Parental Antecedents of Internal-External Control of Reinforcement

Abstract

Two exploratory studies were conducted involving children's reports of parental behavior and parents' child-rearing and internal-external control (I-E) attitudes as antecedents of children's beliefs that the reinforcements they receive are a consequence of their own behavior (internals). Internals, as contrasted to those who believe that reinforcements tend to occur independently of their behavior (externals), reported their parents as showing less rejection, hostile control, and withdrawal of relations, and more positive involvement and consistent discipline. There were no direct relationships between children's I-E beliefs and parents' child-rearing and I-E attitudes. However, parents whose children had an I-E orientation similar to their own expressed less disciplinarian and more indulgent child-rearing attitudes than parents whose children had an I-E belief unlike their own. Parent-child I-E similarity may be mediated by nurturant, accepting parental behavior.