Parents' Beliefs about Children's Cognitive Development

Abstract

MILLER, ScoTrr A. Parents' Beliefs about Children's Cognitive Development. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1988, 59, 259-285. Parents' beliefs about children's cognitive development are of interest both as a form of adult social cognition and for their possible effects on parents' behavior and children's development. This article divides beliefs into 2 general categories: beliefs about developmental processes and beliefs about specific abilities. After an initial presentation of methods and descriptive data for each category, the discussion is organized in terms of 3 issues: origins of parents' beliefs, relations between beliefs and parental behavior, and relations between beliefs and children's cognitive development. The evidence indicates that parents do hold beliefs of various sorts and that these beliefs often relate in predicted ways to hypothesized determinants, to parental childrearing practices, and to children's development. On the negative side, predicted relations are not always found, they are generally small in magnitude, and their causal basis is often not clear. 4 suggested directions for future research are discussed.