Autonomy Support in Toddlerhood: Similarities and Contrasts Between Mothers and Fathers

Infant exploration often hinges on parental autonomy support (i.e., parental behaviors that support children's goals, interests, and choices), a construct that is widely applied in family studies of school-age children and adolescents but less studied in infants and toddlers. Notable gaps conce...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of family psychology 2018-10, Vol.32 (7), p.915-925
Main Authors: Hughes, Claire, Lindberg, Anja, Devine, Rory T.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Autonomy
Child Characteristics
Children
Choice Behavior
Confirmatory factor analysis
Daughters
Dyads
Factor Analysis, Statistical
Families & family life
Family Processes and Support
Family studies
Fathers
Fathers - psychology
Fathers - statistics & numerical data
Female
Goals
Home based
Human
Human Sex Differences
Humans
Individual Differences
Individuality
Infant
Infants
Interests
Interpersonal Relations
Male
Measurement
Middle Aged
Mothers
Mothers - psychology
Mothers - statistics & numerical data
Parent Child Relations
Parental Characteristics
Parenting - psychology
Parents & parenting
Personal Autonomy
Personality
Play and Playthings - psychology
Preschool children
Sex Factors
Temperament
Young Adult
Citations: Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Infant exploration often hinges on parental autonomy support (i.e., parental behaviors that support children's goals, interests, and choices), a construct that is widely applied in family studies of school-age children and adolescents but less studied in infants and toddlers. Notable gaps concern the equivalence, similarities, and contrasts between mothers' and fathers' autonomy support and the correlates of individual differences in autonomy support. To address these underresearched topics, we conducted parallel home-based structured play observations of 195 infants (Mage = 14.42 months, SD = .59) in dyadic interaction with mothers and fathers. Confirmatory factor analyses demonstrated measurement invariance across parent gender, enabling comparisons that revealed significantly moderately higher levels of autonomy support in mothers than in fathers. Individual differences in autonomy support were unrelated to either parental personality or child temperament, highlighting the potential importance of dyadic characteristics. Consistent with this view, whereas maternal autonomy support did not differ by child gender, fathers with sons displayed less autonomy support than did fathers with daughters.
ISSN:0893-3200
1939-1293
DOI:10.1037/fam0000450