AUTHOR : 채진영,이강이
INFORMATION : page. 95~114 / 2009 Vol.16 No.4
The study examined (1) the influence of mothers' childhood attachment representations on preschoolers' social competence, and (2) the mediating effect of mothers' parenting behaviors on the pathway of mothers' childhood attachment experiences to preschoolers' social competence. 181 dyads of mothers and five-year old preschoolers (96 boys and 85 girls) and their 11 teachers were recruited from 8 daycare centers located in Seoul, Korea. The teachers evaluated the preschoolers’ levels of social competence. The mothers answered a questionnaire on the subject of attachment representations of their parents of origin, based on their retrospective memories, and their own parenting behaviors as mothers of preschoolers. Data were analyzed through frequency, percentages, Pearson’s correlations using SPSS 15.0 and structural equation modeling with AMOS 7.0. The findings are as follows. First, mothers' parenting behaviors had a significant relationship to mothers' childhood attachment representations of their own mothers, but not with the attachment representations towards their fathers. The mothers' parenting behaviors and preschoolers' social competence showed significant or insignificant relationships, depending on the subcategories of mothers' parenting behaviors. Second, mothers' attachment representations towards their fathers had separate significant influences on levels of preschoolers' aggression and depression/isolation. However, there were no mediating effects of mothers' parenting behaviors for these influences. On the other hand, each mothers' responsiveness and intimacy indicated that there was a partial mediating effect of mothers' attachment representations of their mothers on preschoolers' prosociality; each mothers' limit setting, reasoning guidance, and responsiveness showed the complete mediating effect on preschoolers' cheerfulness/cooperation; each mothers' limit setting, reasoning guidance, intimacy showed the partial mediating effect on preschoolers' levels of aggression and depression/isolation. These findings are evidence of the influences of mothers' childhood attachment representations on preschoolers' social competence and the mediating effects of the subcategories of mothers' parenting behaviors on these influences.
32 Volumes, 103 Issues, 906 Articles