A cross-national study of self-evaluations and attributions in parenting: Argentina, Belgium, France, Israel, Italy, Japan, and the United States.

Abstract

This study investigated and compared ideas about parenting in Argentine, Belgian, French, Israeli, Italian, Japanese, and U.S. mothers of 20-month-olds. Mothers evaluated their competence, satisfaction, investment, and role balance in parenting and rated attributions of successes and failures in 7 parenting tasks to their own ability, effort, or mood, to difficulty of the task, or to child behavior. Few cross-cultural similarities emerged; rather, systematic culture effects for both self-evaluations and attributions were common, such as varying degrees of competence and satisfaction in parenting, and these effects are interpreted in terms of specific cultural proclivities and emphases. Child gender was not an influential factor. Parents' self-evaluations and attributions help to explain how and why parents parent and provide further insight into the broader cultural contexts of children's development.

Cognições maternas acerca da maternidade e do desenvolvimento humano: uma contribuição ao estudo da psicologia parental

“…Os escores relativos à desejabilidade social obtidos neste estudo (M = 17,8, DP = 4,57) mostraram-se muito semelhantes aos relatados em outros estudos 12,24 . As mães não apresentaram níveis de desejabilidade social superiores aos observados em outros estudos semelhantes ou que pudessem pôr em dúvida, sob esse aspecto, os resultados do estudo.…”

Maternal Confidence in Child Rearing: Comparing Data from Short-term Prospective Surveys Among Japanese and Vietnamese Mothers

“…However, a cross-national study reported that Japanese mothers rated themselves less competent and satisfied in their parenting, although they were high in investment when compared to women in six European, South and North American countries [1]. Likewise, an international comparison survey conducted by the Japanese government reported that the proportion of mothers who considered raising children enjoyable was 44% among Japanese mothers, while the number was 81% in the United States [2].…”

Maternal expectations about infant development of pre-term and full-term infants: a cross-national comparison

“…), and infants were more enmeshed in a dense social setting (Bornstein, 1995;New and Richman, 1996). Bornstein et al (1998), on the basis such findings, summarized the 'Italian way' as: 'In the traditional view, parenting per se is not thought to exert direct effects on child growth and development, mothers actively discourage early self-actualization skills, and mothers hold later expectations for children's developmental accomplishments. ' (p. 663).…”