parents' beliefs about their children's cognitive, social, and motor functioning
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Parents' Beliefs About Their Children's Cognitive,Social, and Motor FunctioningKaren Callan StoiberPublished online: 08 Jun 2010.
To cite this article: Karen Callan Stoiber (1992) Parents' Beliefs About Their Children's Cognitive, Social, and MotorFunctioning, Early Education and Development, 3:3, 244-259, DOI: 10.1207/s15566935eed0303_4
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Early Education and Development July 1992, Volume 3, Number 3
Parents’ Beliefs About Their Children’s Cognitive, Soaal, and Motor Functioning
Karen Callan Stoiber Northern Illinois University
This study investigated the accuracy of parents’ judgments about their children’s cognitive, social, md motor abilities as well as the relationship be- tween accwacy of prediciioi, anid child perhi mance. Subjects WCK preschcro!- age children and their mothers. Mothers were significantly less accurate in predicting their child’s success or failure on the social items than on the cognitive and motor items. In all domains, overestimations of ability were more common than underestimations, with the greatest incidence of overestimations occurring for social items. The correlation between accurate predictions by the mother and correct response by the child was .79, and the correlation between overestimation and child competence was -.80. These findings support the ”match” hypothesis, which posits that mothers who have more knowledge of their children are better able to create optimally challenging environments. Reasons for mothers’ poorer ability to predict and greater tendency to overestimate their children’s social understanding are discussed.
Attempts to understand parenting and parent-child relationships are focused increasingly on cognitive aspects of parenting (Dix, 1991; Dix, Ruble, Grusec, & Nixon, 1986; Sigel, 1986). Specifically, researchers have turned their interest to what parents think about their child’s abilities and how these beliefs affect the child’s development (Goodnow, 1988; Goodnow & Collins, 1990; Miller, 1986; Miller, Manhal, & Mee, 1991; Mills & Rubin, 1990). Investigations along these lines stem from the theoretical perspective that how parents con- ceptualize children and their behavior is connected to the child’s development.
Various conceptions of the term belief can be found in the literature (Dix & Grusec, 1985; McGillicuddy-DeLisi, 1982; Miller, 1988; Mills & Rubin, 1990; Sameroff & Feil, 1985). Goodnow and Collins’s (1990) description of a belief as a subset of parental cognitions that reflect what an individual holds to be true about reality best fits the construct being examined in the present study. A specific aim of this study was to determine whether what parents believe to be true about their child’s functioning is actually true. Mothers were asked to describe their children’s performance on selected tasks while the children were administered the tasks in another room. A focus on the accuracy of the parents’
The author extends grateful thanks to the mother and child participants of this study for their enthusiastic cooperation. Appreciation is also extended to Tambrala Houghton and Christine Reger for their assistance with testing and data proczdures, and to anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on an earlier drak
Reprint requests should be sent to the author at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Department of Educational Psychology, P.O. Box 413. Milwaukee, WI 53201.
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Parents’ Beliefs 245
judgments distinguishes this research onbeliefs from studies of parental values, goals, attitudes, or other broader categories of parental cognitions. The present approach permits a direct comparison of the parent‘s judgment to the child’s performance on the task (Miller, 1988). An advantage of this approach is that it limits bias due to subjectivity in evaluating the ”correctness” or ”appmpriate- ness” of parents’ thinking, which might be involved in assessing their general beliefs about child development or other types of parental cognitions.
Studies of parents’ predictions of their child’s abilities have generally reported three findings: (a) There is a positive association between parental accuracy and the level of the child’s perforrnipwe; (b) parental accuracy diflew for different types of tasks; and (c) when piueidb misjudge their child they sl~oi~,~ a greater tendency to overestimate the child’s ability. For example, Hunt and Paraskevopoulos (1980) administered a battery of IQ items to children between the ages of 3 to 5 and asked their mothers to predict how the child would perform each item. They reported a .53 correlation between maternal predic- tions and child performance and a .80 correlation between number of accurate predictions by the mother and number of correct responses by the child. The later correlation, in particular, suggested that the more accurate the mother, the better developed the child. Miller (1986) provided additional evidence of a positive association between maternal accuracy and child development. In his study, Miller compared item-by-item judgments of 24 mothers about their child’s performance of IQ tasks and judgments of 24 mothers about their child’s performance of Piagetian tasks. The correlation between maternal accuracy and child performance was -49 on the IQ items and .E on the Piagetian items.
A recent study of Miller (Miller et al., 1991) further demonstrated that the nature of parental beliefs and degree of parents’ accuracy may depend on the type of ability being judged. In this study, parents of second or fifth graders judged how well their child would perform five types of cognitive tasks: ma thema tical computation, visual-mo tor performance, vocabulary, short-term memory, and matrices problem-solving. Differences in the accuracy of parental judgments were found for these tasks, with parents being most accurate in judging math performance and least accurate in judging their child’s memory. All three previous studies (Hunt & Paraskevopoulos, 1980; Miller, 1986; Miller et al., 1991) reported that when parents misjudged their children, the predomi- nant error was to overestimate the child’s ability.
Most studies of parental beliefs to date have been directed on children’s development of either cognitive or motor abilities. The aim of the present study was to assess parents’ beliefs about their children’s functioning in the social domain as well.
Why is it important to examine what parents think about their children’s social development? One compelling reason concerns the current status of knowledge: Little is known about parental beliefs in the social domain. Al- though research suggests that social cognition - what people think about others’ social behaviors and interactions - can have a powerful influence on
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-~ ~ - - -~ ~~ 1 T 2 ___ ~ -
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i 246 Karen Callan Stoiber
one's perceptions and behaviors (Dix et al., 1986; Gretarsson & Gelfand, 1988), there is apaucity of studies investigating parental beliefs about their own child's social functioning. Before children enter formal schooling, parents are reported
examining parents' beliefs about their child's social functioning, we can gain a greater understanding of their representations of the child - characteristics, expected behaviors, and needs - which they bring to this partnership role.
A second reason relates to the sigruficant role of parents in a child's socialization. Children's early social and emotional experiences generally occur within the family context. E v k h s c ~ of the effect5 of p a n t s rrn t-hp d-dd's social development is provided in research showing that the quaiity of the parent- child relationship predicts a child's soad-emotional competence in early child- hood (e.g., Cohn, 1990; Denham, Renwick, & Holt, 1991; George & Solomon, 1989). Although this research suggests measures of maternal attachment and disciplinary style are related to children's social functioning, the relationship between other parenting variables and the child's social competence is less clear. Given that social competence can be the most critical determinant of success for school, work, and perhaps overall psychological adjustment (Coie, Dodge, & Kupersmidt, 1990; Hartup, 1989; Parker & Asher, 1987; Rubin & Lollis, 19881, a
of social knowledge and skills is needed. A final reason concerns the need for a comparative examination of
parental beliefs in diverse domains to answer questions about the nature and effects of parental beliefs on the child's functioning. As noted earlier, one explanation of the positive association between parental accuracy and child performance of cognitive tasks is that the better the "match" between the parent's beliefs and the child's performance, the better the child develops. According to the "match" hypothesis, parents who more accurately judge their child's abilities are more likely to create opportunities that optimally support and guide their child's development (Hunt & Paraskevopoulos, 1980; Miller, 1986; Miller et al., 1991). This perspective underscores the importance of parents' sensitivity and knowledge for enhancing the young child's development. Although the value of a "good fit" is documented for parental beliefs in the cognitive domain, it has not been addressed in the social domain. It is unclear whether the observed relationship between parental accuracy and child competence is domain specific (e.g., limited to cognitive functioning), or a more global characteristic of parent-child rela- tions. Hence, examining parental beliefs and their relationship to child functioning across diverse domains should assist in understanding the func- tion of parental beliefs. This study is the first to examine the accuracy of parental beliefs in the social domain and to compare the relationship between parental beliefs and child performance in three distinct areas of develop- ment.
r---
f f 1 -3 to assume a collaborative role in preparing them (Waters & Sroufe, 1983). By
1 t i f
1
1 1 further understanding of the role of parental processes in children's acquisition 1
I
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Parents' Belit$ 247
Method Subjects
The subjects were 24 children aged 3 to 6 and their mothers. As in the Hunt and Paraskevopoulos (1980) study, the child sample consisted of preschool children (mean age = 50 months; SD = 10 months). The mothers (mean age = 32.73; range = 2742) were primarily middle class (median family income = $30,000). All of the mothers had at minimum attended high school, with 91% indicating education beyond high school. The mother-child dyads were re- cruited from two daycare centers in a midwestern, medium-sized college town. None of the children had rc-ccivd E:ri l i ? s l ~ s&c~jXiw, ' g g , s<irrdc~vgc+vi~~ 7 ) IO
reduce potential parental bias caused by school-related opportunities such as parent-teacher conferences. The study was conducted during winter, but the daycare centers did not conduct screening activities or share information about child functioning with parents untillate spring. Approximately 30% of recruited families agreed to participate. A review of socioeconomic status and parent education data from records at these daycare centers suggested that participants did not differ from nonparticipants on these factors. There were 13 boys and 11 girls. AU subjects were offered a stuffed toy and a $5.00 certificate redeemable at a local restaurant. Procedure
Prior to conducting the study, pilot testing occurred with 6 children aged 3 to 5 years for the following purposes: (a) to evaluate task difficulty of cognitive, social, and motor items; (b) to eliminate possible basal and ceiling effects; and (c) to determine that tasks were developmentally appropriate. Pilot testing suggested the children attended better to the cognitive items when they were presented first, and benefited from the motor activity midway through the testing. The order of task presentation used in the study for both children and mothers was the same, beginning with cognitive items, followed by motor items, and then the social items. This arrangement of tasks was chosen to optimize child performance.
Children and mothers were administered tasks during concurrent ses- sions. Both met individually with examiners for sessions approximately one hour in duration at a university clinic setting. The cognitive and social batteries consisted of 24 items. There were 12 motor tasks. An attempt was made to include problems somewhat comparable in difficulty in the three domains. For example, the cognitive battery contained four items in which the child was requested to identify shapes of an object. Similarly, on the social battery there were four items that requested the child to identify the emotion being expressed in a picture. All of the motor items were drawn from the arm coordination and leg coordination tests on the McCarthy Scales of Children's Abilities (McCarthy 1972). Although at pilot testing children were observed to perform poorer than expected on motor items, this was disregarded in light of standardization information on the McCarthy Scales. The McCarthy Scales are appropriate for
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children from 2 through 8 years of age. A description of the cognitive, social, and motor items are listed in Tables 1,2, and 3, respectively. Table 1 Cognitive Battery
Item Description
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
Block counting: 2
Block counting: 3
Block counting: 5 Block sorting
Shape naming: circle
Shape naming: square
Shape naming: triangle
Shape naming: rectangle
Number concepts
Number concepts
Conservation of number
Number counting
Whole-part relation: circle
Whole-part relation: half
Fraction concepts: half
Fraction concepts: quarter
Alphabet reciting
Word recognition: stop
Word recognition: Pepsi
Word recognition: McDonalds
Matching letters: capital
Matching letters: small
Writing absurdities
Misshe: letter
When 8 blocks are presented, child takes 2.
Child takes 3 more blocks from remaining 6.
Child counts 5 blocks.
When 10 blocks arc presented, child places same number of blocks on 2 cards.
When a donut picture is presented, indicates circle or round shape.
When a sandwich picture is presented, indicates square shape.
When a pie slice pidure is presented, indicates triangle shape.
When a rectangle cake is presented, indicates rectangle shape.
When asked which number means more, 5 or 3, indicates 5.
When asked which number means more, 13 or 20, indicates 20.
When a picture showing 6 large bears and a picture showing 16 tiny bears are presented, indicates picture of 16 bears has more bears.
Counts rote to 20 with no more than 2 errors.
Identifies two circle halves together form a circle.
Identifies piece of diagonally cut circle as a half.
When asked to give half of 4 blocks, gives 2.
When asked to give a quarter of 4 blocks, gives 1.
Recites alphabet with no more than 3 errors.
Reads word "Stop."
Reads word "Pepsi."
Reads word "McDonalds."
Matches capital letters to small letters.
Matches small letters to capital letters.
When presented page showing inverted letters, identifies letters upside down or backward.
Y Identifies letter sequentially following LMNOP.
In the child session, the examiner explained to the child that she would be asking the child to do some activities or answer some questions. The child was instructed that some of the items would be easy, others more difficult. In addition, they were informed that because the examiner was interested in how children think, she would like for the child to do his or her best. All items were administered in a standardized manner, with the McCarthy items given using
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249 Parents‘ Beliefs
Table 2 Social Battery
Item Description
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15. 16.
1 7.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
Social knowledge: friend
Social knowledge: friend constancy
Social knowledge: friendship making
Social knowledgr: nnt a friend
Social knowledge: understanding intent
social knowledge: showing anger
Social knowledge: behavior interpretation
Social knowledge: sharing
Identify feeling: sharing
Identify feeling: sad
Identify feeling: angry
Identify feeling. fear/surprise
Emotion sorting: happy
Emotion sorting: sad
Emotion sorting: angry
Emotion sorting: fear/surprk
Precipitating event: happy
Precipitating event: sad
Precipitating event: angry
Precipitating event: fear/surprise
Chosen companion: store
Chosen companion: TV
Chosen companion: zoo
Chosen companion: park
Defines friend by identifying appropriate characteristics.
Indicates someone is still a friend when plays with someone else.
Indicates way to ”make friends” with someone.
Distinguishs as “not a friend” fmm hiend by identifyirLp, appropriate characteristics.
Identifies appropriate response to being hit by a baby or smaller child.
Identifie appropriate way to show anger.
Identifies ways adults show anger.
Identifies appropriate way to obtain a toy possessed by another child.
Identifies appropriate way to obtain a toy possessed by another child.
When shown picture of sad face, identifies sad.
When shown picture of angry face, identifies angry.
When shown picture of fearful face, identifies fear or
When presented with 12 pictures showing 4 different emotions, sorts 3 happy together.
Sorts 3 sad cards together.
Sorts 3 angry cards together.
Sorts 3 fear/surprise cards together.
When shown a happy face, identifies preceding event.
When shown a sad face, identifies preceding event.
When shown an angry face, identifies preceding event.
When shown a fearful/surprised face, identifes preceding went.
When shown a picture of a store, indicates a preferred companion.
When shown a picture of a child watching W, itldicates a preferred companion.
When shown a picture of a zoo entrance, indicates a preferred companion.
When shown a picture of a park, indicates a preferred
S u r p r i s e .
companion.
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Table 3 Motor Batten
Karen Callan Stoiber
Itan Description
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
Walking backwards
Walking on tiptoe
Walking a straight line
Standing on one foot
Standing on other foot
skipppin~
Ball bouncing
Beanbag catch: both hands
Beanbag catch: preferred hand
Beanbag catch: nonprefemd hand
Beanbag target: preferred hand
Beanbag target: nonpreferred hand
Takes 2 to 4 steps backwards.
Tiptoes 2 to 4 steps without touching heels to floor.
Walks on 9-foot tape with no more than 2 steps off the tape. Stands on preferred foot for 3-9 seconds.
Stands on nonpreferred foot for 3-9 seconds.
Skips 2 tc 2 iiiries wikh one loot 0): aikrnating feet.
Bounces ball 2 or more times.
Catches 1 of 3 beanbag tosses with both hands.
Catches 1 of 3 beanbag tosses with preferred hand.
Catches 1 of 3 beanbag tosses with nonpreferred hand.
Throws beanbag through target hole with preferred hand.
Throws beanbag through target hole with nonpreferred hand.
the standardized instructions provided in the test manual. Children were in- formed that their mother was across the hall in another room, and they could visit with her if desired. However, requests by children to visit their mother were very rare.
In the adult session, the interviewer began by explaining that the mother would be shown a variety of tasks that were being administered to her child. The mother was then informed she would be asked questions on how her child would respond and whether the child’s response was correct or incorrect. The interviewer stressed that she was interested in parents’ thinking about their children. It was emphasized also that the tasks varied greatly in type and difficulty and that no preschool child was expected to be successful on all of them.
The test stimuli were identical to those administered to the children; however, the wording was modified to make it appropriate for the adult judgment task (e.g., Your child will be shown a picture of a sandwich like this one, then the child will be asked ’What shape is this sandwich?” How will your child respond?). Mothers also were asked specifically whether their child‘s response was correct for all items except the ”companion choice” items on the social battery (items in this category cannot be scored as either right or wrong). At the end of the interview, mothers were thanked for participating and reas- sured that making judgments about their child was a difficult task.
Results First, data concerning the accuracy of response for the children and their
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Parents’ Beliefs 251
mothers will be presented. Presented next will be comparisons of maternal judgments for the cognitive, motor, and social domains. Third, consideration will be given to the relation between maternal accuracy and child response. Finally, descriptive information will be reported on the mothers’ best and worst predicted items. Measures of Accuracy
Table 4 shows the mean number of correct responses by the preschool children on the cognitive, social, and motor batteries. Although both the cogni- tive and social batteries contained 24 items, the maximum number of correct child responses on the social battery was 20 because the dour ’’cornpGmim choice” items could not be scored as correct or incorrect. Means for the cognitive and social batteries were multiplied by .5 and .6 respectively, in order that the number of trials be equivalent to the number of trials in the motor battery (i.e., 12). On the cognitive battery and the social battery, children performed at an equivalent and desired level, answering 54% of items of each battery correctly. Their performance on the 12 motor items was at a poorer than expected, 23% correct level. The implication of this finding will be discussed shortly. TabIe 4 Means and Standard Deoiatwns of Children’s Correct Response f o r Each Domain
correct Responses
Tvw of Task M SD
Cognitive
social
Motor
6.50 2.32
6.56 2.55
2.75 .94
Note. Means are based on 12 trials.
Table 5 shows the percentages of exactly correct predictions, overestima- tions, and underestimations by the mothers for all three domains. The first entry indicates maternal accuracy in judging her child’s ability to perform test items. The measure of maternal accuracy was obtained directly on most items by comparing the mother’s judgment of corred, incorrect, or “did not know” to the child’s performance. Responses of ”did not know” by the mother were scored as an inaccurate prediction. For items in the “social knowledge” category, two raters, who were blind to the objectives of the study, rated child responses as correct or incorrect. Interrater agreement, based on a random sample of 10 subjects, was 93% for the soaal knowledge judgments. Accuracy on the social knowledge items was determined by comparing parents’ judgments to the objective ratings. For ”chosen companion” items, agreement was based on the choice of mother or another person (e.g., father, age-mate). In this way, a 50% chance level of accuracy was maintained across items. Also shown in Table 5 are the direction of the mothers’ inaccurate judgments, reflected in overestima- tions and underestimations, which are described below.
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Table 5 Percentages of Mothers‘ Accumte Judgments, Ovmstimations, and Underestimations
Type of Task Accurate Judgments Overestimations Underestimations
Cognitive 61 22 15
Social 50 38 11
Motor 68 20 9
As can be seen in Table 5, mothers were fairly accurate in their judgments on the motor battery (68%) and cognitive battery (61%), but demonstrated only the chance level of 50% accuracy on the social items. An analysis of varimce for repeated measures was performed to test whether there were sigruficant differ- ences in maternal accuracy. The within-subjects factor was the domain category. Results indicated a sigruficant domain effect, F(2,46) = 20.22, p < .001. Follow-up analyses were conducted on pair-wise contrasts using the Fisher Least Si@- cant Difference (LSD) method. Post hoc comparisons showed mothers were more accurate in predicting their child’s performance on both the cognitive and motor batteries than on the social battery. However, maternal accuracy for the cognitive items and the motor items did not differ sigruficantly.
Table 5 also shows the direction of the inaccurate judgments. Summing across the cognitive, social, and motor batteries, mothers were found to overes- timate their child’s ability significantly more than underestimate, t(23) = 6.00, p < .001. The tendency to overestimate was especially apparent on the social items, on which overestimation were almost 4 times more common than were underestimations. In comparing mothers’ overestimations to underestimations across the cognitive, social, and motor mas, the children’s unexpected poorer performance on the motor items complicated comparisons, because it created more opportunities for overestimation than underestimation. An analysis of variance for repeated measures revealed a significant domain effect for overes- timation, F(2,46) = 17.07, p < .001. Follow-up analyses using the Fisher LSD method showed overestimations were significantly more likely on the social battery than on both the cognitive and motor batteries. Hence, mothers overes- timated sigruficantly more on social items, despite the bias of greater opportu- nities for overestimation on motor items. Finally, an analysis of variance for repeated measures on mothers’ underestimations in the three domains revealed no sigruficant differences. Relations Between Mother and Child Responses
An important question addressed in this study was whether a mother’s success at predicting her child’s performance related to the child’s ability to respond correctly. To address this question, correlations were computed be- tween the percentage of items predicted accurately by the mother and the percentage actually achieved by the child. For both the cognitive and social batteries, the correlations between correct responses by the child and accurate judgments by the mother were positive and significant: cognitive, r = .70, p < .001; and social, r = .85, p c .001. However, on the motor items, the relationship
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Parents’ Belit$ 253
between correct child performance and maternal accuracy was not sigruficant. Summing across all three test batteries, the correlation of .79 closely matched the .80 correlation that was reported by Hunt and Paraskevopoulos (1980) and Miller (1986).
Both Hunt and Paraskevopoulos and Miller reported that the correlation between mother’s accuracy and child’s performance resulted primarily from overestimations of the child’s ability. The correlational pattern using overesti- mation ratios in the present study was found to be consistent with results of previous studies. Overestimation ratios, calculated with the ratios of overesti- mations to the number ~f trials on which arl overestimation could occur, were used to correct for the possible inflated baseiine value for the accuracy-perfor- mance correlation. Miller (1986; Miller et al., 1991) pointed out that parents’ overestimation tendency assures a correlation other than zero between accuracy and performance because better performance by a child is necessarily associated with low p a r e n t d d discrepancy. The ratio-based correlations between cor- rect responses by the child and overestimations by the mother were -82, -.76(p < .001), and -.57 ( p < .01) for the cognitive, social, and motor items, respectively. Summing across all three domains, a correlation of -.80 was yielded between maternal overestimation and child performance. On all batter- ies, there was no sigruficant relationship between the child’s success and per- centage of underestimations.
Another question in this study was whether mothers’ success at predicting their child‘s performance were related in the three domains. Mothers’ accuracy in predicting their child’s performance in the cognitive domain was significantly correlated with their success at predicting in the social domain (r = .47, p < .01). However, mothers’ successful predictions of motor performance did not relate sigmficantly to accurate judgments of cognitive or social performance (Y = .31 and .17, respectively). Mothers’ Best and Worst Predictions
This final section describes the types of items on which mothers displayed the most and least success in judging their child’s performance. In this descrip- tion, qualitative aspects of mother and child responses (rather than only the judgment of correct, incorrect, or did not know) are provided. The main interest in examining qualitative aspects of best and worst predictions is that it should promote better understanding of the nature of the mothers’ beliefs and their child’s performance.
Not surprisingly, mothers’ descriptions and predictions of their child’s behavior were most accurate for cognitive and motor tasks with which children demonstrated the highest level of success. Twenty-three of the 24 mothers, or 96%, accurately judged their child’s ability to correctly count 2 blocks, walk backwards, tiptoe, and walk a straight line.
Items on which mothers were least accurate concerned the child‘s social knowledge and understanding. In particular, mothers did poorly in predicting their children’s understanding of emotions, often expecting their preschoolers
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254 Karen Callan Stoiber
to understand more than they showed. For example, only 2 of the 24 mothers, or 8.3%, accurately predicted their child’s ability to describe an adult when angry. Interestingly, an examination of the content of responses revealed that while 71 % of the mothers stated their child would describe adults as showing anger by aggressive or high power actions (e.g., verbal reprimand, spanking), only 17% of the children actually defined adult anger in these ways. On the sortingemotions task, mothers again overestimated their child’s understand- ing of anger. Although 79% of the mothers predicted their child to be successful, 29% of the children sorted angry faces correctly. Also, only 4 of the 24 mothers, or 17%, correctlypredictd. ih&chM’s nbiliteytoiidentifyan incident that wsdd make a child feel happy. Tile ~i~others~ e L m b c1n this item can be exphied by ki
majority of them (62%) predicting appropriate responses by the child, whereas only 8 children (33%) demonstrated this understanding. Another type of social item on which mothers generally predicted poorly involved the child’s prefer- ences for companions to accompany him or her on social activities. Only 6 of the 24 mothers, or 25%, correctly identified the person their child would chose to go with them to the store and zoo (for the park and watching TV, the ratios were also low - 7 and 8 of 24, respectively). Interestingly, mothers tended to identify themselves as the person chosen by their child (43%), whereas the children most commonly selected age-peers as their partners (58%), and se- lected their mothers only 22% of the time.
The one cognitive item on which mothers were least accurate in their predic- tion was due to undemstimation, with only 25% being m m t . In the sample, 54% of the mothers underestimated their child’s knowledge of ”half,” indicating they thought their child would not take 2 blocks when asked to take half of the 4 blocks. Hence, the tendency of mothers to overestimate their child’s abilities on social items and underestimate their child’s abilities on cognitive items was evinced in compar- ing the mothers’ worst predictions in these two domains.
Discussion In contrast to previous research on the accuracy of parental beliefs, this
study focused on mothers’ knowledge of their children in the social domain as well as cognitive and motor domains. Parental beliefs are considered to reflect important contexts within which a child develops (Miller, 1988; Mills & Rubin, 1990). Although parental beliefs, in particular, set the stage for a child’s devel- opment of social competence (Dix, 1991; Mills & Rubin, 19901, they have not been adequately examined. The approach to examining parental beliefs adopted in the present study provides a framework for understanding parents’ apprais- als of specific tasks within distinct domains of child behavior. The findings contain evidence to support and extend previous research on the nature of
Consistent with previous research on parental beliefs, parents’ predictions were related to the developmental competence of the child. More specifically, the correlation between parental accuracy and child performance of .79, which
parental beliefs.
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was yielded when summing across the three areas, provides strong evidence of a link between beliefs and child competence. Miller et al. (1991) suggested that there are alternative explanations for a positive association between parental accuracy and the level of the child's performance. One explanation, mentioned previously, is that the better the "match" between the parenfs beliefs and the child's performance, the better the child develops. Another explanation sug- gests an opposite direction of cause and effect: A child's level of ability affects the parent's ability to make judgments. That is, children having better abilities are easier to judge than less proficient children. A third notion concerns the possibility that the positive correlation Js decc eo a similarity in intelligence between parent and child. Because the inieliignce of parents and child~err IL correlated positively, the performance levels of family members should be related to some degree. Finally, parents' greater tendency to overestimate when they err may provide part of the basis for a positive association. Although conclusions about the significant relation found between parental beliefs and child competence are limited due to the restricted scope of the study (i.e., the study did not obtain measures of parental behavior or intelligence; it required parents to make specific predictions of performance on specific targets of behavior), the present results suggest that competence in preschoolers is, at least in part, dependent on parental beliefs.
The present results also contain evidence of the previously supported ten- dency in parents to overestimate. Overestimation by parents has been shown in various studies of parental prediction, including item-by-item predictions (Miller, 1986; Miller et al., 1991), global estimates (Heriot &schmickel, 1967)) and percentile judgments (Delgado-Hachey, 1984). This consistent pattern suggests overestima- tion tendencia are a robust finding, which does not depend on the difficulty of the prediction task or the task difficulty for the child. The latter conclusion, in particular, is supported in the finding of mothers' less accurate judgments and overestimation tendenaes occurring sigruficantly more on the social items, even though the level of difficulty of the social items for the child was equivalent to the cognitive items and less than the motor items. In this respect, the mothers' tendencies to overesti- mate do not appear to be a function of the c h i l w s poorer performance. Rather, the basis for the "mismatch" seems to be situated in diffmm in the mothers' beliefs for the different domains of child functioning.
By turning to a related finding of the present study-mothers were si@- icantly less accurate in judging their child on tasks drawn from the social domain than from the two other areas of functioning-notions about the influ- ence of domain become clearer. This finding suggests mothers are less capable in predicting their child on social items than on cognitive and motor items. Of course, firm conclusions about the n a ~ of differences in parental beliefs for cognitive vs. social vs. motor domains cannot be drawn from a single study. In particular, caution in drawing conclusions is indicated due to the generalizabjlity of the current findings. While the statistically significant values are adequate to suggest the measures tapped genuine differences in parental beliefs, the sample
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256 Karen Callan Stoiber
size and its representativeness should be kept in mind. Also, parents’ evalua- tions were based on a select p u p of items drawn from the cognitive, social, and motor domains. Small sample sizes and a restricted range of measures are not unusual in this area of research (Barton & Tomasello, 1991; Miller, 1986; Miller et al., 1991). However, whether a similar pattern of mults would emerge with othex items is unknown. Nevertheless, the combined Iesults of poorer accuracy, greater overestimation, and the negative relationship between mater- nal overestimation and child performance are noteworthy and call for thought- ful consideration.
Why doparent stend tobc ~‘waccurate rid overeStimalcr,~nr.einrhr ccrci,aT domain than in the cognitive and motor domains? It could be that a young child is more capable of expressing social knowledge in the mother’s presence than in the more clinical arena of an interview. Alternatively, perhaps notions about a postivity bias can lend an explanation. Research concerning the attribution of social behavior indicates that parents tend to view their child’s positivebehavior as stable and internally generated. In contrast, negative behaviors are viewed as transient and situationally determined (Dix et al., 1986; Gretarsson & Gelfand, 1988; Mills & Rubin, 1990). According to this view, parents form a self-protective bias in their perception of their child to make the task of parenting more appealing and manageable. One possibility is that parents are more likely to have a positivity bias in the social domain because it is most closely tied to interpersonal aspects of the parent-child relationship. Hence, it is particularly important for parents to hold positive beliefs about the child’s social functioning in that these beliefs have the greatest impact on the parents’ motivation for parenting. Furthermore,pamnts may fail to attend to or minimize negative signs of their child’s social development because such awareness predisposes a parent to feel less adequate in the parenting role.
Another explanation stems from god-regulation or intentional models of behavior (Corno, 1989). This view suggests that several goals or strategies charac- terize parent4dd relationships, including that parents actively and continually appraise their understanding of the child to promote their intentions for the child’s development moreeffectively Theseappraisalprocessesareinlargepartautomatic (e.g., Bargh, 1988; Isen & Diamond, 1989), as well as irrational (Nisbett & Ross, 1980). The present study suggests that mothers especially believe their children are more sophisticated socially than they actually are. Perhaps in viewing the child as sufficiently competent, mothers then attend less to social functioning cues. R e searchers are only b e m g to address how parents’ needs and emotions affect parents’ monitoring, attention, and judgment (Dix, 1991). It seems likely, however, that parents’ emotions and their ability to attend to and accept their child’s social functioning might well underlie the findings in the social domain.
Together the results raise important questions regarding the nature and impact of mothers’ beliefs about their young children’s social behavior. Is poorer social competence in children a function of parents’ limited knowledge and understanding? Or conversely, are limited knowledge and understanding in
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parents a function of children’s poorer social competence? In addition, what is the relationship between parental beliefs and parental involvement? Is poorer accuracy in parents a reflection of their poorer monitoring and involvement? Although the answers at present arenot clear, several implications emerge from this and previous studies.
Involved parents have children who ~ I V more socially accepted by peers than do parents who are uninvolved (McDonald & Parke, 1984; Putallaz, 1987). In addition, more knowledgeable p m t s are reported to demonstrate more sensitive and responsive caregiving (Miller, 1988). Findings by Miller (Miller, 1986; Miller et al., 1991) suggest that neither parental accuracy nor the pmt-child correlations were solely determined by child perfomane. Rather, parental cognitions appear to be mediating the child’s development. In light of the pattern of findings pointing to parental beliefs as a barometer of parental involvement, parental beliefs may therefore be the cognitive variable most closely related to a child’s socialization. In thisrespect,oneimportantimplicationof the present study i s a d for further work on parental beliefs. Several directions for future resean% are apparent. Clearly research focusing on p m t s ’ beliefs with larger and diverse samples (e.g., different socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds) is indicated. The inclusion of the social domain in the present study provides the basis for future work examining the link between parents’ beliefs and their involvement in social activities with their young child. In particular, both mothers’ and fathers’ contributions to preschoolers’ social competence needs to be explored and assessed. Research along these lines should have both theoretical and practid value. Not only might it enhance an understand- ing of the effects of parental beliefs, but it is expected to distinguish viable targets for improving parents’ understanding of their children and, ultimately, social competence in children.
A second implication of the study concerns professional practices in early childhood. H m caution is indicated in dying solely on parental reports when assessing a child’s social functioning. In particular, developing and validating alternative methods, such as observational indices for evaluating children sus- pected of having special needs, would seem prudent. Another implication for professionals in early childhood concerns parental involvement. Promoting in parents a greater awareness of their children’s social development may be one of the most crucial means to improving a child’s social competence. Early childhood professionals might achieve this objective by sharing with parents information about their child’s social competence or by encouraging parents to observe their child during social interactions. Obviously, this will q u i r e early childhood pro- fessionals to have sound knowledge in social development as well as a strong commitment to parental involvement. In light of the current findings, the benefits of promoting increased awareness in parents might be greatest for children who are demonstrating the least knowledge.
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EARLY EDUCATION and DEVELOPMENT
Editorial Policy Designed to serve as an interfacing link between research and practice, Early Education
and Dmlopment publishes research articles, literature reviews, program descriptions/evalu- ations, and integrative theoretical papers in the areas of infant and preschool development, child care’ and intervention and assessment with children from birth to age eight. The Journal has focal interest in the areas of social and emotional adjustment in early school years; programming for preschool children; family life; and children’s early education, develop- ment, and transition to schooling. studies of normal, at-risk, or special needs children are appropriate. The Journal also publishes a Brief Reports section, whose guidelines are de- scribed below. Early Education and DeveZopment is dedicated to an interdisciplinary approach to these issues and, therefore, welcomes submissions from all disciplinary perspectives.
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