Anna Szymanik-Kostrzewska

The Polish-Mother’s Pattern of Functioning as a Correlate of Parental Burnout and Following Selected Parental Myths. Preliminary Research Results

The pattern of the functioning of a Polish mother, based on the cognitive component of her stereotype shared by mothers, combines certain features, behaviors and devotion to the family. “Parenting myths”are parents’beliefs about the necessity to give their child all the best and ensure a happy childhood. It was assumed, that both self-sacrificing for children and being guided by myths can lead to women’s overburdening with parental role. Three methods were used: the Identification with a Polish Mother Questionnaire, the Selected Parental Myths Questionnaire and Polish version of the Parental Burnout Assessment. 284 mothers (aged 19–55) took part in the research. Preliminary results showed that the degree of identification with the characteristics of the Polish-Mother was negatively correlated with parental burnout symptoms, but positively with following parental myths.

The purpose of this study was to define mothers’ level of acceptance of beliefs and behaviours towards a child which are linked to three parental myths chosen by the authors: the myth of the supreme value of the child, of the need to ensure the child’s happiness, and of making friends with the child. Furthermore, the authors wanted to discover if parental myth acceptance is linked to rating the reasons behind the parents’ behaviour in accordance with these myths. In the study, 113 mothers (aged from 22 to 50) with at least one child of age between 1 and 7 participated. An Obsessive Mother to Child Love Questionnaire (OMCLQ) and a Modern Parent Stereotype Questionnaire (MPSQ) were used. The results of the study show that the parental myths selected by the authors are moderately accepted by the surveyed mothers, both when it comes to their beliefs and to behaviours towards the child.

Age compression of behaviours in the development of children.
A cognitive and socio-cultural view

The article focuses on a a social phenomenon known as the age compression of behaviours, described as the dysregulation of boundaries between childhood and adulthood in the area of consumer, social and  product usage behaviours. The age compression of behaviours was defined as reducing the time from the birth of the child to the moment of undertaking behaviours, which in previous decades were common for adolescents and adults. This phenomenon is discussed from a cognitive perspective, as an effect of  acceleration related to certain areas of both children’s cognitive development, as and socio-cultural changes which influence changes in the way children are treated. It was assumed that we simultaneously observe behaviours which, on the one hand, are based on a dysregulation of cognitive processes – accelleration and cognitive asynchrony, and, on the other hand, result from the adaptation to the changing conditions of how children function.
 

The development of thinking in adulthood: ways of studying postformal reasoning in everyday situations

The article presents the results of two studies concerning the development of postformal reasoning as proposed by G. Lavouvie-Vief, with the use of the everyday problem solving dilemmas taken from the research conducted by R.A. Sebby and D.R. Papini in the Polish adaptation by E. Gurba. Study no. 1 tested the levels of reasoning in 3 age groups: early, middle, and late adulthood, providing the participants with a choice of readymade answers. Study no. 2 tested the levels of reasoning amongst the participants while using a modified version of the test which required giving an answer to an open question pertaining to the solution of a dilemma. Regardless of their age, the participants revealed a lower level of postformal reasoning in Study no. 2. Differences in the influence of spurious variables (sex, level of education) on the presented level of reasoning in the respective Studies were also observed. The discussion attempts to explain the observed differences with relation to the cognitive requirements of both methods of study as well as the form and content of the applied dilemmas