Research Information System
Thesis Type: Postgraduate
Institution Of The Thesis: Middle East Technical University, Turkey
Approval Date: 2020
Student: Serhan Yağmur İlgün
Supervisor: BAŞAK ŞAHİN ACAR
Abstract:The current study investigates the roles of maternal elaborativeness and self-construal style on children’s development of independent memory skills. It was aimed to examine the moderator roles of maternal individuation and balanced self-construal styles on the association between maternal reminiscing elaborativeness and children’s recounting elaborativeness. Five hundred and fifty-six participants consisting of 278 mothers (Mage = 35.96, SD = 4.75) and their preschoolers (Mmonth = 65.16, SD = 4.64) participated in the current study. It was hypothesized that children of mothers with high-elaborative reminiscing style would be more elaborative in the researcher-child recounting task, by the moderator role of maternal individuation. Additionally, it was expected that children of mothers with high-elaborative reminiscing style would be more elaborative in the researcher-child recounting task, by the moderator role of maternal balanced self-construal style. Results indicated that neither maternal individuation, nor balanced self-construal style moderated the link between maternal reminiscing style and children’s elaborativeness in the recounting task. Nevertheless, maternal reminiscing style significantly predicted children’s elaborativeness in the recounting task. Findings of exploratory analyses demonstrated that maternal individuation, relatedness, and unbalanced self-construal style moderated the link between maternal reminiscing style and children’s elaborativeness in the mother-child reminiscing task. In a different set of exploratory analyses, maternal individuation was also found to be a significant predictor of mothers’ elaborativeness. The findings of the current study were discussed within the framework of relevant literature, as well as its contributions and limitations.