Investigation into meta-parenting

描述(由申请人提供)： 元养育被定义为通常在亲子互动之前或之后发生的关于孩子养育领域的父母想法。尽管父母元认知的某些成分已经被研究过，但元父母养育作为一个综合结构还没有。该结构由四个部分组成：预测、评估、问题解决和反思。这个为期两年的项目有三个目标：1)评估母亲和父亲中元养育的发生和性质；2)完善和调查用于评估元养育的新问卷(元养育概况问卷，MPPQ)的心理测量学特性；3)检验关于该结构的8个初始假设。这些假设涉及元养育的决定因素(例如，父母的年龄和性别、教育程度、压力)和一个结果--亲子关系的质量。这项拟议的研究包括一项关于2至12岁儿童的父母元养育方式的横断面调查。参与者包括180名母亲和90名父亲。参与者将来自三个种族/民族：非洲裔美国人、墨西哥裔美国人和欧洲裔美国人。母亲们将填写一系列问卷，然后接受采访。三周后，母亲们将再次完成MPPQ。父亲们也会填写MPPQ。这项拟议的研究将对这一结构进行严格的初步测试，并为未来研究这一重要但在很大程度上未被认识到的父母社会认知方面奠定基础。反过来，这一结构应该有助于研究人员更好地理解育儿的社会认知过程、育儿行为和有效育儿的本质。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Meta-parenting is defined as parental thoughts concerning the child-rearing domain that typically occur before or after parent-child interactions. Although some components of parental meta-cognition have been studied previously, meta-parenting, as a synthetic construct, has not. It is proposed that the construct is comprised of four components: anticipating, assessing, problem-solving, and reflecting. This two-year project has three goals: 1) to assess the occurrence and nature of meta-parenting in mothers and fathers; 2) to refine and investigate the psychometric properties of a new questionnaire designed to assess meta-parenting (The Meta-Parenting Profile Questionnaire, MPPQ); and 3) to test eight initial hypotheses about the construct. These hypotheses concern the determinants of meta-parenting (e.g., parental age and gender, education, stress) and one outcome--the quality of parent-child relationship. The proposed study consists of a cross-sectional investigation of meta-parenting in mothers and fathers of children aged 2 through 12. Participants will be 180 mothers and 90 fathers. The participants will be from three racial/ethnic groups: African-American, Mexican-American, and Euro-American. Mothers will fill out a series of questionnaires and then be interviewed. Three weeks later mothers will again complete the MPPQ. Fathers will also fill out the MPPQ. The proposed study will provide a rigorous initial test of the construct as well as lay the foundation for future investigations into this important but largely unrecognized aspect of parental social cognition. In turn, this construct should help investigators better understand parenting social cognition processes, child-rearing behavior, and the nature of effective parenting.