A meta-analytic examination of maternal reminiscing style: Elaboration, gender, and children’s cognitive development.

Abstract

Sociocultural theories of development privilege the role of parent–child conversation as a critical interpersonal context for cognitive and socioemotional development. Research on maternal reminiscing suggests that mothers differ on the elaborative nature of their reminiscing style. Individual differences in maternal elaborative style are thought to contribute to children’s cognitive development in at least 3 critical areas: (a) memory; (b) language; and (c) theory of mind (ToM). Further, mothers are thought to be more elaborative with daughters than sons. After more than 30 years of research on maternal reminiscing, there has yet to be a quantitative summary of the literature. As such, we conducted a series of meta-analyses to summarize the effect sizes present in the literature, focusing on the 3 domains listed above as well as the potential impact of child gender on maternal elaborative style. The mean age range for children was set to include 30–60 months; roughly the developmental onset of autobiographical memory. Given these criteria, k = 38 studies (51 independent samples) with N = 2,492 mother–child dyads were included in this meta-analysis. Results indicated that maternal elaborative style did not differ by child gender. However, elaboration was positively associated with child memory, child language ability, and ToM. Ethnicity significantly moderated maternal elaborations by child gender, such that samples with majority non-Caucasian mothers elaborated more with daughters than sons.

Maternal Reminiscing and Autobiographical Memory Features of Mother–Child Dyads in a Cross‐Cultural Context

“…While the critical role of maternal reminiscing in predicting child autobiographical memory is wellestablished (Waters, Camia, Facompr e, & Fivush, 2019), this research has primarily focused on child memory elaboration (Nuttall, Valentino, Comas, McNeill, & Stey, 2014). It is important to note that autobiographical memory is multifaceted.…”

The ecology of youth psychological wellbeing in the COVID-19 pandemic.

“…Findings from robust theoretically-guided research show that caregivers (mothers in most research) begin reminiscing with their child from the very early years, and the initially highly parent-scaffolded conversations evolve as children more active contributors (see Nelson & Fivush, 2004 , Salmon & Reese, 2016 , Wang, 2016 , Waters, Camia, Facompré, & Fivush, 2019 ). Across childhood and into adolescence, caregivers’ individual and culturally-influenced styles of talking of discussing the past are increasingly reflected in their children’s styles of remembering and narrating their own past experiences ( Fivush, Haden, & Reese, 2006 , Reese, Macfarlane, McAnally, Robertson, & Taumoepeau, 2020 , Salmon & Reese, 2016 , Wang et al, 2019 ).…”

Toward integrating research on parent–child emotion talk and linguistic theory: A spotlight on parents’ (in)direct communication

“…Although not directly compared, Italian mothers’ elaborative patterns were similar to those found in research with American mothers (Coppola, Ponzetti, & Vaughn, 2014). In a recent meta‐analysis, both ethnicity and child gender moderated maternal elaboration; non‐White mothers elaborated more with daughters than sons (Waters, Carnia, Facompré, & Fivush, 2019).…”