum. correlations be- tween the major dependent variables of the SPQ and behavior ratings suggest that there is considerable similarity between the two different measures with reSpect to the maternal be- haviors and attitudes which they describe- Mother's Handling of Frustration in the Child The third major question which this research attempted to answer was whether or not the Observational method is suit- able for studying the mother's handling of frustration in her child. NO quantitative data are available on the extent to 55 which each boy was frustrated by the task. It was felt that a tally of the number of times each boy cried. kicked the table. etc. would not accurately describe his degree of frus- tration. These observable acts were not present in each boy to the same extent. but all_boys were clearly very frustrated by the puzzle. Boys who did not show as many of the signs included under Negative to frustration (see Appendix B-2) demonstrated their frustration in other ways. Two boys. for example. who Spoke very clearly at the outset of the session began to manifest speech disturbances after a few minutes had passed. The disturbances became progressively worse. and in both cases. were still very apparent after 90 minutes of soli— tary play subsequent to the interaction session. The mother of one boy asserted that her son has never showed a disturb- ance in speech. and the other boy's mother indicated that her son's speech was affected only under extremely stressful cir- cumstances. Obviously any frequency count of the observable acts included in Negative to frustration would not reflect the extent to which these boys were frustrated. Likewise. there are no data on the specific ways in which mothers handled their sons' frustration. As a group. the mothers of poorly adjusted boys reacted to their son's frustration by rejecting. punishing. or ignoring it more 56 frequently than did the mothers of well-adjusted boys (Nggg- tive to frustration. p < .05). The mothers of well-adjusted boys more Often reacted by comforting the child (Comfort. p < .01). It was apparent from observing each mother. how- ever. that these general descriptions could have been supple- mented by more precise descriptions of the Specific patterns ‘Tr-‘v- In" .1 Jfi— ' for each mother. if such had been the primary object of the study. Relevant to the question of the suitability of the Observational procedure in the study of mother's handling Of frustration are the investigator's impressions concerning the spontaneity of the behavior Observed. In most cases the boy was surprised to find out at the end of the session that he had been observed and listened to. In the few instances in which boys discovered that the room was “bugged.“ the mothers very adeptly distracted their attention. The direc— tions to the mother informed the mothers that the investigator planned to peek at their sons. However. none of the mothers demonstrated obvious signs of being ill at ease or of being self-conscious. In several instances. mothers quite obviously forgot that they were being observed. One mother yelled at and threatened her son. another slapped her son's face. and a third combed her son's hair and straightened his tie (using 57 the observational window as a mirror) immediately prior to the end of the session. Although these accounts are anecdotal. they do contribute to an overall impression formed by the in- vestigator that the session did yield some fairly spontaneous behavior on the part of both child and mother. CHAPTER IV DISCUSSION Maternal Behavior and Child Adjustment L One of the major issues with which the present re- search has dealt is whether or not mothers of poorly adjusted boys differ in meaningful ways from mothers of well-adjusted boys. Implicit in the use of the observed interaction tech- nique is the additional question of whether or not such dif- ferences. if they do exist. can be revealed by observing a brief sample of the mother's behavior. The results of this investigation justify an affirmative answer to both questions. The behavior of the two groups of mothers was found to differ along three dimensions—-warmth-hosti1ity. dependency-independ- ence encouraging. and self-esteem. With the exception of the self—esteem dimension. for which the behavioral categories were not designed to yield information. the hypothesized differences were confirmed by the behavioral ratings as well as by the mothers' self—reports. 58 59 With respect to the warmth—hostility dimension. the results are quite explicit. The behavior ratings indicate that mothers of the PA group praised and comforted their sons less Often and criticized. restricted. and otherwise reacted negatively to their sons more frequently than did mothers of l the WA group. Furthermore. the differences in extent of pos- itive interaction were clearly not a function of differences between the two groups of boys with respect to amount of re- quests for maternal warmth. In addition to Total positive interaction and Total negative interaction. there are possibly two other behavioral categories that are related to maternal warmth-hostility. The first of these. Neutral interaction. yielded significantly higher scores for WA group mothers than for PA group mothers. Although Neutral interaction refers to interchanges between mother and child that are not affectionally toned. the amount of neutral interaction may indicate the extent to which mother is comfortable interacting with her son. and therefore may reflect the degree of warmth underlying their relationship. In fact. Neutral interaction may have greater validity as an indicator of maternal warmth than does Total positive inter- action. due to the fact that the latter comprises maternal behaviors best described as ”demonstrative affection.“ 60 The second category. Nonattention. was found by Brody (1963) to bear a significant relationship to the Hostility- Rejection factor of the PARI. The present study. however. shows no significant group differences on Nonattention and a low negative correlation between this category and the SPQ ; Rejection scale. Perhaps the reason for these findings is that Nonattention may indicate different things for different mothers. For some mothers it may reflect disinterest in the child. while for others it may represent an attempt to let the child work independently and without interference. And for some mothers and their sons. constant maternal attention may not be essential to a warm relationship. with mother's closeness to her son being in itself sufficient. With regard to the SPQ. the results are entirely con— sistent with the ratings of maternal behavior. The PA group mothers showed themselves as more rejecting and less demon- strative of affection than the WA group mothers. Although the Rejection scale is clearly related to the warmth-hostility dimension. there is some question about the relevance of Affection demonstrated. Sears. Maccoby and Levin (1957) make a distinction between maternal warmth and demonstrative affec- tion. and the examples which they give of emotional warmth may or may not include demonstrated affection. depending upon 61 the mother's particular manner of relating to the child. Just as Nonattention does not necessarily indicate hostility or re— jection. Affection demonstrated may not always reflect under- lying warmth or love. The no more than moderate correlations obtaining between Affection demonstrated and Rejection (r = p E -.28) and Total negative interaction (r = -.37) support this E l I notion. In spite of some of the questions raised here. there is sufficient evidence to conclude that mothers of poorly ad— justed boys are less warm and more hostile toward their sons than are mothers of well-adjusted boys." The hypothesis concerning the second dimension. dependency-independence encouraging. likewise receives very strong support from both behavioral ratings and SPQ results. This hypothesis states that PA group mothers will fall at the extremes of the dependency-independence dimension. while the WA group mothers will fall more toward the middle. Regarding the ratings. there were no group differences in means on Silent watching and Total help. the dependent variables for this dimension. Only Suggesting differentiated the two groups. with WA group mothers scoring significantly higher on this 9It must be kept in mind. however. that this conclu- sion and the others which are to be made in this paper apply only to the populations sampled. 62 category than PA group mothers. The fact that Suggesting shows no relationship to any of the other helping behaviors. however. suggests that this difference cannot be considered as serious evidence against the hypothesis of no difference. In fact. Suggesting_may partake of both dependency encourag— ls ing and independence encouraging. providing some middle ground which compromises both needs in the mother. If such is the _ P1 case. the greater amount of Suggesting by the WA group mothers argues for rather than against the hypothesis stated above. Mothers of the PA group fell at the extremes on both Silent watching and Total help. while mothers of the WA group fell within a midrange of values on the distributions of both var— iables. Since the two groups of boys did not demonstrate patterns of requesting help which paralleled these patterns of helping in the two groups of mothers. the differences be- tween PA and WA group mothers may very well reflect valid differences in their attitudes toward dependency and inde- pendence. The same predicted pattern obtained on Positive de- mands for self-sufficiency. the SPQ dependent variable cor— responding to Silent watching. There was not a significant difference between groups on this variable. but the PA group mothers again fell at the extremes and the WA group mothers 63 fell in the middle. Strictness was originally considered a dependent variable. but its lack of relationship to the other variables suggests that strictness and encouraging dependency are not the same thing. The behavior ratings and SPQ results taken together lead to the conclusion that mothers of poorly adjusted boys are highly encouraging of dependency or highly encouraging of independence relative to the mothers of well- adjusted boys. while the latter take a middle course between those two extremes. The findings of this study contradict those of Medin- nus (1961) and Rau et a1. (1964). Medinnus found that mothers of well-adjusted boys were significantly more encouraging of dependency in their sons. while Rau found some evidence of a tendency for mothers of well-adjusted boys to encourage their sons to be selfwsufficient. However. because these two stud- ies employed middle to upper-middle class samples as Opposed to the lower—middle class sample used in the present study. and because the designs of all three studies differed in some important respects. the contradictions may be more of an arti— fact than a reality. How can the present results be explained? The ration— ale behind the investigator's hypothesis is a belief that ma- ternal attitudes at either of the two extremes of dependency- 64 independence encouraging will lead to "pathology“ in the child. The overly dependent child assuredly encounters difficulties in his adjustment to school. It may be argued that the ex- tremely independent child encounters no such difficulty. mainly because self-sufficiency is an essential requirement for adjustment to school. However. the preadolescent boy still needs to be dependent upon his mother. and if a too . r= rigid independence training prevents him from seeking or ob- taining some amount of help and emotional support from his mother. then he. too. will find adjustment difficult. A second explanation. which supplements rather than contradicts the first. relates these findings to the results concerning warmth-hostility. Although highly speculative. it is conceivable that mothers who are extremely encouraging of dependency in their son use this relationship as a reaction formation against underlying and unrecoqnized feelings of re— jection for the sons. Extreme encouraging of independence. on the other hand. possibly Operates as a quite different defense against the same feelings. with mother rationalizing her emotional distance from her boy by believing that she is doing it for his own good. so that he'll be able to "stand on his own two feet." However. such explanations get into the issue Of cause and effect. and the present research is 65 not adequate to the task of making such inferences. Such speculation as above awaits further research to delineate some of the causal relationships involved. Results relating to the third dimension. maternal self-esteem. are necessarily limited due to the nature of the design. Only one scale tapped self-esteem. with mothers of the WA group scoring significantly higher on the SPQ Self— _ ' esteem scale than mothers of the PA group. This finding is consistent with the results of previous studies by Gildea (1961). Winder and Rau (1962). and Rau et al. (1964). which found a significant relationship between high maternal self- esteem and social adjustment in preadolescent boys. The work of Sears et al. (1957) suggests why maternal self-esteem is of such importance to the child's adjustment. He found that the mother's self-esteem was an important cor- relate of her ability to feel and express warmth toward her child. especially when the child had reached kindergarten age. The high negative correlations obtained between Self- esteem and Rejection (r = ~.83) and Total negative interaction (r = -.44) support the notion of a strong relationship between Self-esteem and maternal warmth. The fact that Self-esteem shows only low positive correlations with Affection demons- trated and Total positive interaction but shows a substantial 66 correlation (r = .48. p < .05) with Neutral interaction illus- trates again the distinction between demonstrated affection and warmth. The conclusions which have been drawn from these re— sults are descriptive rather than explanatory in nature. They describe how two populations. mothers of poorly adjusted boys and mothers of well—adjusted boys. differ from each other along three important dimensions of maternal behavior and at- titudes. Although the assumption underlying this research is that the boy's adjustment to school is to a large extent de- termined by his mother's attitudes and behavior with respect to him. the design of the research does not permit a test of this assumption. The maternal behavior and attitudes which have been described may be the cause of and/or result of those characteristics of the boy which have been used to describe poor and good adjustment. The inference can be made that ma— ternal warmth-hostility. dependency-independence encouraging. and self—esteem are related to adjustment in the preadolescent boy. but the exact nature of this relationship is not speci— fied by the present results. “-.'=' f 67 Behavior Ratings and Mother's Self—report A second question explored by the present research is whether or not consistent data on maternal attitudes can be obtained from two independent sources—~observation of mother— child interaction and mother's self-report on the SPQ. A sec- d ondary issue concerned the usefulness of the observed interac- f P tion technique. In regard to the first part of this question. the results reveal that the behavioral categories differentiate the two groups of mothers on precisely the same variables as do the SPQ scales. Mothers whose attitudes were shown to dif- fer in certain ways by the SPQ manifested these same differ- ences on the behavioral measures. In addition to this general agreement between the two measures in the manner in which they discriminated the two criterion groups. Specific comparisons of apprOpriate scale- category pairs provide strong evidence for a substantial con— sistency of maternal attitudes across the observational and self—report measures. In the right direction and significant at the .05 level or better were the correlations between: Affection demonstrated and Total positive interaction; Rejec- Eigg and Total negative interaction. Rejection and Neutral interaction; and Strictness and Criticism and restriction. 68 The correlation between Positive demands for self—sufficiency and Silent watching was significant at the .10 level. while the relationship between this SPQ scale and Total help was not significant. Of the six appropriate comparisons of major scales and categories. then. five were significant. On the basis of these results. it is concluded that in general. the behavioral categories and the SPQ scales that were designed to reflect similar maternal attitudes and behaviors do just that. The two independent measures yield very similar infor- mation. There are two aspects to the question of whether or not the observational method yields information about maternal attitudes which is useful. The observations do provide evi— dence that mothers of poorly adjusted and well-adjusted child- ren differ in their attitudes. and they reveal some of the ways in which these two groups of mothers differ. The SPQ data. however. are just as useful in this respect as are the observational data. Furthermore. the questionnaire approach enjoys several advantages over the observational approach. the most significant of Which is its greater economy. If the two approaches provide comparable data. it seems more feasible to employ the questionnaire. 69 In order for the observational method to be useful. then. it must yield information which cannot be readily ascer- tained by self—report measures. The observational approach does just this. by providing some very specific information as to how the mother's and child's behaviors affect each other. what the patterns of interaction are between mother and child. Sequential analysis of the present data has not yet been done. However. the investigator's impressions suggest that such an analysis will yield both highly individualized patterns and group trends. with some of them. perhaps. resembling the "cir- cular patterns of interaction" which Levinger (1963) describes. Such information will be extremely useful in guiding the de- sign of future studies which attempt to explore some of the causal relationships between mother and child behaviors. Although the conclusion seems justified that observa- tional studies are useful in their own right. it is felt that the best approach to the study of maternal attitudes and child behavior is a comprehensive one which uses observational and self—report techniques as supplements to each other. Both techniques are fallible. A questionnaire may reflect mother's ideal or socially acceptable attitudes rather than her real attitudes toward child rearing. just as her behavior may be more a reflection of ability to role play than of her typical 7O manner of interacting with her child. The two may provide a necessary check on each other. as well as possibly reveal some very interesting discrepancies between expressed atti- tude and behavior. Some of the blatant inconsistencies noted by the investigator between mother's handling of the child's frustration in the observational session and her reported reactions to the hypothetical situations presented to her in the interview underscore the necessity of using at least two independent measures of maternal behavior. The SPQ and the present observed interaction technique are two such meas- ures which may prove a useful combination in future research. Observed Interaction Technique One of the issues of this study is whether or not the observational procedure is suitable for studying the mother's handling of frustration in her child. The tech- nique which was used did succeed in frustrating the boys. and group differences in the mother's handling of frustra- tion were evident. Even though this question was not ex- plored in depth. it is apparent that mother's handling of her son‘s frustration and probably other specific areas of childrearing can be studied by structuring the situation appropriately and looking at what happens. r: 71 But what is even more important. with minor variation the frustration technique and the observational procedure em- ployed in the present study may prove very valuable in explor— ing a variety of research problems. Frustration of the child very clearly leads to spontaneous behaviors on the part of both mother and child which otherwise would not appear in an artificial laboratory situation. The affectionally toned be- haviors are a good case in point. Overt hostility is not likely to manifest itself in front of an observation window unless the situation is structured so that the subjects be— come emotionally involved. This is not to say that it is possible to get mothers and their children to act just as they would at home. The behavior observed in the present study was undoubtedly far from typical for most of the sub- jects. Only a small minority of the mothers struck. yelled at. or otherwise punished their sons. In the majority of cases. hostility was inferred from criticism. suppression of the child's activity. or simply ignoring the child's frustra- tion or “requests" for comfort. The fact remains. however. that both individual and group differences in maternal behav— ior were observed and reliably rated. The mothers showed enough of themselves to permit crude estimates of their char- acteristic ways of interacting with their sons. 72 Methodology_and Future Research The present study represents primarily an exploration in methodology which may be potentially useful in research dealing with parent-child relations. Several suggestive ideas concerning design derive from this research. The subjects who F1 consented to serve in the project were a small sample of lower— middle class. nonclinical. preadolescent boys and their mothers. The small sample size. perhaps. limits the authority of the present findings. but it also serves to demonstrate that fruit- ful results can be obtained in small-sample research. The fact that the poorly adjusted boys were not a clinical group suggests that it is not necessary to compare widely divergent groups in order to reach meaningful conclusions regarding ma- ternal attitudes associated with maladjustment in the child. If clinic cases had been used. the observed group differences undoubtedly would have been greater. but there would also have been a marked discrepancy between groups in the "child stimulus“ with which mother had to c0pe. A pilot phase of the study indicated quite clearly that extremely maladjusted boys became much more frustrated than did either of the two groups in the present study. Although there are no data to support this conclusion. it is felt that the two groups of 73 boys did not differ significantly as to degree of frustra- tion. The results of the group comparisons need to be con- sidered in the light of the social class of the present sample. The conclusions regarding warmth-hostility and self-esteem are in full agreement with the findings of previous research em— ploying middle and upper-middle class subjects. Previous re- sults concerning dependency-independence encouraging. however. are not supported by the present study. Since Rau et al. (1964) used the SPQ in her study of middle and upper-middle class boys. a comparison of her sample and the present sample on Positive demands for self-sufficiency may clear up the issue of whether or not the conflicting results are a func- tion of social class. One difference between the mothers of this study and middle or upper-middle class mothers is suggested by the re- sults of Winder and Rau (1962). They found that mothers of socially deviant boys scored above median on both Rejection and Affection demonstrated. and they concluded that possibly this discrepancy owed to the fact that middle and upper-middle class mothers tend to be highly defensive about their child- rearing attitudes. The finding that mothers of poorly ad- justed boys in the present sample fell below the median on 74 Affection demonstrated supports the notion that the results of Winder and Rau referred to above may indeed be a function of social class. Although this small difference in the re- sults of the two studies cannot be regarded as indicating that middle and upper-middle class mothers are more defensive in general than are lower-middle class mothers. such a possi- bility certainly warrants further research attention. An aspect of the present method which bears consider— ation with respect to future studies of mother—child interac- tion is the rating scheme. Two features of this rating scheme make it much more economical than previous efforts. It has only 14 categories. and therefore judgments can be made fairly easily and accurately after only a small amount of training. Obviously many Specific behaviors are lost to the observer once they are recorded in these general categories. However. research dealing with parent-child relations is characteris- tically nomothetic rather than ideographic. and highly indi- vidualized patterns are sacrificed in favor of describing general trends in the data. Even if a large number of cate- gories were used. it is very likely that they would have to be combined and recombined in order to obtain sufficiently large frequencies for analysis of the data. Admittedly. a frequency count of all the praising. encouraging. and 75 comforting behaviors demonstrated by a mother during a some- what artificial. 30-minute sample of her interaction with her son can only be a crude estimate of this mother's affection for her child. But when such crude estimates add up to sig- nificant group differences. something undoubtedly is going on. and this “something“ can be explored in greater detail. perhaps with more powerful instruments. F. The second advantageous feature of the rating scheme is the "check list" method of recording behavior. This method. of course. is suitable only when a small number of categories are employed. Since there is a list of the categories for each lO-second interval. assessment of inter—rater reliability and analysis of the behavior in sequence are both possible. Although a lO-second interval was used in the present study. closing this interval to 5 seconds may be desirable in order to eliminate the necessity of choosing between two or more behaviors occurring in the same interval. Although the specifics of samples and techniques may suggest ideas for the design of future studies. it is even more important to consider some of the general needs relating to research in the area of parent-child relations. Harris (1960) points up three such needs. and these have been touched upon in the discussion of the results of the present research. 76 First of all. it is necessary to replace ex post facto designs such as the present one with designs which include pre-measures of parental attitudes and behavior. If the relationship be- tween maternal attitudes and the child's adjustment to school is of issue. the design should include an assessment of ma- ternal attitudes prior to the child's enrollment in school. Medinnus (1961) and Rau et al. (1964) have employed such de- signs. This type of study may clear up the question of whether particular parent attitudes and behaviors are antecedent to or consequent to the child behaviors being studied. And the establishment of such time-order relationships constitutes the first step in delineating the cause and effect relationships between parent attitudes and child behavior. The other two needs relate to observational studies. Harris asks the question of how many observation periods may be necessary to reveal behavior trends that are typical for the subjects being studied. He suggests that many samples of behavior are necessary in order to describe the character- istic or modal interactions between parent and child. It is suggested. however. that the manner in which the interaction situation is structured by the investigator is just as import— ant as the number of samples of behavior observed for each parent-child pair. It may be possible to observe parent and *‘ 77 child in several free play sessions without obtaining a clear idea about the significant ways in which they affect each other. It is felt that a good first step is to determine whether or not parent—child interaction in situations struc- tured to elicit certain behaviors is consistent under obser- vation. With regard to the interaction situation used in the present research. it is now necessary to do a test-retest type of study in which the same mother-child pairs are placed in the same situation twice. with the two sessions separated from each other by an appropriate time interval. If adequate test-retest reliability is obtained. comparison of the behavior ratings with interview accounts of behavior in the home may give some idea as to the typicality of the observed behavior. Finally. there is a need for some type of sequential analysis to be used in conjunction with studies of observed interaction. Frequency counts serve a necessary descriptive function. but they do not describe patterns of parent-child interaction and they do not explain why certain behaviors of the child are associated with particular parental behaviors. For example. two mothers may show very high frequencies of helping their sons with the task. If the analysis ends here. it is inferred that these two mothers are highly encouraging of dependency in their sons. and are. for all practical 78 purposes. similar to each other in this respect. Sequential analysis of the data may reveal two distinct patterns of help- ing for the two mothers. with each pattern suggesting a dif- ferent explanation for the mother's encouraging of dependency in her son. In one mother-child pair. the child may reach an impasse with the puzzle and request help from his mother. The mother responds by appropriately helping the child. and then i4 continues to help the child without request. The child reacts to the mother's overly ”indulgent" behavior by requesting more help. and finally he gives up his independent efforts alto— gether. In a second mother-child pair. the child may ini— tially request help. and after the appropriate help is given. the mother may encourage her son to continue on his own. After a short time. the child again becomes frustrated. and his mother reSponds by helping him. When the mother discon- tinues her help. the child becomes frustrated and again uses the frustration to solicit help from his mother. Although both of these hypothetical cases yield the same end result. a high score for the mother on Helping. different explanations can be posited in the two cases. In the former case. the mother's "encouraging of dependency" seems to be a function of her need for the child to be dependent upon her. while in the latter case. the mother's high rate of helping apparently 79 owes to manipulation by a child who does not wish to be inde- pendent. This example serves to demonstrate in oversimplified fashion the role of sequential analysis-—to explore more thor- oughly what is going on between parent and child. Hopefully such analyses will isolate potential cause and effect rela— tionships and circular patterns which will provide the basis for future research in parent-child relations. CHAPTER V S UMMA RY The purpose of the present study was threefold: to determine whether the behavior and attitudes of mothers of poorly adjusted boys differed along meaningful dimensions from the behavior and attitudes of mothers of well—adjusted boys; to assess the degree of correspondence between observa- tions of mother-child interaction and mother's self-reports of child—rearing attitudes: and to evaluate the effectiveness of a particular technique. inducing frustration in the child. in eliciting maternal behaviors of interest. Ss were 20 preadolescent boys and their mothers. di— vided into poorly adjusted and well-adjusted groups on the basis of teachers' ratings. Mothers filled out an abbrevi— ated version of the Stanford Parent Questionnaire. and they participated in a 30-minute puzzle solving session with their sons. The interaction situation was structured in such a way as to induce frustration in the child. and the mother-child interaction which deveIOped in this situation was recorded 80 H 81 by a concealed observer. The rating categories were designed to tap the warmth-hostility and dependency—independence encour- aging dimensions of maternal behavior. with respect to which the following hypotheses were formulated: Mothers of poorly adjusted boys will be more hostile and less warm toward their sons than mothers of well-adjusted boys. And relative to mothers of well-adjusted boys. mothers of poorly adjusted . ii boys will be extremely encouraging of dependency or extremely encouraging of independence in their sons. The results of group comparisons revealed that mothers of the well—adjusted boys scored significantly higher on Total positive interaction. Neutral interaction. and SPQ affection demonstrated. while mothers of the poorly adjusted boys re- ceived significantly higher scores on Total negative interac- tion and SPQ Rejection. These findings were interpreted as confirming the maternal warmth—hostility hypothesis. There were three measures of maternal dependency-independence en— couraging--Silent watching. Total help. and SPQ Positive de- mands for self-sufficiency. According to prediction. there were no significant differences between group means on these measures. and all three were the same in showing a single distinct pattern that was different for the two groups. Mothers of poorly adjusted boys fell at the extremes of the 82 distributions for the three measures. and mothers of well- adjusted boys fell within a midrange of values. These results were taken as solid support for the maternal dependency- independence encouraging hypothesis. An additional finding that mothers of well-adjusted boys scored significantly high— er on SPQ Self-esteem than did mothers of poorly adjusted boys was also consistent with expectation. Comparisons of SPQ scales and factor scores with ap- propriate behavioral categories and sum scores revealed a high degree of relationship between the self-report and ob- servational measures. Of the six apprOpriate comparisons of major scores on the two measures. five were significant. Since both measures also discriminated the two groups of Ss on the same variables. it was concluded that the two independent measures yield very similar information. Although there were no data bearing on the effectiveness of the frustration tech- nique. the investigator's observations suggest that it was very successful in stimulating interaction between mother and child. Several methodological issues were discussed in the light of the present research. and it was concluded that future studies of parent-child relations should employ pre- measures of parental attitudes. observational and self-report 83 measures as supplements to each other. and some method for the sequential analysis of observed parent—child interaction. r I REFERENCES Bing. Elizabeth. Effect of childrearing practices on the de— velopment of differential c0gnitive abilities. Child Developm.. 1963. 34(3). 631-648. k Brody. Grace F. A study of the relationship between maternal attitudes and mother-child interaction. Dissert. Abstr.. 1963. gg(4). 1728. P' Friedman. S. T. Parental child—rearing attitudes and social behavior of children. Dissert. Abstr.. 1964. ggje). 3415. Gildea. Margaret C. -L. Maternal attitudes and general ad- ' justment in school children. In J. C. Glidewell (Ed.). Parental attitudes and child behavior. Springfield. 111.: Charles C. Thomas. 1961. Grant. Q. R.. & Kantor. Mildred B. Some limitations of the effects of maternal attitudes on child behavior. In J. C. Glidewell (Ed.). Parental attitudes and child behavior. Springfield. 111.: Charles C. Thomas. 1961. Harris. D. B. Conceptual and methodological developments in parent-child research. Child Developm.. 1960. 31. 817-822. Hays. W. L. Statistics for psychoquists. New York: Holt. Rinehart. & Winston. 1963. Leton. D. A. A study of parent attitude measurement. Child Developm.. 1958. 22. 515-520. Levinger. G. Supplementary methods in family research. Family Process. 1963. 2. 357-366. 84 85 Medinnus. G. R. The relation between several parent measures and the child's early adjustment to school. J. educ. Psychol.. 1961. gg. 153-156. Merrill Bishop. Barbara. A measurement of mother-child inter- action. J. abnorm. soc. Psychol.. 1946. 41. 37-49. Merill Bishop. Barbara. Mother-child interaction and the so— cial behavior of children. Psychol. Monogr.. 1951. pg. No. 11 (Whole No. 328). Moustakas. C. E.. Sigel. I. E.. & Schalock. H. D. An objec— tive method for the measurement and analysis of child- adult interaction. Child Developm.. 1956. 21, 109- 134. Pease. D.. & Hawkes. G. R. Direct study of child—parent inter— actions. Amer. J. Orthopsychiat.. 1960. 39, 453-459. Rau. Lucy. Mlodnosky. Lucille B.. & Anastasiow. N. Child- rearing antecedents of achievement behaviors in second grade boys. USPHS COOperative Research Project No. 1838. 1964. Ruebush. B. K.. Byrum. Mildred. & Farnham. Louise J. Problem solving as a function of children's defensiveness and parental behavior. J. abnorm. soc. Psychol.. 1963. p1. 355-362. Schaefer. E. S. Converging conceptual models for maternal behavior and for child behavior. In J. C. Glidewell (Ed.). Parental attitudes and child behavior. Spring— field. Ill.: Charles C. Thomas. 1961. Sears. R. R.. Maccoby. E. E.. & Levin. H. Patterns of child rearing. New York: Row & Peterson. 1957. Siegel. S. Nonparametric statistics for the behavioral sci— ences. New York: McGraw-Hill. 1956. Smith. Henrietta T. A comparison of interview and observation measures of mother behavior. J. abnorm. soc. Psychol.. 1958. él, 278-282. 86 Tyler. F. B. A conceptual model for assessing parent-child VidiCh I Winder I Yarrow. motivations. Child Developm.. 1960. 31. 807-815. A. J. Methodological problems in the observation of husband-wife interaction. Marriage and Fami1y_Living. 1956. 18. 234-239. C. L.. & Rau. Lucy. Parental attitudes associated with social deviance in preadolescent boys. J. ab- norm. soc. Psyghol.. 1962. pg. 418-424. Marion R. Problems of methods in parent-child re— search. Child Developmn.. 1963. g3. 214-226. APPENDICES APPENDIX A MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY am LANSING - MICHIGAN 48823 DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY ' OLDS HALL APPEND IX A- l LETTER TO PARENTS OF POORLY ADJUSTED BOYS mar “re and Mrs. Your name has been referred to me by the principal of School. I am doing a study which I hope will promote a better understanding of children and their difficulties in adjusting to school. This study is being carried out by the Department of Psychology, Michigan State wiversity, with the c00peration of the Lansing Public Schools. (1 some As observed. by his teacher, has experience occasional difficulties in the school situation. In order to help i and other boys with similar experiences, its um r is necessary to increase our knowledge by studying a arge n - of boys and observing the ways in which they do things. I am ask ing if and Mrs. will participate in the study. By participating you will not only be making a centeribution to research, but I think, too, that your involvement will an interesting experience for you. ' ' d Mrs Participation will involve an . _ - coming to MSU for approximately an hour and a half, at a timflcon venient to you. will be asked to solve a pus e, and Mrs. will be present while he works out the solu;n tion. This arrangement will make £21 12:69:33:ng I a situation which is new for him. Imdiately af r £1 us will talk with Mrs. briefly concerning her observe o and views about children. If you are willing to participate in the study, would you £1031: out the enclosed questionnaire? I will be contacting youdby pd if so within a short while to find out if you are interests , an new “in to set up an appointment. Your role in helping us to learn of assisting children will be appreciated, Sincerely , 8 9 Tom Rowland APPENDIX A-2 TEACHERS' RATING FORM FOR SELECTION OF WELL—ADJUSTED CONTROLS To: Yen have been given a brief summary of the study which we are conducting at the MSU Psychological Clinic with the permission of the Lansing Schools Research Committee. Your cooperation in helping us to select children to parti- cipate in the study would be greatly appreciated. You have recently referred one of your pupils, , to Psychological Services so that he might obtain help in his adjustment to school. is one of a group of "poorly adjusted" boys which will be used in the present study. we are asking you to select three (3) boys from your class who are quite similar to in some respects, but who demon- strate by their parformance and behavior in class that they are "well-adjusted" to school. In addition to being well-adjustedw, the boys selected should be: 1. years old 2. Of intelligence 3. Of socio-economic class h. Parents' education (parent which has completed the most school) should be: 5. Number of siblings should be: 6. The boy's natural parents should still be living and residing together in the home. Please include with.the names of the boys which you select the parents' names and the family's address. Thank you for your cooperation. *Adjustment ratings should not be made on the basis of the child's'scholastic ability. Some traits which.you.may wish to consider are the child s coopira- tiveness, ability to get along with others in the class, emotional maturi y, and the extent to which he works to capacity. 90 MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY EAST LANSING - MICHIGAN 4.9823 DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY 0 OLDS HALL APPENDIX A-3 LETTER TO PARENTS OF WELL-ADJUSTED BOYS Dear Mr. and Mrs. Your name has been referred to me by the principal of School. I am doing a study which I hope will promote a better understanding of why some children adjust more easily to school than others. This study is being carried out by the Department of Psychology, Michigan State University, and with the cooperation of the Lansing Public Schools. Your son has been selected by his teacher because he has demonstrated a relatively good adjustment to school. I am asking that and Mrs. participate in the study. By participating, you will be making a contribution to research that seeks greater knowledge about children and the ways in which they may be helped. I think, also, that your involvement will be an interest- ing experience for you. Participation will involve and Mrs. coming to MSU for approximately an hour and a half, at a time convenient to you. will be asked to solve a puzzle, and Mrs. will be present while he works out the solution. This arrangement will make feel more at ease in a sit- uation which is new for him. Immediately after the session, I will talk briefly with Mrs. concerning her observations and views about children. If you are willing to participate in the study, would you fill out the enclosed questionnaire? I will be contacting you by phone within a short while to find out if you are interested, and if so, to set up an appointment. Your role in helping us to learn new ways of assisting children will be appreciated. Sincerely, Tom Rowland TR:cl 9 Eco. l APPENDIX B 1- NONATTENTION 1. NONATTENTION 1. NONATTENTION 2. SILENT WATCHING 2. SILENT WATCHING 2, SILENT WATCHING 3' NEUTRAL INTER' 3° NEUTRAL INTER. 3. NEUTRAL INTER. h. PRAISE/RECOG. : A. PRAISE/RECCG. S A. PRAISE/RECOG. S R R 5- COMFTo/AFFECT- S 5. COMET./AFFECT. S S. COMFT./AFFECT. S R R R 6. ENCOURAGING S 6. ENCOURAGING S 6. ENCOURAGING S 7. GIVING INFO. S . GIVING INFO. S 7. GIVING INFO. S R R R 8. SUGGESTING S 8. SUGGESTING S 8. SUGGESTING S R R R 9. ORDERING S 9. ORDERING S 9. ORDERING s R R R 10. HELPING s 10. HELPING S 10. HELPING S R R R 11. CRITICISM 11. CRITICISM 11. CRITICISM APPENDIX B-l 12. RESTRICTION 12. RESTRICTION 12. RESTRICTION RATING SHEET 13. NO HELP 13. NO HELP 13. NO HELP FOR BEHAVIORAL 11.. NO COMFORT 18. NO COMFORT 111. NO COMFORT OBSERVATIONS 15. NEG. TO FRUST. 15. NEG. TO FRUST. 15. NEG. TO FRUST. 1. NONATTENTION 1. NONATTENTION 1. NONATTENTION 2. SILENT WATCHING 2. SILENT WATCHING 2. SILENT WATCHING 3. NEUTRAL INTER. 3. NEUTRAL INTER. 3. NEUTRAL INTER. h. PRAISE/RECOG. S u. PRAISE/RECOG. S u. PRAISE/RECOG. : R R S. COMFT./AFRECT. S 5. COI‘IFT./AFFECT. S 5. COMFT./AFFEGT. g R R 6. ENCOURAGING S 6. ENCOURAGING S 6. ENCOURAGING S R R R 7. GIVING INFO. S 7. GIVING INFO. S 7. GIVING INFO. S R R R 8. SUGGESTING S 8. SUGGESTING S 8. SUGGESTING : R R 9. ORDERING S 9. ORDERING S 9. ORDERING : R R 10. HELPING s 10. HELPING S 10. HELPING : R R _ 11. CRITICISM 11. CRITICISM 11. CRITICISM 12. RESTRICTION 12. RESTRICTION 12. RESTRICTION 13. NO HELP 13. NO HELP . 13. NO HELP 111. NU COMFORT 1 )1. NO COMFORT 1b. NO COMFORT 15. NEG. TO FRUST. 15. NEG. TO FRUST. 15. NEG. To FRUST. Tchl 1/31/66 93 APPENDIX B-2 RATING CATEGORIES I. Attention l. Nonattention M is looking away from C-—- she may be read- ing or looking out the window. Although she may be listening to him. she is not communicating with him. Silent watching M is observing C. but she neither initiates nor responds to his verbalizations or nonverbal behavior. Neutral interaction Spontaneously or in response to C's utterance or nonverbal behavior M makes an utterance or ges— ture which serves to maintain contact between the two. but which doesn't convey approval or disap- proval and which isn't relevant to the task. Ex: M is looking away from C but reSponds with "un-huh“ to his utterance. M asks C what he did in school that afternoon. II. Warmth (Total positive interaction) 4. Praise Ex: S—— M looks over C's shoulder and com— ments. “You're doing very well.“ R-- C holds the puzzle up for M to see and she comments as above. Comfort (comfort and/or affection) This category includes consoling the child or any expression of affection. understanding. or other comforting behaviors. 94 95 II. 5 continued Ex: S-- Unprompted by C. M indicates that it is all right if C doesn't get all of the puzzle done. R-— C begins to cry and M responds as above. Encouragement Ex: S-- C has stopped working on the puzzle and is staring at the prize. M comments. "I'm sure you can do it if you keep working.” R-- C says. “I can't do this.“ and M responds as above. III. Total help In distinguishing between information. suggestion. and command. intonation should be taken into account. A. Indirect help 7. Giving information Ex: S—- M volunteers. “You have 10 minutes more.” R—- C asks. “What's this piece here?" M reSponds. “That's his nose isn't it?“ Suggesting Ex: S-- M says. "Why don't you work more systematically? I'd start with the top pieces." R-- M responds. "No. I wouldn't do It that way." Direct help 9. 10. Ordering Ex: into the corner.” R-- C asks M what he should do next. and she replies as above. S-— M dictates. "Now move this piece Helping 96 III. B. 10 continued This category includes actual manipulation of the puzzle by M. Ex: S-- M is watching C. Placing her hand on the puzzle and moving one of the pieces she says. ”This should go over here.” R-— C begins to cry. and M helps him out by rearranging some of the pieces. IV. Negative behaviors (Total negative interaction) 11. 12. 13. Criticism This is criticism of a negative sort. and excludes constructive criticism. which falls under Giving information etc. Criticism may or may not be with reSpect to task activity. Ex: M comments. “You had it there for a moment. but then you messed it up." Restriction Behavior may be spontaneous or requested. verbal or otherwise. It may or may not be with reference to the task. Commands which are negative should be scored here. Ex: M commands. "Stop humming.” M takes the puzzle from C and moves some of the pieces into their correct posi- tions. No help This category includes ignoring. reject- ing. or punishing of C's request for help. Any reaction of indifference or negativism to overtures for information. suggestions. or physical help fall here. Ex: C looks at M and comments. “If I only knew where to go from here." M continues reading her magazine. IV continued 14. 15. 97 No comfort This category includes any negative reac- tion or failure to respond to requests for praise. comfort. affection. or encouragement. It also includes spontaneous acts which are expressions of hostility or derogation. It does not include criticism. which has a spe- cific focus. EX: C holds up the puzzle expectantly and M turns away. Negative to frustration This category includes any negative reac- tion or absence of reaction to recognizable signs of frustration in the child. Considered to be indicative of frustration are: crying; whining; verbalized anger at the situation; aggression toward the puzzle; refusal to go on; and banging or kicking the table. Ex: C has tears in his eyes. and M says disapprovingly. “Take this and wipe off your face.” APPENDIX B-3 RATER INSTRUCTIONS A rating is made after every 10 seconds. and it should be recorded at the signal flash and click. The selected cate- gory of behavior represents the one of greatest salience during the 10 second interval. In selecting the most significant be- havior occurring within an interval. the following ground rules should be applied. All categories prevail over Nonattention. Silent watching. and Neutral interaction. such that if M does not attend to C for 7 seconds. but encourages him during the remaining 3 seconds. the behavior is scored as Encouraging. Silent watchipg prevails over Nonattention. Neutral interac— .p;pp over both. Any intermittent or emerging behavior takes precedence over a continuing one. For example. if M has been helping C for several intervals. and then she criticizes C while continuing to help him. Criticipp is scored. Categories are arranged on the rating sheet roughly in a descending order Of importance. Criticism supersedes Helping. Restriction supersedes Criticism. etc. Negative to frustration takes precedence over all categories. In all cases. only one cate- gory is scored. 98 APPENDIX C APPENDIX C-2 FACTOR LOADINGS & RELIABILITIES FOR 8 SPQ SCALESl Factor load1ng Scale items K—R r T-R r .82 Rewarding independence 12 .69 .59 I .79 Achievement standards 11 .74 .55 .70 Contingent reward 6 .57 .46 .73 Rejection 20 .66 .63 L- II -.70 Self-esteem 13 .71 .67 .77 Restrictiveness ll .57 .49 II . I .70 Sex anx1ety 13 .72 .74 --- Affection demonstrated 15 .66 --- Factor I ——Positive demands for self-sufficiency Factor II ——Rejection. low self-esteem Factor III—-Strictness or suppression of impulse 1These figures are for Form A of the SPQ. which con- tains a greater number of items than the MSU form used in the present study. 2Factor loadings are based upon factor analysis of the responses of 100 mothers of preadolescent boys. 3Number of items in the MSU form of the SPQ. 4Kuder-Richardson internal consistency coefficients are based upon the responses of 118 mothers of preadolescent boys (Winder and Rau. 1962). 5Test—retest coefficients are based upon the responses of 74 mothers of kindergarten children and the responses of the same mothers two years later. 109 APPENDIX C-l STANFORD PARENT QUESTIONNAIRE INSTRUCTIONS: Please give the following information. Your full name (print): List your children, beginning with the oldest: Names Ages School you completed (For example: 8th grade, Graduated from high school, Graduated from college, Completed 1 % years of college, llth grade and 1 year of mechanics school in the army or navy, Graduated from medical school, etc.): Marital status (For’eXample: Married, Separated, Divorced, Divorced for the second time, Widow, Widow and now married for the second time, etc.): Age: NOTICE: AS soon as you return this questionnaire, this page willloe removed and kept in a separate locked file. Your answers will not be identified with your name. So, you can be very frank on this questionnaire and your answers will be kept completely confidential. Your code number is given below. CODE NUI'PIBER : When you have given the information requested on this page, go on to the next page. You will find more instructions there. 100 101 Appendix C-l (cont.) STANFORD PARENT QUESTIONNAIRE (Mother's Form H.S.U.) The following statements have been made by parents about themselves, their children, and their families. Please read each statement and decide how it applies to you. Look at the next page of this questionnaire for a minute and you will see that there are four columns on the right hand side of the page. On the left side of the page there are statements. You should put one check mark next to each statement. You may put the check mark under SA or A or D or SD. SA means you agree strongly with the statement. A means you agree with the statement more than you disagree with it. D means you disagree with the statement more than you agree with it. SD means that you strongly disagree with the statement. If you agree strongly with the statement or feel sure that it applies to you, put a check mark in the column marked SA. SA means Strongly Agree. If you are sure that a statement does not apply to you or you strongly disagree with the statement, put a check mark in the column marked SD. SD means Strongly Disagree. Use the A (Agree) or D (Disagree) columns for statements you are less sure about or feel less strongly about. Please mark every statement, even though some may not seem to describe you or your family. For example, there might be a statement about brothers and sisters and you may have only one child. Give the answer according to what you believe you would think or feel or do if the statement did apply, or the situation did come up. If you have more than one child, please mark the statements as they apply to your son . This quest cnnaire is for mothers; so if you are a man please ask for a different questionnaire. WOrk as quickly as you can. You do not need to think about each statement too carefully ~- just give your impression about it. In other words, answer every one, but do not think too long about any one. Start with number 1 and do each one in order. Give your impression of each statement quickly and go on to the next one. MEENWELJ 102 Appendix C-l (cont.) theme SA A SD <3 I. ‘We look for*as many opportunities, legitimate E? 42 (3 opportunities, to praise him as we can find. 1? 2. I turn off the TV in the middle of one of his programs or I tell him.to leave the dinner 35 {2 C3 table because he's been misbehaving. R 3. He thinks he knows everything,lmfl3te doesn't. He'll stand there and argue that white is black, 3 4? 0 even when you try to explain things to him. R Lt. He's a kid who's hard to please; he's just 3 contrary. ‘ J? (D .S S. we've told them definitely never to even go to :3 the door unless they were dressed. :1 C) <2 6. I usually say to him, "If you're going to act like that, son, go On to your room until you‘ve 13 ‘2 <3 finished pouting and sulking, and then come on out and join us." H 7. We either play whatever game he wants to play or 3 <52 0 read if he wants me to read something to him. C 8. We praise him whenever he behaves well. ’3 O “T 9. If he leaves home he is definitely required to let us know where he is and we set a time for 3 :2 0 him to be back. I 10. When he was yomiger, we always used to pick him 0 I 3 up the second he fell. R 11. I would say that and I aren‘t as happy .3 with each other as we might be. ‘2 CD E 12. maybe thinks I get too upset over things 0 I 3 that he might want to do. A 13. I'm sure that tells me whenever there is 3 1 Q 0 anything bothering him. . E 1L1. Frankly, I'm just away from him too much of the O 1 time, and this is not good. 3 5 15. Sex is something we don‘t talk about at all in front of the children. 15 ‘2 <3 R 16. The first two years of '5 life are sort of a blur -- I don't remember very much about 3 .22 O . 103 Appendix C—l (cont.) SA A D SD 5 17. From the very beginning we started teaching him 3 :2 I O to always be dressed. E 18. I'd like my son to be smarter than me. o I :2 3 H 19. We show our affection for each other --- we're 3 .2 0 not reserved about it at all. I R 20. I wish I knew how close feels to me. 3 .‘2 I O E 21. I think I get talked into things. 0 I Q 3 E 22. It hurts me when he talks back to me. O I :2 3 H 23. I really enjoy reading to before he goes 3 i4 I O to bed. R 2h. Sometimes he seems to do things just to annoy 3 .2 I 0 me and I find this hard to understand. 5’25. He did mention some dirty joke he heard from the children. I told him not to play with those :3 52 ’ C3 children and not to listen to those things. A 26. He knows that we love him. 3 Q I O F? 27. I feel quite close to him because he'll generally I come to me and put his arms around me and things 13 ‘2 ' <3 like that. R 28. I'd say that in past years I have showed my ‘2 affection too much. Now I try not to overdo it. :3 I <3 R 29. Sometimes I think I understand pretty well but then there are some things he does that I 13 £2 I <3 don't understand at all. 5 30. We have discouraged him from kissing his brother 3 I O on the mouth. ‘2 A 31. I think I've always hugged and kissed him, and if he climbed up in my lap, I'd hold him for a 3 42 I 0 while. C 32. Every once in a while I take the occasion to .3 :2 I 0 tell him I'm proud of his improvement. 3 33. A lot of times I take him to a picture show or 3 ‘2 l O something on weekends. F'Bh. we praise him when we think he would appreciate it and bubble over it -- not just for school 3 a I 0 work or if his room is kept or his shoes are shined. Appendix C-l (cont.) 104 .--.—-o .. «33. I'm sort of inept at playing with babies. IE136. Parents should make lots of things available for kids toiry out and let the kids try lots of thingSo 3:37. It‘s good for him to have lots of ways of keep- ing busy on his own. 52B. When he was small, we got a kick out of seeing him running naked and enjoying himself. V 39. WE‘ve been tnying to develop suitable chores for each child so that they all contribute a little bit. V ho. I spend probably a half hour a day or more on an average school day helping him work his home- work. In. A lot of times he'll say he can't do something, it's too ha-d for him and start asking questions about it. well, we try to help him come up with the answers and then show him that it isn't very difficult and that he can work these things. S 112.. we did explain to him that that was his privates and not to be played with. E LG. I suppose I should give more consideration to his safety when he's out playing but I don't. 5 1414. He's got to learn that he has to close the door when he goes to the bathroom. V DS. I think that a boy his age ought to be able to mow the lawn and perform similar chores. I try to kiss him and he'll back away from me. To my way of thinking, he seems to want an extra~ ordinary amount of attention. I'll say that some of the pretty violent scenes I've had with him were absolutely uncalled for on my own part. E-h9. I'm not as tolerant as I should be, I feel. Q 50. He hasn't been very difficult to bring up. '4 51. I think he likes attention and, believe me, it's lavished on him. E 52. I hope he'll be better able to go out and sway people than I can, I hope he'll have more chance than I have. 105 Appendix C-l (cont.) SD A 53. wasn't very affectionate when he was younger. * -s—‘w— 5 5h. If he plays with his genitals, we just say "Don't do that. Iou might hurt yourself," and drop the subject. R: / C If I've punished him and he goes to his bedroom and cries, I've insisted he stay there if he's going to cry. , E 56. I fear I don't help him as much as I should. 71 57. I'm an independent person -- I know how to make my way in the world. T 58. Whenever he goes out to play, we want him to watch himself and be very careful. V 59. I'd like to see him go ahead and get an exten- sive formal education. V 60. I'd like him to have a little more drive, spirit, initiative. c 61- When he's done something especially nice I always let him know how much I appreciate it. E 62. J Sometimes I‘m at my wits end trying to figure 3 out what to do with that boy. ‘ I 63. we've tried to show him that we plan ahead on things like meals and if there are particular things he wants he must ask ahead of time. And so a couple of times when he has asked ahead, we've tried if possible to do it at that time. 7'6b. He's not allowed to cross a busy street without some older person walking with him. V 65. I've pointed out to him that we each have a job to do. His father's job is to go to work and bring home the money, his mother's job is to keep up the house and his job is to keep his room up. There are some times when it's just not con- venient to let him do things and I don't let him, but I like to let him try. I feel that probably I have been a little bit lacking in that knack of getting down to his level on a lot of things. 106 Appendix C—l (cont.) SA SD 5 I68 I think it's very important for a child to learn to do things for himself within the limits of his capabilities. 'we try to make it possible for him to do as many things as he can. I69. I would like him to be sure of himself in strange situations. I? 70. I feel our best time is when we just sit and talk. R 71. Quite often when we try to do something for him, he doesn't seem to appreciate it and we kind of feel he should. T 72. we're always after him to keep the noise down, to tone it down. E173. I feel that probably I have been a little bit lacking in that knack of getting down onto his level on a lot of things. A 7h. When and I have disagreements we always kiss and make up -- we both feel better if we do this. I don’t like it when he comes and asks me things while I'm eating, and I get annoyed. If we see him playing with his genitals we try to distract him somehow. we think it's important that children learn how to work, learn how to do things, tackle things more than just play. He feels by crying, I suppose, he'll get what he wants. we tell him it won't do him much good to cry. V 79. I think he should have some little chores that he must do so that he learns that there are certain things in life that you have to do. H 80. I love my son intensely. T 81. we frequently have to call his attention to the fact that he should not interrupt our con- versations and that he should be QUietq V 82. I would like to see him more outspoken in school. '4 83. I Show my affection very openly no matter where we are. 107 Appendix C-l (cont.) SA A SD 781;. We keep close track of , -- we always 3 4 0 know where he is. 'T 85. We keep awful. close track of our kids. 3 £2 0 H86. has been left alone very little. There's 3 Q 0 ,always some member of the family in the house. 'T'87. He had one boy friend that was slightly coarse and we didn't particularly approve of him so we ‘3 £2 (3 told to try and steer clear of him. 5 88. We told him that we didn't want him to play with 3 Q 0 his genitals because it would hurt him later on. S 89. We've trained our children to respect each ,3 :2 0 others' privacy in the bathroom. R 90. He doesn't do too much that we can praise him 3 a O for. <1 91. If I take him out someplace, say, to a movie ~- and he sits quietly during this particular 3 Q 0 movie, I'll say, "I'm glad you came along with me, we'll have to go again." I 92. I think that children, within their own group 3 :2 O of friends, have to work out their own differencea. V 93. I hope will have qualities of leadership 3 .3 O and initiative. ‘T’9h, we've always warned him about talking to stranger . He knows he's not supposed to let a stranger come 13 £2 (3 up and talk to him. I 95. We're trying to bring him up so that he's pretty 3 a 0 much responsible to himself. R 96. I can't figure him out sometimes -- I don't know 3 a 0 what makes him tick. T 97. He's supposed to report in just before he goes .3 £2 0 somewhere. ‘/ 98. I think it's a good idea.fbr children to have rng ular jobs around the home because it gives them a 3 a 0 sense of belonging and a sense of importance. :E'99. I think you should teach them to be as self- sufficient as possible. I think they need lots 0 '3 Q 0 love and care but they should be self—sufficient. S 100. We've explained about how intercourse will bring about the birth of a child, where the baby is <9 I :3 carried, and so forth. 108 Appendix C-l (cont.) 5 101. Once he did come home with a dirty word and I knew someday it would come and yet I guess I did get kind of shaky about it. Cl. #37 TRux: 10/65 APPENDIX D APPENDIX D-l INTERVIEW SCHEDULE Mrs. . I'm interested in some of your views about children. how they should behave in certain situations. and how you would react to certain of their behaviors. Let's take some imaginary situations and I'll ask you some questions about them. A. Suppose your son comes in from playing. and his clothes are torn. he's crying. and it's obvious that he's been in a fight. What would be your immediate response? What if he refused to tell you about it? What if he told you that a boy older and bigger than he had beat him up? What if it turns out upon further ques- tioning that your son was actually picking on a boy smaller than he and this other boy was only defending himself? B. Assuming that your son is being bullied by a bigger boy. and the two are likely to have future fights. which one of the following would you most likely do? (1) Tell your son to avoid the bigger boy. lll II. 112 (2) Let the situation naturally resolve it- self. (3) Teach your son how to defend himself. (4) Talk to the bigger boy's mother and ex- plain to her that you don't like your son to fight and ask her to keep her son from bullying smaller children. C. Assuming that your son had been in the wrong about the fighting. that he had lied to you about it and that you felt the situation called for punishment. Which would you be likely to do? (1) Punish him physically. (2) Take away some valued privilege. (3) Let his father deal with him when he got home. (4) Let him off with a good tongue-lashing. (5) Simply show him how hurt you are by his behavior and that you expect him to do better in the future. Suppose your son is in competition with other child- ren of his age. competing in some activity at which you feel he is capable of doing well. It might be an athletic activity. a mathematics test. a piano recital etc. Suppose further that you observe that your son does not seem to have applied himself very well in 113 preparing for the competition. On the day of the com- petition. your son comes home and tells you he didn't do very well. What would you probably say? How would you respond? What action would you take. if any? What if he said he didn't do very well because there were just some things about which he was con- fused and needed help? If there were a similar competition coming up. what would you say regarding this next one? B. Regarding your son's preparation or practice for some upcoming competition. which one of the following would you most likely do? (1) Require him to practice a certain amount of time and make sure he does so. (2) Not say anything about practicing unless it becomes obvious that he is not doing anything to prepare for it. (3) Give him the opportunity to handle the situa- tion on his own by not saying anything about it at all. (4) Tell him you are counting on him to do well and that you are confident that he won't let you down. C. If your son did fail in the competition and you felt that he could have done quite well had he applied himself. what would you be most likely to do? (l) (2) (3) (4) Tell him that from now on he will practice or else. III. If your son is frustrated or upset about something. how r does he show it and how do you handle the situation? 114 Let him know that you are aware of why he failed. Not say much of anything. and wait for the lesson to sink in. Try to make him feel better about his fail- ure. f . .‘l" - .3. 2":C 5: EU r. i ' :l‘ - _ 1 :- w A {i 1.. ..~ 9 .3 w W "' H ”n ifillflqlflfijllflfiflfllflififlifllfllijlflES