The expression of parental autonomy support and its effects on social competence may vary according to children's early dysregulatory risk and vary across racial-cultural groupings. In light of inconsistent findings and gaps in the research literature, this study addresses a) whether autonomy support contributes to social competence, after controlling for maternal warmth and positive regard, b) whether any relationship of autonomy support to social competence is moderated by children's early dysregulation, and c) whether the relationship of autonomy support to social competence is moderated by racial self-identification.This study examined maternal autonomy support in a parent-child discussion task where the dyad was instructed to pick topics about which they disagreed, such as homework, video games, or chores, and to try to make progress in resolving those problems. The participants were 1125 low-income African American and European American fifth graders and their mothers (or in a few cases, grandmothers or another female respondent). An analysis of missing data found significant differences existed between cases without missing data on study variables and cases with missingness on study variables. Therefore, multiple imputation was used to impute missing data. Hierarchical regression analysis found racial self-identification predicted differences in maternal autonomy support, with African American mothers, as hypothesized, less autonomy supportive. Contrary to expectations, regression analyses predicting teacher-reported self-control and cooperation found autonomy support did not predict these measures of social competence and no moderating effects of racial self-identification or early dysregulation were found. Potential reasons for the lack of relationship of autonomy support to social competencies are discussed. Implications for future research and practice are also discussed.
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