Gender and patterns of concerned responsiveness in representations of the mother-daughter and mother-son relationship.
Given that girls show more interpersonal concern than boys, it was predicted that more mother-daughter than mother-son dyads would develop a relationship of mutual concerned responsiveness (CR). Two hundred and twenty-six Israeli children (7-8 years old) and 91 mother-child pairs provided narratives of mother-child interactions. At high levels of socioeconomic status (SES), descriptions of child but not maternal concern differed by gender; therefore, more mother-daughter narratives described mutual CR and more mother-son narratives described a nonreciprocal pattern of maternal CR. In a low-SES sample, most mother-daughter narratives described mutual CR, but many mothers and sons described little concern by either partner. Results provided clear evidence of gender differences in mother-child reciprocity and confirmed the importance of examining gender influences in different social groups.
Butler
Ruth
R
School of Education, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem 91905, Israel. msbutler@mscc.huji.ac.il
Shalit-Naggar
Rachel
R
D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male; D009034:Mother-Child Relations; D009035:Mothers; D009679:Nuclear Family; D011581:Psychological Tests; D012737:Sex Factors; D014796:Visual Perception