Mother - Child Mutually Responsive Orientation and Conscience Development: From Toddler to Early School Age

• Published in: Child development 2000-03, Vol.71 (2), p.417-431
• Main Authors: Kochanska, Grazyna, Murray, Kathleen T.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Age Factors; Biological and medical sciences; Child; Child development; Child Development - physiology; Child psychology; Child, Preschool; Children; Cognition - physiology; Conscience; Cooperation; Development; Developmental psychology; Dyadic relations; Emotional Development; Factors; Female; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Games; Humans; Infant; Internalization; Longitudinal Studies; Male; Maternal Responsiveness; Mediating Factors; Moral Development; Mother-Child Relations; Mother-Child relationships; Mothers; Observation; Parent Child Relationship; Personality and Social Development; Positive Affect; Predictor Variables; Preschool education; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; School age children; Social Cognition; Socialization; Toddlers; Young Children
• ISSN: 0009-3920; 1467-8624
• DOI: 10.1111/1467-8624.00154

We examined whether positive implications of mother-child mutually responsive orientation, demonstrated earlier at toddler and preschool age, extend longitudinally into early school age. The focus of the present study was on the long-term consequences of mutually responsive orientation for the development of conscience. Mutually responsive orientation encompassed shared cooperation and shared positive affect between mother and child. It was measured as a composite of those qualities observed in dyadic naturalistic interactions and reported by mothers, at toddler and preschool age. Children's conscience was assessed at early school age (N = 83) using multiple measures, including observations of moral behavior, alone and in the peer context, and moral cognition. Mother-child mutually responsive orientation at toddler and preschool ages predicted children's future conscience, even after controlling for the developmental continuity of conscience. Model-fitting analyses revealed that mutually responsive orientation at toddler age had a direct effect on future conscience, not mediated by such orientation at preschool age. The findings extend those of earlier work that revealed the importance of mother-child mutually responsive orientation for socialization, and they confirm the value of the relationship approach to social development, including long-term outcomes.