Perception of boys’ mother-son social interactions: Disruptive boys’ behaviors and involvement in learning tasks

Abstract

This study focused on the relationship between social perception and children’s involvement in learning tasks. The interaction between disruptive boys’ (n=32) perception of the competence attributed to them by their mother, the mother’s behavior (verbal and physical intrusion) and the child’s involvement in learning tasks was observed in a laboratory setting. Boys were asked to solve easy and difficult tasks on a personnal computer under the supervision of their mother. Observations of mother-child interactions showed that disruptive boys with a negative perception of the competence attributed to them by their mother, were less involved in the difficult task than boys who had a positive perception. Mothers of the boys with a negative perception showed more verbal intrusions in the easy task and more physical intrusions in the difficult task than the mothers of boys with a positive perception. Mothers’ verbal intrusion, physical intrusion and boys’ involvement in the task discriminated 75% of the boys with a negative social perception. These results seem to indicate that disruptive boys do not constitute an homogeneous group and that a significant variation in their involvement in a learning task is related to their perception of the competence attributed to them by their mother.