Parental attitudes of mothers and fathers and adolescent shyness and egocentrism

Abstract

The objective of this study was to answer the question whether the properties of parental attitudes manifested by mothers and fathers are related to the level of adolescent shyness and the intensity of egocentrism in their offspring. The question of the relationship between shyness and egocentrism of adolescents was also posed. The following findings were expected: 1) the overprotective, overdemanding, inconsistent and rejecting attitudes are to a greater degree connected with a higher level of adolescent shyness than the accepting and autonomy giving attitudes; 2) the overprotective, overdemanding, inconsistent and rejecting attitudes are to a greater degree connected with a higher level of egocentrism in adolescents than the accepting and autonomy giving attitudes, and: 3) there exists a positive relationship between shyness and the level of adolescent egocentrism. The theoretical grounds for this research were: the concept of parental attitudes (Plopa, 2005), the concept of adolescent egocentrism (Elkind, 1967, 1985) taking two types of egocentrism into account – the personal fable and imaginary audience, as well as the concept of shyness as deve­loped by Philip Zimbardo (2011). A total of 120 Polish “gymnasium” (lower secondary school) pupils aged 13–14 years were tested. The shy group amounted to 84 persons, 43 of whom were girls and 41 were boys. The absence of shyness was declared by 36 persons, 20 girls and 16 boys. Three measuring instruments were used: The Parental Attitude Scale of Plopa in the version for mothers and fathers, the Stanford Shyness Survey of Zimbardo and the unpublished Adolescent Egocentrism Questionnaire of Ludwika Wojciechowska and Żywek. The results of the research allowed the following statements to be made: 1) the attitude of excessive demands on the part of the mother is most strongly connected with adolescent shyness; 2) the overprotective attitude manifested by the mother most strongly relates to the egocentrism dimension of the personal fable; 3) the mother’s attitude of excessive demands is most strongly related to the egocentrism dimension of the imaginary audience; 4) a positive relationship exists between shyness and the level of adolescent egocentrism.