1. Objectifs

Intentions :
«The objective of the present study was to investigate factors that promote or hinder the use of autonomy-supportive versus controlling parenting during the early childhood period within a high-risk sample.» (p. 20)

Questions/Hypothèses :
«Child age was expected to be positively related to autonomy support and negatively related to control, especially when mothers were in a challenging situation where they might be more likely to trust an older child to play on their own more so than a younger child. […] It was expected that a relatively higher SES [socio-economic status] within the present disadvantaged sample would be related to more autonomy-supportive behaviors, whereas a lower SES would be related to more control, regardless of context. […] Psychosocial stressors, represented by mothers’ mental health problems, parental stress and poor satisfaction with social support, and mothers’ childhood histories of both aggression and social withdrawal, were expected to be risk factors for the use of controlling behaviors over more autonomy-supportive strategies, especially when mothers were in a challenging situation where they might feel some pressure.» (p. 20)

2. Méthode

Échantillon/Matériau :
Cette recherche utilise des données provenant du Concordia Longitudinal Risk Project, une étude longitudinale et intergénérationnelle menée depuis 1976 auprès de familles de quartiers défavorisés à Montréal. «The present study focused on a subsample of one hundred families selected if the target child was between the ages of 1 and 6 years and was still living with the original-participant mother at the time of recruitment (between 1995 and 1998).» (p. 21)

Instruments :
- Grille d’observation
- Questionnaire

Type de traitement des données :
Analyse statistique

3. Résumé

«Taken together, risk factors for negative parenting behaviors do indeed predict the use of more control, especially when coupled with stressful situations, however, the lack of these risk factors is not sufficient to predict autonomy support. When there was no contextual stress on the mothers, mothers who had relatively higher SES backgrounds were more likely to use autonomy support with their young children. However, when faced with challenging situations the only predictor of autonomy support was the child’s age, such that older children were more likely to inspire autonomy support and not control. Interestingly, none of the potential risk or protective factors (maternal childhood histories of risk, SES and psychosocial stress) had any impact on autonomy-supportive behaviors when mothers were faced with a challenging situation. […] Thus, it would appear as though control is primarily related to ill-being, and therefore risk factors would include psychosocial stressors from the past and present, whereas autonomy support is primarily related to well-being, and thus would require additional predictors examining more positive potential antecedents to truly understand the causes of autonomy support and control.» (p. 26)