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INTERRELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN PRESCHOOLERS' PARENT-DIRECTED BEHAVIORS IN DIFFERENT SETTINGS (DAY CARE)
Abstract
The goals of the present study were to (1) replicate Sheldon, Thompson and Earl (1985), with a larger sample, in order to examine the range and consistency of parent-directed preschooler reunion responses over multiple occasions; and (2) to examine the validity of using reunion responses to infer more general characteristics of the parent-preschooler relationship. The major validity issue deals with a more specific determination of how individual differences in reunion behaviors should be interpreted, by studying their relationships to an independent assessment of parent-child interaction, outside of the day care center. The extent to which variations in reunion behaviors covary with a laboratory-based problem solving interaction was examined. Forty-eight children (ages 32 to 54 months), enrolled in full-time day care, and one of their parents were observed six times during reunion, using the 15-category Preschool Reunion Behavior Measure. In addition, they were observed one time in the developmental laboratory, during a series of problem solving interactions. These interactions were coded on the measures of Affective quality, Child Initiation, On-Task and Proximity. It was hypothesized that preschoolers' would be consistent in their specific reunion greeting and in general affective tone across multiple occasions; and that behaviors displayed during the laboratory-based interaction could be used to predict preschoolers' modal affective reunion response. Children displayed the same type of reunion response 44% of the time, and consistency was even greater (70%) when reunions were clustered by affective quality. Using a regrouping of 23 subjects, whose reunion responses were affectively more extreme (more clearly positive or negative), results indicated that the laboratory interaction could be used to predict which type of modal reunion behavior (affectively positive or negative) a child will be most likely to display. That is, the individual differences of the affectively most extreme reunioners interrelated systematically with laboratory measures. However, the validity of the "middle group" of reunioners is still in doubt.
Subject Area
Developmental psychology
Recommended Citation
SHELDON, ELYSE LYNN, "INTERRELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN PRESCHOOLERS' PARENT-DIRECTED BEHAVIORS IN DIFFERENT SETTINGS (DAY CARE)" (1986). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI8706247.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI8706247