Generalized Maternal Reinforcement and Children's Reading Achievement, Math Achievement, and Field Independence

Summary

The relation of maternal reinforcement variables to children's reading and math achievement and field independence was tested among 39 semirural low income Anglo-American mothers and their 7- to 9-year-old children. Maternal reward, punishment, and contingency generalized significantly across two novel behavioral tasks, and were more related to children's verbal than quantitative abilities. For all children, reading ability was associated with a rewarding, nonpunitive, noncontingent mother. Math ability was not related to maternal reward, but was related to a nonpunitive, non-contingent mother for boys. Results support previous research indicating different antecedents of verbal and quantitative abilities and previously documented sex differences in the effect of maternal reinforcement variables.