Examining the indirect role of perceived normativeness in the association between collectivistic values and psychological control of Turkish mothers

Abstract

Parental psychological control has previously been related to negative developmental outcomes. However, fewer studies examined the cultural factors associated with parental psychological control. Several studies suggested that psychological control is used more by mothers in collectivistic (as compared to individualistic) cultures yet did not examine the mother's personal endorsement of the cultural values. This approach ignores the widely reported findings showing within country heterogeneity. In this study, we examined maternal adherence to collectivistic values and their psychologically controlling behaviour directed towards their preschool children. We also examined the indirect role of perceived normativeness of the psychologically controlling behaviour in the association between adherence to collectivistic values and using psychologically controlling behaviours. We hypothesized that mothers who endorsed collectivistic values more would perceive psychologically controlling parenting as more normative and in turn would display more psychological control. To test our research question, we collected data from 318 Turkish mothers, who had at least one preschool-aged child (child Mage = 59.46 months, SD = 9.23; range = 34-80 months; 160 males). The descriptive analyses are planned to be run in SPSS and path analyses in mplus are planned for examining the hypothesized mediational model.