The Development of Preschoolers' Narrative Representations of Mothers

유아의 어머니에 대한 나레이티브 표상 발달

This study explored age and sex differences in preschoolers' narrative representations of their mothers. Subjects were 120 3-, 4-, 5- and 6-year-old children, with 15 boys and 15 girls in each age group. Using the MacArthur Story Stem Battery(Bretherton et al., 1990), observations were made to obtain children's narrative representations of their mothers. content themes and emotional responses. Boys' representations were more negative and less positive than girls' regardless of their age. Boys talked about more aggressive themes and showed more anxiety and less joy. Five and 6-year-old children had less negative and disciplinary representations of their mothers than 3- and 4-year-olds. Six-year-olds showed less prosocial themes than 3- and 5-years, and fewer aggressive themes than 3-and 4-year while they showed less joy, distress and concern responses than 3-years.