Compliance, negativity, reinforcers, and responsiveness : covariates in cooperative mother-child interactions

Examined the free field home interactions of 34 normal mother-child dyads during a one hour observation. Observers coded child compliance, responsiveness and negativity, plus mother social reinforcement of child compliance, mother responsiveness, and mother negativity. These code categories were intercorrelated to assess mother influences on child compliance and child influences on mother responsiveness. As expected, mother responsiveness accounted for most of the variance in child compliance. On the other side, child negativity accounted for most of the variance in mother responsiveness. Results were discussed within a broad social reciprocity framework in which the distinctively different influences exercised by mothers and children were considered.