The relation between parenting strategies, parents' beliefs about children's emotions, and preschoolers' theory-of-mind
- WCU Author/Contributor (non-WCU co-authors, if there are any, appear on document)
- Ava E. Weber (Creator)
- Institution
- Western Carolina University (WCU )
- Web Site: http://library.wcu.edu/
- Advisor
- Alleyne Broomell
Abstract: Theory-of-mind (ToM) describes the ability to understand other's perspectives, thoughts, emotions, and beliefs that may differ from one’s own (Pavarini et al., 2013). A child’s ToM development may be influenced by parenting strategies implemented during childhood (Aminin, 2018; Vinden, 2001). Characteristics such as parental warmth, reasoning, punitive strategies, directiveness, lack of follow through, and the ignoring of misbehavior may all impact a child’s psychosocial skills. Likewise, the way a parent responds to a child’s emotions affects their emotional socialization and relationships with others (Halberstadt et al., 2013). Whether a parent responds with validation or minimization of a child’s emotions may influence the understanding of emotions, which impacts the development of ToM (Pavarini et al., 2013; Pears & Moses, 2003; Perlman et al., 2008). Participants aged three to five years old were recruited from the greater Boston, Massachusetts and Cullowhee, North Carolina areas. Parents of the children completed demographic questions, the Parenting Styles Dimensions Questionnaire, and the Parents’ Beliefs About Children’s Emotions questionnaire to measure parenting style traits and parental views toward children’s emotions (Halberstadt et al., 2013; Robinson et al., 2001). The Not-Own-Belief task is a simple false belief task that asks about a character’s perception of where she thinks she lost her favorite toy. Children were asked where they thought the character would look for her ball, with the location always being the opposite of the children’s initial guesses. The Ice Cream Machine task is a novel ToM task that asks participants to memorize and distinguish characters’ favorite ice cream flavors from their own. ToM was measured using responses to questions that directly opposed children’s favorite ice cream flavors. ToM Performance was not significantly correlated with any of the measured parenting traits, nor was it correlated with parents’ negative beliefs about children’s emotions. Multiple regression was used to assess the ability of each individual parenting trait to predict ToM Performance after controlling for age, and Democratic Participation was found to significantly predict ToM Performance. On the other hand, Negative Parental Views did not significantly predict ToM Performance. An independent samples t test compared ToM Performance for boys and girls; a different model was run for each age group. For three-year-olds, differences in ToM Performance scores were statistically different between genders, with boys performing better on tasks than girls. Interpretations of these results are included in the Discussion, Limitations, and Future Directions chapter of this manuscript.
The relation between parenting strategies, parents' beliefs about children's emotions, and preschoolers' theory-of-mind
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Created on 5/1/2024
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Additional Information
- Publication
- Thesis
- Language: English
- Date: 2024
- Subjects
- Parenting
- Emotions in children
- Preschool children
- Philosophy of mind
- Parent and child