Perceived maternal childrearing practices were related to concept formation performance obtained under conditions involving negative social reinforcement. College girls reporting low control-low nurturant (“ignoring” partern) or high control-low nurturant (“rejecting” pattern) childrearing histories were conceptually inferior to those whose mothers were perceived as low control-high nurturant (“accepting” pattern). Personality differences among childrearing groups were also reported for both males and females. It was proposed that poorer conceptual performance was obtained because a perceived “ignoring” mother-daughter relationship mediates an insensitivity to social reinforcement, whereas “rejected” females develop a special (disruptive) sensitivity to aversive social reinforcement.
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