Maternal Prenatal External Locus of Control and Reduced Mathematical and Science Abilities in Their Offspring: A Longitudinal Birth Cohort Study.

Frontiers in Psychology
Jean GoldingStephen Nowicki

Abstract

A personality scale that identifies individuals' general attitude to what happens to them as largely a matter of luck or fate or of powerful others (externality) or whether they feel they can influence the consequences (internality) is known as locus of control (LOC). A continuous scale can distinguish those who are more external from those who are more internal. Lower scholastic achievement is associated with externality and higher achievement with internality, but little is known about the association of parental LOC on children's academic performance. Data collected within the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) are analyzed to assess associations between mothers' LOC orientation, measured during pregnancy, and their children's abilities in mathematics and science reasoning. We found that maternal external LOC is associated with lower scores for her child assessed by tests measuring mental arithmetic as well as understanding of mathematical and scientific concepts. Additionally, we determined the extent to which three separate sets of factors previously found to positively influence the developing child's ability mediate these findings: (a) perinatal and infant exposures, such as prenatal smoking, binge ...Continue Reading

References

Nov 24, 2004·European Journal of Endocrinology·Jean Golding, UNKNOWN ALSPAC Study Team
Jul 16, 2008·Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health·L FeinsteinP Emmett
Mar 21, 2012·The British Journal of Educational Psychology·Terezinha NunesKathy Sylva
Apr 18, 2012·International Journal of Epidemiology·Abigail FraserDebbie A Lawlor
Nov 10, 2018·Frontiers in Psychology·Stephen NowickiJean Golding

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