Children's Prediction of Parental Rewards and Actual Parental Behavior

Abstract

20 boys and girls, ages 7 to 9 yr., predicted size of mother's and father's rewards for their performance on WISC Block Design (two success and two failure items). Mother and father both predicted success or failure for each design prior to the child's performance and rewarded their child's performance on each design. Predictions based on previous studies concerning (a) children's perceptions of mother as more nurturant and father as more punishing and (b) boys as having a less favorable perception of parents than girls were not supported. While children did underestimate parents' rewards (p < .05), they correctly perceived parents as equally rewarding and appropriately decreased their expectancies in light of failure (p < .001).

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