Family correlates of daughter's and son's locus of control expectancies during childhood

ABSTRACT

Children who expect they can bring about good outcomes and avoid bad outcomes tend to experience more personal successes. Little is known about factors that contribute to these ‘control expectancies’. The purpose of the present study was to determine whether children's internal control expectancies occur in the context of parents’ internal control expectancies, low family strain, and high family cohesiveness and whether these factors are more strongly related to daughters’ than sons’ control expectancies. A community sample of 85 children aged 9–11 years and their parents (85 mothers; 63 fathers) completed rating scales. Fathers’ more internal control expectancies and mothers’ reports of fewer family strains were associated with daughters’ but not sons’ greater internal control expectancies, and greater family cohesiveness was related to both daughters’ and sons’ internal control orientations. These findings suggest that family factors may contribute to children's, particularly daughters’, development of internal control expectancies.

KEYWORDS:

• Locus of control
• parenting
• family cohesion
• family strain
• gender
• father

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Erin C. Tully, Ph.D. is an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at Georgia State University. Her research focuses on how parent-child factors, including children’s perceptions of parents’ emotions and behaviors, contribute to children’s psychological development.

Jackson M. Gray, B.A. is a graduate student in the clinical psychology programme in the Department of Psychology at Georgia State University. His research interests include family–related factors that facilitate healthy child development.

Sherryl H. Goodman is a Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor in the Department of Psychology at Emory University. Her research is focused on developmental psychopathology with a specific interest in the mechanisms by which mothers with depression may transmit psychopathology to their children.

Stephen Nowicki is Candler Professor Emeritus at Emory University. His research interests focus on personality and skill factors that impact on relating, especially locus of control and nonverbal communication.