The social-cognitive underpinnings of effective caregiving

The importance of parental social cognitions to childrearing behavior and parent-child relationships has long been recognized. In the past decade or so, several new social cognition constructs have been developed in an effort to understand why some parents are more sensitive and effective caregivers than others. However, little is known about the relations among the different constructs. This dissertation begins to explicate those relations. Two goals guided this investigation. The first goal was to examine the relations among five social-cognition variables: Concepts of Development, Insight, Secure Adult Attachment, Meta-parenting, and Mindfulness. The second goal was to examine the associations among the social cognition constructs, effective parenting as measured by authoritative parenting and a broader construct of effective childrearing (AWARE parenting), and three child-centered assessments (warm parent-child relationships, history of injuries, and aggression). One hundred and two mothers, most of whom were college educated and European-American, participated in the web-based study. Participants completed 11 self-report measures regarding their parenting and a focal child. Seventy-four friends or family members acted as secondary informants and provided ratings of mothers’ Meta-parenting and AWARE parenting. Results pertaining to the first goal indicated that many of the individual constructs were associated. For example, Concepts of Development and Insight were positively correlated, as were Secure Adult Attachment and Meta-parenting. In addition, results from the exploratory factor analysis revealed that Secure Adult Attachment and Mindfulness were related. In general, Meta-parenting when extracted from the factor analysis, was related to more parenting and child measures than any of the other constructs. Another finding was that all three extracted social cognition factors were significantly related to both parenting measures. Those parents who had higher scores on Childrearing Ideas, Interaction Receptivity, and Meta-parenting also reported more Authoritative and AWARE parenting. With regard to the child variables, Meta-parenting accounted for a significant portion of the variance for both warm relationships and aggression. Interaction Receptivity was also a significant predictor of aggression scores. Mothers who scored higher on Interaction Receptivity reported lower child aggression scores. Child injury reports were not related to any of the extracted factors. Secondary informants were used in an attempt to provide convergent support for maternal reports. Mothers’ and secondary informants’ reports were significantly related for AWARE parenting, but not for Meta-parenting. This study provides new data on the commonalities among five social cognition constructs. Though preliminary, it reveals promising findings regarding links between mothers’ cognitions, parenting, and children’s behavior. Limitations, directions for future research, and implications are discussed.