This article was downloaded by: [George Mason University] On: 22 February 2013, At: 02:05 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK
Behavioral Medicine Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/vbmd20
Behavioral Differences in the Interactions between Type A and B Mothers and their Children Anne P. Copeland PhD
a
a
Department of Psychology, Boston University, USA Version of record first published: 09 Jul 2010.
To cite this article: Anne P. Copeland PhD (1990): Behavioral Differences in the Interactions between Type A and B Mothers and their Children, Behavioral Medicine, 16:3, 111-117 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08964289.1990.9934598
PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae, and drug doses should be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings, demand, or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material.
Behavioral Differences in the Interactions Between Type A and B Mothers and Their Children
Downloaded by [George Mason University] at 02:05 22 February 2013
Anne P. Copeland, PhD
Fifty-seven women participating in a study of family reorganization following parental separation were grouped as Type A or B on the basis of the Jenkins Activity Survey. They were observed interacting with their children during two tasks, one of which elicited more directive and involved interaction than the other. Type A mothers were particularly directive, especially when interacting with sons and during the task-oriented condition. Although children’s behavior was coded and analyzed as a function of mothers’ Type A or B status, few differences in children’s behavior were found.
Type A and B individuals differ behaviorally and affectively in more natural settings. Although the relationship between the Type A pattern and coronary heart disease has been found to be similar in women and men: there is some evidence that women defined as Type A or B, when studied at all, do not show behavioral or physiological differences as consistently as men in these laboratory tasks.’ It may be that the factors that elicit reactions resembling Type A behavior for women are different. For example, MacDougall, Dembroski, and Krantz’ suggest that social interactions tend to elicit the expected Type A-B differences (as measured on the Structured Interview) in physiological response for women. Thus, studying women within a relationship of primary importance to them may be quite instructive about the meaning of the Type A-B distinction. In the present study, researchers observed women interacting with their children under two different sets of instructions, one of which called for playing a game that was more challenging and difficult and required more slow, deliberate, and task-oriented behavior than the other. In addition to this focus on “eliciting situations” and women’s behavior, the analyses allowed examination of the socializing role, if any, of mothers’ Type A-B status in affecting their children’s behavior. Specifically, if consistent behavioral differences in Type A and B mothers were to be found, one might also expect their children to
The Type A behavior pattern was defined by Friedman and Rosenman’ as “an action-emotion complex that can be observed in any person who is aggressively involved in a chronic, incessant struggle to achieve more and more in less and less time, and if required to do so, against the opposing efforts of other things or other persons” (p 67), and has been shown to be a risk factor related to coronary heart disease.” Rather than being a personality trait, the pattern is “the outcome of a set of predispositions interacting with specific types of eliciting situations, including those that are stressful or challenging,” according to Matthews and H a y n e ~ Although .~ the characteristics that comprise an “eliciting situation” have not been definitively specified, Matthews4” suggests that Type A-B differences are seen most distinctly in settings that are moderately competitive, are uncontrollable, require endurance and slow, careful work, use a broad focus of attention, or include moderately difficult tasks accompanied by some degree of failure or an external incentive. Most of the research leading to this conclusion, however, has been highly acontextual and artificial, relying on such tasks as laboratory games or loud noises to operationalize a “challenging environment.” Much less is known about how
Anne t? Copeland b an associate professor in the Department of Psychology at Boston University.
111
TYPE A AND B WOMEN AND THEIR CHILDREN
behave differently in response to the different socializing experience. Finally, in this context, the Type A and B women’s relationships with their children were also examined as a function of the child’s sex.
METHOD
Downloaded by [George Mason University] at 02:05 22 February 2013
Subjects Participants were part of a larger, 2-year longitudinal study, the Family Changes Project, that focused on 120 families’ transformation following parental divorce. This article reports from the Year 1 assessment only; thus, it is important to remember that the mother-child interactions observed may be indicative of dyads under more stress than usual. Families were recruited through court records. Each family had at least one child aged 6 to 12 years who was arbitrarily designated as the “target child” by the project staff. In each case, the parents had been separated for less than 8 months at the time of the first session. Mothers had physical custody of their children in all cases. This sample was representative of divorcing famiLies who met the selection criteria of this study in terms of the geographical area where they lived, number, age, and sex of child, length of marriage, and grounds for divorce. Although the major focus of data collection occurred in an individual interview session with each family member and through mailed questionnaires, a subgroup of 57 mother-child pairs also accepted an invitation to participate in a second session several weeks later. It is these families that make up the sample for the current study. This subgroup was not demographically different from those who did not participate. In this sample of 57 families, the mean age of the mothers was 34.1 years (SD = 4.6). Their educational history ranged from high school graduate to graduate school; 71.4% of the mothers worked at least part-time or were in school at the time of the Year 1 session (57.6% worked full-time). Occupational status ranged from unskilled to professional. AU mothers in this subsample had physical custody of their children. The target children in this sample consisted of 28 boys (M age = 8.7 years, SD = 2.2) and 29 girls (Mage = 8.5 years, SD = 1.6). All mothers and children were Caucasian. PKJcedurrs Mothers completed the Jenkins Activity Survey (JAS).8*9 Because most of the women in this study were employed, Form C was used; mothers completed this measure regardless of their employment status. If they were in school, they were asked to answer questions concerning jobs in terms of school. If they were full-time homemakers, they were asked to leave those questions blank. In
112
accordance with the standard scoring instructions, if more than six items on a factor were left blank, that whole factor was eliminated for that subject. Year 1-2 correlations are presented for the Speedllmpatience (SI), Job Involvement (JI), Hard-drivingKompetitive (HC), and Type A (TA) scores. The behavioral data are presented only in terms of the Type A scale, however, since Jenkins et ala suggest that this scale is the most predictive of coronary heart disease. In addition, 30-minute play observations between these mothers and target children were videotaped and later coded. The first 10-minute segment was a warm-up period and consisted of free play with preselected toys. An experimenter instructed the mother when to begin the second component, in which mothers were to help their children build a tower of wooden blocks while the child was blindfolded. Mothers were instructed beforehand to continue until they thought “their child had built as high a tower as she or he could,” but that this should be “about 10 minutes” (a clock was visible in the room). Then they were to go on to the third activity, making a crafts project together. The tower-building component was the most goaloriented of the three segments, although the standard of success was quite vague. The amount of time each dyad spent on the tower-building task was noted and analyzed as an indicator of goal-directedness. Videotapes were coded by two highly trained graduate research assistants, using both a time- and an eventsampling code system. First, in a modification of the Response-Class Matrix,” every 15 seconds one coder categorized the mother’s most recent behavior and how the child responded; the other coder categorized the child’s most recent behavior and the mother’s response. In this way, ratios of each dyad member’s behavior could be calculated for each category (sum of categoryltotal number of intervals, eg, the number of intervals coded as “mother praise” or “child negative,” divided by the total number of intervals coded). Ratios of mother-responding-to-child or child-responding-to-mother interchanges (sum of a particular antecedent-consequent interchangeltotal number of intervals, eg, the number of times a child complied with a mother’s command, divided by the total number of mother commands) were also derived. We established reliability first on practice tapes, then throughout the study, by periodic, unannounced double-coding of study tapes. Throughout the study, the ratio of agreements of category to sum of agreements and disagreements was maintained at a level of at least 80% across d categories. Second, coders recorded every instance of a number of behaviors thought to characterize Type A behavior, ie, repeated commands and comments about time urgency.
Behavioral Medicine
COPELAND
(Several other behaviors, such as pushes to succeed, were also coded but occurred so infrequently that they were dropped from analyses.) Comments about time urgency and repetitive commands are representative of the range of Type A behaviors and were included here on theoretical and empirical grounds. All categories used in the study are described in Table 1, grouped conceptually as measures of involvement or directiveness. Reliability (agreement that a codable incident had occurred and of category/sum of agreements and disagreements) was similarly maintained at a level of at least 80%.
Downloaded by [George Mason University] at 02:05 22 February 2013
RESULTS Descriptive Comments About JAS Results
Mean scaled scores for the mothers in this sample on the four JAS factors are shown in Table 2; scores from
both years’ assessments are included in order to assess the stability of the measurements at Year 1. Scores on the four factors at the two assessment sessions were, indeed, significantly correlated with each other: TA, r = .65, df = 4 5 , p c .001; S1, r = .72, df = 4 5 , p c .001; JI, r = .66,df = 4 5 , p < .001; HC, r = .55, df = 4 5 , p < .001. This suggests adequate reliability and supports the utility of the JAS as a grouping factor for the rest of the analyses that focused on behavior in the first year. None of the four factors was significantly correlated with mothers’ age or a 3-point rating of job status, but educational level was significantly correlated with scores on the TA (r = .38, df = 56, p c .01) and JI (r = .52, df = 56, p < .001). To rule out the possibility that apparent JAS fmdings were really due t o differences in education, correlations between educational level and all dependent measures were examined. Only one was significant (child inter-
TABLE 1 Definitions of Play Observation Coding Categories
Measure Involvement Interaction Unresponsive Interact ion: positive
1nteraction:unresponsive Directiveness Negative Directive
Praise Mother command:child comply Time urgency
Repeated command
Fall 1990
Coding category
Neutral, descriptive verbal statements or questions; nonverbal interaction play Ignoring; playing separate activity alone; not responding to child’s initiations One person’s interaction responded to within interval by interaction, question, or praise by the other person One person’s interaction responded to within interval by unresponsiveness by the other person Verbal refusal to comply; name-calling; insults; negative feedback or disapproval Direct order that could be accomplished in a single action, or suggestion o r statement of an overall rule (coded for mothers only) Verbal reward or feedback (coded for mothers only) Mother’s directive responded to within interval by child’s compliance Statements about presence of time limit; may be to hasten performance (coded for mothers only) Exact repetition of command, defined as directive above (coded for mothers only)
113
Downloaded by [George Mason University] at 02:05 22 February 2013
TYPE A AND B WOMEN AND THEIR CHILDREN
actionmother unresponsive, r = - .28, df = 57, p < .05). Although it is unlikely that only educational level accounts for the results in this study, it should be remembered that, as has been found in previous research,’.” the Type A behavior pattern in this study was somewhat related to education. Next, 1 performed several Type A x Child Gender x Play Condition analyses of variance (ANOVAs). Post hoc analyses were done using the Scheffk test. For these analyses, two groups were formed based on a median split for the Year 1 JAS Type A factor (Md = 53.).* Because of the relatively large number of analyses, no ANOVA trends are reported; stil!, the results should be interpreted with caution. Means for analyses are shown in Table 3. Main effects are reported first, but these must be interpreted in light of the higher-order interactions reported subsequently. To aid the reader, we have printed lower-order effects that are modified by subsequently reported higher-order interactions in italics.
TABLE 2 Means and Standard Deviations of Jenkins Factors Each Year Jenkins factor Type A M
SD Speed Ampatience M
SD Job Involvement M
SD Hard-DrivingKompetitive M
SD
Year 1
Year 2
54.83 25.44
52.15 25.71
48.13 26.42
44.25 29.22
41.78 26.42
42.06 26.01
45.28 26.01
42.17 27.50
Main Play Condition Effects Behavior during the tower-building task and the crafts project sessions were compared, assuming that any differences would be the result of the difference in goal-directedness of the two conditions. Because the tower-building task always preceded the crafts project, order effects cannot be ruled out, but the nature of the main effects for play condition suggest that the tower-building condition elicited more directiveness and involvement from the mothers, just as one would expect from an achievementoriented task. Specifically, during the tower task as compared with the crafts task, mothers gave more praises, F(1, 53)= 1 6 . 4 4 , ~ e .001, more negativecomments, F(1, 53) = 8.18, p e .Ol, more directive suggestions, F(1,53) = 50.08, p e .001, more time-urgency comments, F(1, 53) = 16.34, p < .001, more repeated commands, 41, 53) = 58.88, p < .001, and were less unresponsive, F(1, 53) = 24.85, p < .001. During the tower task, the children, in turn, were also less unresponsive, 01, 53) = 35.23, p e .001, and more interactive, 41, 53) = 12.38, p < .001, and complied more with their mothers’ commands, F(I, 40) = 5.00, p e .05. The interacti0n:positive and interacti0n:unresponsive measures revealed similar *The Speed/lmpatience, Job Involvement, and Hard-driving/Competitive factors were also used as grouping factors in analyses of variance. With very few exceptions, mothers’ and children’s behavior were not found to be related to these factors. Exceptions were: (a) highly job-involved mothers and their children were less involved with each other, especially in the craft condition, (b) very hard-driving/ competitive mothers were particularly directive, especially in the tower condition, and (c) children of hard-driving / competitive mothers were particularly unresponsive, especially in the crafts condition.
1 I4
results. In response to the other’s interaction attempts during the tower condition, children, F(1, 53) = 11.55, p < .01, and mothers, F(1, 53) = 1 5 . 5 6 , ~< .001, were less unresponsive than during the craft condition, and the children were more positive, F(1, 53) = 8.93, p < .Ol, than during the crafts project. Interestingly, given that mothers were less unresponsive in the tower than in the craft condition, the mothers were also less positive, F(1, 53) = 10.40, p e .Ol, in the tower than in the craft condition. This seemingly contradictory finding is probably the result of having been coded frequently in the “directive” and “negative” categories during the tower task, as these two categories were included in neither the positive nor unresponsive codes. Main JAS Type A Effects Mothers in the Type A group made significantly more comments reflecting time urgency, F(1. 53) = 6.01, p < .025, than Type B women. Main Gender Effects Mothers of both Type A status groups made more time urgency remarks to boys than to girls, F(1, 53) = 4.41, p e .05, and were more unresponsive following daughters’ interaction attempts than following son’s attempts, F ( I , 53) = 4 . 2 6 , ~< .05. Type A x Play Condition Interactions Significant Type A x Play Condition interactions were found for the mother interaction, F(1, 5 3 ) = 4.20, p
Behavioral Medicine Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/vbmd20
Behavioral Differences in the Interactions between Type A and B Mothers and their Children Anne P. Copeland PhD
a
a
Department of Psychology, Boston University, USA Version of record first published: 09 Jul 2010.
To cite this article: Anne P. Copeland PhD (1990): Behavioral Differences in the Interactions between Type A and B Mothers and their Children, Behavioral Medicine, 16:3, 111-117 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08964289.1990.9934598
PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Full terms and conditions of use: http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae, and drug doses should be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings, demand, or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material.
Behavioral Differences in the Interactions Between Type A and B Mothers and Their Children
Downloaded by [George Mason University] at 02:05 22 February 2013
Anne P. Copeland, PhD
Fifty-seven women participating in a study of family reorganization following parental separation were grouped as Type A or B on the basis of the Jenkins Activity Survey. They were observed interacting with their children during two tasks, one of which elicited more directive and involved interaction than the other. Type A mothers were particularly directive, especially when interacting with sons and during the task-oriented condition. Although children’s behavior was coded and analyzed as a function of mothers’ Type A or B status, few differences in children’s behavior were found.
Type A and B individuals differ behaviorally and affectively in more natural settings. Although the relationship between the Type A pattern and coronary heart disease has been found to be similar in women and men: there is some evidence that women defined as Type A or B, when studied at all, do not show behavioral or physiological differences as consistently as men in these laboratory tasks.’ It may be that the factors that elicit reactions resembling Type A behavior for women are different. For example, MacDougall, Dembroski, and Krantz’ suggest that social interactions tend to elicit the expected Type A-B differences (as measured on the Structured Interview) in physiological response for women. Thus, studying women within a relationship of primary importance to them may be quite instructive about the meaning of the Type A-B distinction. In the present study, researchers observed women interacting with their children under two different sets of instructions, one of which called for playing a game that was more challenging and difficult and required more slow, deliberate, and task-oriented behavior than the other. In addition to this focus on “eliciting situations” and women’s behavior, the analyses allowed examination of the socializing role, if any, of mothers’ Type A-B status in affecting their children’s behavior. Specifically, if consistent behavioral differences in Type A and B mothers were to be found, one might also expect their children to
The Type A behavior pattern was defined by Friedman and Rosenman’ as “an action-emotion complex that can be observed in any person who is aggressively involved in a chronic, incessant struggle to achieve more and more in less and less time, and if required to do so, against the opposing efforts of other things or other persons” (p 67), and has been shown to be a risk factor related to coronary heart disease.” Rather than being a personality trait, the pattern is “the outcome of a set of predispositions interacting with specific types of eliciting situations, including those that are stressful or challenging,” according to Matthews and H a y n e ~ Although .~ the characteristics that comprise an “eliciting situation” have not been definitively specified, Matthews4” suggests that Type A-B differences are seen most distinctly in settings that are moderately competitive, are uncontrollable, require endurance and slow, careful work, use a broad focus of attention, or include moderately difficult tasks accompanied by some degree of failure or an external incentive. Most of the research leading to this conclusion, however, has been highly acontextual and artificial, relying on such tasks as laboratory games or loud noises to operationalize a “challenging environment.” Much less is known about how
Anne t? Copeland b an associate professor in the Department of Psychology at Boston University.
111
TYPE A AND B WOMEN AND THEIR CHILDREN
behave differently in response to the different socializing experience. Finally, in this context, the Type A and B women’s relationships with their children were also examined as a function of the child’s sex.
METHOD
Downloaded by [George Mason University] at 02:05 22 February 2013
Subjects Participants were part of a larger, 2-year longitudinal study, the Family Changes Project, that focused on 120 families’ transformation following parental divorce. This article reports from the Year 1 assessment only; thus, it is important to remember that the mother-child interactions observed may be indicative of dyads under more stress than usual. Families were recruited through court records. Each family had at least one child aged 6 to 12 years who was arbitrarily designated as the “target child” by the project staff. In each case, the parents had been separated for less than 8 months at the time of the first session. Mothers had physical custody of their children in all cases. This sample was representative of divorcing famiLies who met the selection criteria of this study in terms of the geographical area where they lived, number, age, and sex of child, length of marriage, and grounds for divorce. Although the major focus of data collection occurred in an individual interview session with each family member and through mailed questionnaires, a subgroup of 57 mother-child pairs also accepted an invitation to participate in a second session several weeks later. It is these families that make up the sample for the current study. This subgroup was not demographically different from those who did not participate. In this sample of 57 families, the mean age of the mothers was 34.1 years (SD = 4.6). Their educational history ranged from high school graduate to graduate school; 71.4% of the mothers worked at least part-time or were in school at the time of the Year 1 session (57.6% worked full-time). Occupational status ranged from unskilled to professional. AU mothers in this subsample had physical custody of their children. The target children in this sample consisted of 28 boys (M age = 8.7 years, SD = 2.2) and 29 girls (Mage = 8.5 years, SD = 1.6). All mothers and children were Caucasian. PKJcedurrs Mothers completed the Jenkins Activity Survey (JAS).8*9 Because most of the women in this study were employed, Form C was used; mothers completed this measure regardless of their employment status. If they were in school, they were asked to answer questions concerning jobs in terms of school. If they were full-time homemakers, they were asked to leave those questions blank. In
112
accordance with the standard scoring instructions, if more than six items on a factor were left blank, that whole factor was eliminated for that subject. Year 1-2 correlations are presented for the Speedllmpatience (SI), Job Involvement (JI), Hard-drivingKompetitive (HC), and Type A (TA) scores. The behavioral data are presented only in terms of the Type A scale, however, since Jenkins et ala suggest that this scale is the most predictive of coronary heart disease. In addition, 30-minute play observations between these mothers and target children were videotaped and later coded. The first 10-minute segment was a warm-up period and consisted of free play with preselected toys. An experimenter instructed the mother when to begin the second component, in which mothers were to help their children build a tower of wooden blocks while the child was blindfolded. Mothers were instructed beforehand to continue until they thought “their child had built as high a tower as she or he could,” but that this should be “about 10 minutes” (a clock was visible in the room). Then they were to go on to the third activity, making a crafts project together. The tower-building component was the most goaloriented of the three segments, although the standard of success was quite vague. The amount of time each dyad spent on the tower-building task was noted and analyzed as an indicator of goal-directedness. Videotapes were coded by two highly trained graduate research assistants, using both a time- and an eventsampling code system. First, in a modification of the Response-Class Matrix,” every 15 seconds one coder categorized the mother’s most recent behavior and how the child responded; the other coder categorized the child’s most recent behavior and the mother’s response. In this way, ratios of each dyad member’s behavior could be calculated for each category (sum of categoryltotal number of intervals, eg, the number of intervals coded as “mother praise” or “child negative,” divided by the total number of intervals coded). Ratios of mother-responding-to-child or child-responding-to-mother interchanges (sum of a particular antecedent-consequent interchangeltotal number of intervals, eg, the number of times a child complied with a mother’s command, divided by the total number of mother commands) were also derived. We established reliability first on practice tapes, then throughout the study, by periodic, unannounced double-coding of study tapes. Throughout the study, the ratio of agreements of category to sum of agreements and disagreements was maintained at a level of at least 80% across d categories. Second, coders recorded every instance of a number of behaviors thought to characterize Type A behavior, ie, repeated commands and comments about time urgency.
Behavioral Medicine
COPELAND
(Several other behaviors, such as pushes to succeed, were also coded but occurred so infrequently that they were dropped from analyses.) Comments about time urgency and repetitive commands are representative of the range of Type A behaviors and were included here on theoretical and empirical grounds. All categories used in the study are described in Table 1, grouped conceptually as measures of involvement or directiveness. Reliability (agreement that a codable incident had occurred and of category/sum of agreements and disagreements) was similarly maintained at a level of at least 80%.
Downloaded by [George Mason University] at 02:05 22 February 2013
RESULTS Descriptive Comments About JAS Results
Mean scaled scores for the mothers in this sample on the four JAS factors are shown in Table 2; scores from
both years’ assessments are included in order to assess the stability of the measurements at Year 1. Scores on the four factors at the two assessment sessions were, indeed, significantly correlated with each other: TA, r = .65, df = 4 5 , p c .001; S1, r = .72, df = 4 5 , p c .001; JI, r = .66,df = 4 5 , p < .001; HC, r = .55, df = 4 5 , p < .001. This suggests adequate reliability and supports the utility of the JAS as a grouping factor for the rest of the analyses that focused on behavior in the first year. None of the four factors was significantly correlated with mothers’ age or a 3-point rating of job status, but educational level was significantly correlated with scores on the TA (r = .38, df = 56, p c .01) and JI (r = .52, df = 56, p < .001). To rule out the possibility that apparent JAS fmdings were really due t o differences in education, correlations between educational level and all dependent measures were examined. Only one was significant (child inter-
TABLE 1 Definitions of Play Observation Coding Categories
Measure Involvement Interaction Unresponsive Interact ion: positive
1nteraction:unresponsive Directiveness Negative Directive
Praise Mother command:child comply Time urgency
Repeated command
Fall 1990
Coding category
Neutral, descriptive verbal statements or questions; nonverbal interaction play Ignoring; playing separate activity alone; not responding to child’s initiations One person’s interaction responded to within interval by interaction, question, or praise by the other person One person’s interaction responded to within interval by unresponsiveness by the other person Verbal refusal to comply; name-calling; insults; negative feedback or disapproval Direct order that could be accomplished in a single action, or suggestion o r statement of an overall rule (coded for mothers only) Verbal reward or feedback (coded for mothers only) Mother’s directive responded to within interval by child’s compliance Statements about presence of time limit; may be to hasten performance (coded for mothers only) Exact repetition of command, defined as directive above (coded for mothers only)
113
Downloaded by [George Mason University] at 02:05 22 February 2013
TYPE A AND B WOMEN AND THEIR CHILDREN
actionmother unresponsive, r = - .28, df = 57, p < .05). Although it is unlikely that only educational level accounts for the results in this study, it should be remembered that, as has been found in previous research,’.” the Type A behavior pattern in this study was somewhat related to education. Next, 1 performed several Type A x Child Gender x Play Condition analyses of variance (ANOVAs). Post hoc analyses were done using the Scheffk test. For these analyses, two groups were formed based on a median split for the Year 1 JAS Type A factor (Md = 53.).* Because of the relatively large number of analyses, no ANOVA trends are reported; stil!, the results should be interpreted with caution. Means for analyses are shown in Table 3. Main effects are reported first, but these must be interpreted in light of the higher-order interactions reported subsequently. To aid the reader, we have printed lower-order effects that are modified by subsequently reported higher-order interactions in italics.
TABLE 2 Means and Standard Deviations of Jenkins Factors Each Year Jenkins factor Type A M
SD Speed Ampatience M
SD Job Involvement M
SD Hard-DrivingKompetitive M
SD
Year 1
Year 2
54.83 25.44
52.15 25.71
48.13 26.42
44.25 29.22
41.78 26.42
42.06 26.01
45.28 26.01
42.17 27.50
Main Play Condition Effects Behavior during the tower-building task and the crafts project sessions were compared, assuming that any differences would be the result of the difference in goal-directedness of the two conditions. Because the tower-building task always preceded the crafts project, order effects cannot be ruled out, but the nature of the main effects for play condition suggest that the tower-building condition elicited more directiveness and involvement from the mothers, just as one would expect from an achievementoriented task. Specifically, during the tower task as compared with the crafts task, mothers gave more praises, F(1, 53)= 1 6 . 4 4 , ~ e .001, more negativecomments, F(1, 53) = 8.18, p e .Ol, more directive suggestions, F(1,53) = 50.08, p e .001, more time-urgency comments, F(1, 53) = 16.34, p < .001, more repeated commands, 41, 53) = 58.88, p < .001, and were less unresponsive, F(1, 53) = 24.85, p < .001. During the tower task, the children, in turn, were also less unresponsive, 01, 53) = 35.23, p e .001, and more interactive, 41, 53) = 12.38, p < .001, and complied more with their mothers’ commands, F(I, 40) = 5.00, p e .05. The interacti0n:positive and interacti0n:unresponsive measures revealed similar *The Speed/lmpatience, Job Involvement, and Hard-driving/Competitive factors were also used as grouping factors in analyses of variance. With very few exceptions, mothers’ and children’s behavior were not found to be related to these factors. Exceptions were: (a) highly job-involved mothers and their children were less involved with each other, especially in the craft condition, (b) very hard-driving/ competitive mothers were particularly directive, especially in the tower condition, and (c) children of hard-driving / competitive mothers were particularly unresponsive, especially in the crafts condition.
1 I4
results. In response to the other’s interaction attempts during the tower condition, children, F(1, 53) = 11.55, p < .01, and mothers, F(1, 53) = 1 5 . 5 6 , ~< .001, were less unresponsive than during the craft condition, and the children were more positive, F(1, 53) = 8.93, p < .Ol, than during the crafts project. Interestingly, given that mothers were less unresponsive in the tower than in the craft condition, the mothers were also less positive, F(1, 53) = 10.40, p e .Ol, in the tower than in the craft condition. This seemingly contradictory finding is probably the result of having been coded frequently in the “directive” and “negative” categories during the tower task, as these two categories were included in neither the positive nor unresponsive codes. Main JAS Type A Effects Mothers in the Type A group made significantly more comments reflecting time urgency, F(1. 53) = 6.01, p < .025, than Type B women. Main Gender Effects Mothers of both Type A status groups made more time urgency remarks to boys than to girls, F(1, 53) = 4.41, p e .05, and were more unresponsive following daughters’ interaction attempts than following son’s attempts, F ( I , 53) = 4 . 2 6 , ~< .05. Type A x Play Condition Interactions Significant Type A x Play Condition interactions were found for the mother interaction, F(1, 5 3 ) = 4.20, p
