Observed Maternal Behavior with Four-Year-Old Boys and Girls in Lower-Class Families

Abstract

RADIN, NORMA. Observed Maternal Behavior with Four-Year-Old Boys and Girls in LowerClass Families. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1974, 45, 1126-1131. Observed maternal behavior with 28 4-year-old, lower-class girls and 24 4-year-old, lower-class boys was compared. It was found that there was significantly more maternal restrictiveness with boys than girls but no significant difference in nurturance or total number of interactions. For girls only, maternal nurturance was significantly related to Binet IQ; for girls only, motivation to achieve was an intervening variable between nurturance and child's IQ. Nurturance was related to the child's motivation to achieve in both the male and female subsamples. The absence of a significant association, for boys, between motivation to achieve and IQ was interpreted in the light of the boys' male sex role, which, in lower-class families, would emphasize physical prowess rather than sedentary activities.