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DIFFERENCES BETWEEN MOTHERS AND FATHERS IN PREDICTION OF SON'S PERFORMANCE IN EASY THROUGH DIFFICULT EXAMS *
Author(s) -
Singh Ramadhar,
Mehta idula
Publication year - 1988
Publication title -
international journal of psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.75
H-Index - 62
eISSN - 1464-066X
pISSN - 0020-7594
DOI - 10.1080/00207598808247777
Subject(s) - parallelism (grammar) , psychology , convergence (economics) , task (project management) , cognition , developmental psychology , cognitive psychology , computer science , management , neuroscience , parallel computing , economics , economic growth
Twenty‐four Indian couples predicted in confidentiality to the school principal, the performance, in very easy, ok, and very difficult exams, of several 12‐year‐old boys, presented as their only son. As hypothesized, pattern in the Motivation X Ability effect depended upon the experience of subjects with the task and the difficulty of the exams. Prediction by mothers conformed to the patterns of parallelism and linear fan; those by fathers conformed to the patterns of parallelism and convergence. The findings of the present research and those of past research lead to the conclusion that the egalitarian (i.e., pattern of parallelism), elitist (i.e., pattern of linear fan), and Horatio Alger (i.e., pattern of convergence) beliefs are present in Indian, as well as in North‐American adults, but that Indians manifest the elitist and Horatio Alger beliefs very selectively. The implications of these results for cross‐cultural research on cognitive processes and for the understanding of differences between mothers and fathers in the cognition of their son are discussed.