Prediction of Parental Rewards and Actual Parental Behavior in Families of Normal Boys and Boys Screened for Emotional Problems

Abstract

20 boys, designated as either normal or screened for emotional problems, predicted size of their mother's and father's rewards for their performance on WISC Block Designs (two items with success and two failure) and on two story-telling tasks. Mother and father each predicted success or failure for each design prior to the child's performance and rewarded their son's performance on each design and story item. The results indicated that: (a) over all tasks mothers and fathers did not differ in terms of the magnitude of their rewards; (b) normal and screened boys did not differ in terms of their expectation of parental rewards; (c) however, the mothers of screened boys gave lower rewards on failure ( p < .04) and story ( p < .01) tasks than did mothers of normal boys. Possible reasons for the mothers of the boys showing preclinical behavior problems being less rewarding are discussed in terms of mother ⇌ son bidirectional interaction.