Doctoral Dissertations

Date of Award

12-1999

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

Psychology

Major Professor

Robert G. Wahler

Committee Members

Allen Dunn, Lance Lawrence, Mike Nash

Abstract

Twenty-seven elementary aged children drawn from a community population were paired with their mothers and teachers in a study designed to assess adult caregiver's personal narratives. Personal narrative is defined as a caregiver's abstract summary of the social domain including rules for social interaction. For this study, personal narrative was solicited through a semi-structured interview that asked six questions about life at home for mothers and life at school for teachers. These narratives were coded along structural and thematic dimensions and included measures for coherence, narrative richness, and relationship quality. In separately scheduled one-hour observation sessions, mother-child and teacher-child behaviors were coded for rates of child negativity, mother negativity, child compliance, and overall adult and child responsiveness. After the session, mothers and teachers completed two self-report measures; one designed to assess their satisfaction with the past hour of social interaction and the second to evaluate psychological rigidity. Results showed that teachers who are highly responsive tend to weave coherent and rich narratives and report satisfying interactions with their child partners. Mother and teacher responsiveness were clearly related to the proximal influence of child behavior yet only teacher responsiveness demonstrated a relationship with the distal influences believed to be mediated or carried by personal narrative. These results are interpreted from the perspective that personal narrative may be most relevant when caregivers are less knowledgeable about their ecosystem partners. In other findings, mothers with rich narratives tended to report lower levels of rigidity. The narrative measures exhibited acceptable internal consistency and interrater reliability values with preliminary analysis suggesting they operate as independent dimensions. These results need to be taken under advisement given that the sample is small and homogenous. As the data set grows, current relationships may be confirmed or new and different relationships may emerge.

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