Underachievement as Related to Perceived Maternal Child Rearing and Academic Conditions of Reinforcement

Heilbrun, Alfred B.

doi:10.2307/1126994

Cited by 13 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…This is an intriguing finding since it is not clear whether the reported discrepancy in perception of degree of maternal control is a misperception on the part of the mothers or on the part of their children. Heilbrun and Walters (1968) demonstrated that high maternal control combined with low nurturance was, indeed, associated with under-achievement, but high maternal control combined with high nurturance was associated with high achievement. Hilliard and Roth (1969) found that mothers of achievers were generally more accepting of their children than mothers of under-achievers.…”

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confidence: 97%

Child‐rearing Attitudes of Mothers of Under‐, Average‐, and Over‐achieving Children

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1979

Brit J of Edu Psychol

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SUMMARY.The relationships between child-rearing attitudes of mothers and levels of academic achievement of their 1 1-year-old (grade six) elementary school children were examined. The sample included 191 mothers (103 mothers of sons and 88 mothers of daughters). Maternal attitudes were assessed by the Parental Attitude Research Instrument. The criterion of academic achievement for the children consisted of objective achievement test scores in reading plus mathematics. Level of academic achievement was defined in terms of the relationship between expected and actual achievement using the regression-equation method. Those items of the Parental Attitude Research Instrument, which discriminated significantly between mothers of under-, average-, and over-achievers, were subjected to factor analysis. The test data of the mothers of sons and mothers of daughters were processed separately. Four factors were identified for the mothers of sons and also four factors for the mothers of daughters. The results indicated that, compared with the mothers of average-and over-achievers, the mothers of under-achieving sons are more dominant, rigid, and restrictive in the sense of being possessive and intrusive, while the mothers of underachieving daughters are more dominant, rigid and restrictive in terms of being protective.INTRODUCTION THE objective of this study was the examination of the relationships between the child-rearing attitudes of mothers and the academic achievement levels of their 1 1-year-old (grade six) elementary school children. The important components of this study, compared with earlier research on this subject, pertain mainly to three crucial methodological issues. First, the level of academic achievement of the children was not defined simply as a grade or score of a certain absolute magnitude, but in terms of the relationship between each child's actual academic achievement and the achievement expected on the basis of his measured intelligence, using the regressionequation method. Second, the criteria of academic achievement consisted of objective achievement test scores in reading plus mathematics, instead of the frequently used grades on report cards. Third, the test data of the mothers of sons, and the mothers of daughters, were processed separately, on the grounds that maternal attitudes which are associated with under-, average-or over-achievement of children may not necessarily be the same in relation to boys and girls. Sex as a significant differential variable in the relationship between personality and academic achievement in children has been clearly demonstrated by, among others, Entwistle and Cunningham (1968).Martin (1975), in his comprehensive review of research on parent-child relations, points out that mothers of high-achieving boys reported that they had expected various behaviours indicative of both independence and achievement at a younger age and also that they had given larger and more frequent reinforcements when their sons performed independently and successfully. For females, intellec...

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confidence: 97%

Child‐rearing Attitudes of Mothers of Under‐, Average‐, and Over‐achieving Children

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1979

Brit J of Edu Psychol

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“…It is plausible to predict, therefore, that school performance will be adversely affected in these children. Recent studies confirm that anxiety arising in the mother-child relationship may lead to academic under-achievement, either because of a rejection/ dependence conflict, (Weinstein, 1968), or because of anticipation of negative reinforcement (Heilbrun and Waters, 1968). The contention that mother-child interaction in the early stages of development may be crucial for the establishment of fundamental cognitive strategies, is supported by a recent factor-analytic study of mother-infant relationship (Stern et al, 1969), where it is concluded that a causal relationship exists between maternal needs of self-reference, and the response characteristics and developmental progress of the infant.…”

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confidence: 99%

Maternal Rejection and Conservation: An Analysis of Sub‐optimal Cognition

Hamilton¹

1972

Child Psychology Psychiatry

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SUMMARY Attempts were made to derive a plausible relationship between socialization experiences and conservation. It was postulated that children of accepting and rejecting mothers would differ from an early age in patterns of arousal and activation levels, in experiences of stress, and in their willingness to obtain social feedback in problem solving. Therefore, it was proposed, children exposed to rejection might find it more difficult to apply logical strategies in information processing, and to filter out irrelevant from relevant stimuli in conservation tests. As predicted, conservation assessed by new pictorial tests of increasing difficulty was shown to be less well developed in children of rejecting mothers.

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