The Discrepancy of Parents' Theories of Intelligence and Parental Involvement.

Kexin Jiang,Liang Luo,Chunhui Liu,Huan Zhou,Bo Lv,Zhaomin Liu,Xiaolin Guo,Juan Liu

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01231

Abstract

In families, mothers and fathers may hold the same or different levels of theories of intelligence. This congruence and discrepancy may influence parental involvement in children’s education. The current study examined how both parents’ theories of intelligence and the direction and degree of the discrepancy of parents’ intelligence theories influence maternal and paternal involvement separately. We measured 1,694 matched pairs of parents’ theories of intelligence and educational involvement, and examined the relationships using linear regressions and polynomial regressions with response surface analysis. The results showed that (1) the mother’s intelligence theory positively related to both paternal involvement and maternal involvement, but the father’s intelligence theory only positively related to paternal involvement; (2) when the parents’ theories of intelligence reached congruence, the parents’ theories of intelligence are positively related to both maternal and paternal involvement; (3) when the parents’ theories of intelligence have discrepancy, the maternal involvement is higher while the mother’s intelligence theory’s level is more incremental than father’s; and (4) when the parents’ theories of intelligence have discrepancy, more discrepancy of parents’ theories of intelligence is related to more paternal involvement. This study revealed the significance of mother’s role in education, highlighted the importance of parents’ congruence and discrepancies in beliefs, examined how parents’ beliefs impact their own behavior and their couple’s behavior.

Highlights

The theory of intelligence (Dweck and Leggett, 1988) refers to beliefs that people hold concerning the nature of intelligence, namely, the changeability of intelligence (Hong et al, 1999)
The incremental theory assumes that intelligence is malleable and changeable, most notably through effort and persistence, while the entity theory assumes that intelligence is fixed and not changed (Dweck and Leggett, 1988)
Parents’ engagement in their children’s education, is a variety of behaviors that parents perform to promote their children’s academic achievement and psychological development in their homes and schools (Seginer, 2006). Theoretical studies such as the models by Walker et al (2005) and Hornby and Lafaele have described the link between parental theory of intelligence and parental involvement. These studies have contended that, on the one hand, parents who hold an incremental theory of intelligence most likely emphasize the role of effort, motivate children to accept shortcomings, encourage them to think about the mechanisms underlying specific questions, and are more involved in education

Summary

Introduction

The theory of intelligence (implicit theory of intelligence, intelligence mindset) (Dweck and Leggett, 1988) refers to beliefs that people hold concerning the nature of intelligence, namely, the changeability of intelligence (Hong et al, 1999). Parents’ engagement in their children’s education, is a variety of behaviors that parents perform to promote their children’s academic achievement and psychological development in their homes and schools (Seginer, 2006) Theoretical studies such as the models by Walker et al (2005) and Hornby and Lafaele have described the link between parental theory of intelligence and parental involvement. Parents who hold an entity theory of intelligence believe strongly in the preeminence of ability over effort and often lack confidence, which leads to actions that minimize external judgments These parents regard children’s difficulties with learning as reflecting low ability, which leads to decreased parental involvement (Walker et al, 2005; see the model of the barriers to parental involvement, Hornby and Lafaele, 2011).

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