Effect of Perceived Parenting Style of Mother on Children’s Cognitive Style

Description

Page: 360-363

Ruchi Dubey Chaturvedi, Freyana Shinde, Palak Khatri, Pankti Sandesara, Swarali Jadhav, Mayuri Gami (Department of Psychology, Jai Hind College (Autonomous), Mumbai, Maharashtra)

This study investigates, in the Indian context, the relationship between a mother’s perceived parenting style and children’s cognitive style. The focus is on the two specific cognitive styles- field dependence and field independence. Field-dependent (FD) individuals depend on external cues, are influenced by the environment and other people, and cannot distinguish details from larger information presented to them. While Field Independent (FI) individuals depend on internal cues, are not influenced by the environment and other people, and tend to pick out finer details from the surrounding context. The participants comprised 70 young adults (14 males & 56 females), aged between 17 years to 20 years. This critical developmental stage is commonly associated with self-exploration and identity formation. The data collection involved the administration of Herman Witkin’s Embedded Figures Test (Witkin, 1971) to form two groups of participants that vary in their cognitive styles- Field Dependent and field-independent. Then, a Perceived Parenting Style Questionnaire was administered to them (Gafoor & Kurakkun, 2014). The results obtained were analyzed using the non-parametric test Chi-Square. The obtained value was found to be insignificant. Hence, it is concluded that children’s cognitive style and mother’s parenting style are independent of each other. In the Indian collectivistic society, many people contribute to the parenting and socialization process of the children. Thus, many other cultural, familial, societal, and contextual factors need to be investigated to derive a holistic understanding of the cognitive development of Indian children.