Parental Academic Conditional Positive Regard and Autonomy Support as Predictors of Adolescents' Motivation, Affect, and Relations with Family

• Applicants: Dr. Nantje Otterpohl; Professor Dr. Malte Schwinger
• Subject Area: Developmental and Educational Psychology
• Term: from 2018 to 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 396850149

This research compares two practices: (1) Parental academic conditional positive regard (PACPR) - trying to promote academic effort and success by providing more affection and esteem when children study and achieve, and (2) Parental academic autonomy support (PAAS) - trying to promote engagement and success by taking children's perspective, and providing rationales and choice. PACPR appears benign and is widely recommended because it involves affective rewards. Yet, recent studies suggest that it is associated with stressful motivational-affective functioning in offspring, whereas PAAS is associated with more optimal functioning. However, the cross-sectional nature of these correlational studies precludes causal interpretations. In addition, there is very little research on the effects of the above two strategies on offspring's affective functioning and relations with their family. In an attempt to start addressing the causality issue more directly, and to considerably expand the scope of offspring's outcomes examined, we will use three research strategies:(1) A longitudinal cross-cultural study: 480 German and Israeli adolescents will be followed from 8th to 9th grade. Parental practices, contingency of self-esteem, type of academic motivation and engagement, affective functioning, and relations with family will be assessed by multiple informants (child, mother, father, teachers, and sibling when relevant). One aspect of affective functioning will also be assessed by a performance test. Both variable-centered (SEM) and person-centered data-analytic approaches (Latent Profile Analyses) will be used.(2) An observational study: A subsample of N = 70 mother-child-dyads (characterized by high PACPR/low PAAS or low PACPR/high PAAS, respectively) will be systematically selected from the longitudinal sample by means of latent profile analysis. The interaction between mother and child will be observed to assess behavioral outcomes of PACPR and PAAS.(3) Experiments: In three experiments, we will test the hypothesis that subliminal and supraliminal priming of young-adult offspring's representations of PACPR promotes offspring's stressful motivational-affective functioning and impairs cognitive performance under stressful conditions, whereas priming of PAAS representations promotes more optimal offspring's functioning. Findings of a Pilot-Study provide initial support for the hypothesis focusing on parental conditional regard.The proposed research will enable a fairly comprehensive examination of the differences between PACPR and PACCR as parenting practices, in terms of their effects on children's academic motivation engagement, and socio-emotional adjustment. Therefore, our research is likely to provide an acutely missing factual base which will inform the controversy regarding the desirability of PACPR as a parenting practice, and the extent to which PAAS is a superior parenting alternative to PACPR.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Israel
• International Co-Applicants: Professor Dr. Avi Assor; Professor Dr. Yaniv Kanat-Maymon