Attributions for Parents’ Behavior by Boys With and Without Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder

Abstract

Attributions for parents' behavior were examined in a sample of boys with and without Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Sixty-six boys (mean age = 9.75 years) rated attributions for their mothers' and their fathers' behavior, across positive and negative scenarios, and along four attribution dimensions (parent ability, parent effort, task difficulty, and child responsibility). Three-way interactions emerged among child ADHD status, parent gender, and attribution type, and among scenario valence, parent gender, and attribution type. All children rated attributions higher in the positive scenarios, and attributions of child responsibility higher for fathers than mothers. Children rated task-related attributions higher for mothers in negative scenarios, but higher for fathers in positive scenarios. Boys with ADHD rated child responsibility attributions higher than controls, across all scenarios. Results highlight important differences in children's perceptions of their parents' behavior that may have implications for understanding parent-child relationships in families of children with and without ADHD.

Interpersonal Cognitive Biases in Children and Young People with Neurodevelopmental Disorders: A Systematic Review

“…However, contrary to our hypotheses, overall evidence for increased HAI in NDD was inconsistent. By contrast, there were indications that attributions of causality differed between CYP with and without NDD, as shown by increased globality of attributions in AS [61], or internality of attributions in CYP with ADHD [65].…”

“…Adolescent girls with ADHD, recruited through a research summer camp, did not differ in HAI from female controls and, unlike controls, showed no association of HAI with aggression [64]. Likewise, boys with ADHD did not differ from controls in their external attributions of parental behaviour, but made more internal attributions to child responsibility [65]. Three gender-mixed studies that directly compared HAI between CYP with and without ADHD failed to find group differences for HAI [66][67][68].…”