Parent-Child Verbal Reciprocity as a Predictor of Increased Latency to Approach Novel Situations in Preschoolers

Laurissa L Mallozzi, Marymount Manhattan College, New York, NY 10021, USA Wendy Johnson, The Graduate Center, CUNY Hunter, New York, NY 10016, USA Sophia Cappuccio, Department of Psychology, CUNY Hunter, New York, NY 10021, USA Tracy Dennis, Department of Psychology, CUNY Hunter, New York, NY 10021, USA

Abstract The parent-child relationship is a central factor in a child’s social development (Kochanska & Murray, 2000). However the impact of verbal reciprocity between parent and child on child social development has received relatively little empirical attention. Given that reciprocity is often equated with parental responsiveness, parent-child reciprocity may predict child characteristics associated with parent responsiveness including better social skills, positive affect regulation, social reciprocity (Davidov & Grusec, 2006), and child social competence (Lindsey & Mize 2001). A child’s ability to cope with social novelty is an important aspect of social skills. Therefore in the current study, we examined the association between verbal reciprocity and child approachfulness in a novel situation. In the current study (N=50), children encountered a stranger, who remained largely silent and unresponsive, when they first entered the laboratory. Later, children and mothers interacted during a five-minute free play and snack. Parent-child verbal reciprocity was measured during the free play/ snack, which was rated on a 1 to 5-point Likert scale, where 5 represented high reciprocity (Johnson, Mallozzi & Cappuccio, 2008). Latency for the child to approach the stranger during the strange situation was used as a measure of the child’s response to social novelty (Volker, Keller, Lohaus, Cappenberg & Chasiotis 1999). Reliability for three coders ranged from K= .89 - .90. Scores on the Child Behavior Questionnaire (completed by mothers before the experiment) were used to control for temperamental differences in shyness and fear, which influence responses to social novelty. To examine the associations between parent-child verbal reciprocity and child approach to novelty, a hierarchical regression was conducted. Child temperamental shyness and fear were entered in the first step and reciprocity was entered in the second step. Latency to approach stranger was the dependent variable. Step 1 did not account for significant variance in response to novelty. However, reciprocity accounted for 14% of variance, with the equation as a whole accounting for 23% of the variance in child approach (F change for Step 2 = F(1,37) = 6.39, p < .05; B = .66, β = .38). This shows that verbal reciprocity was associated with children taking longer to approach the children with highly reciprocal parents are uncomfortable in situations of limited verbal exchange and are therefore hesitant to approach when confronted with the relative silence of the stranger. On the other hand, because analyses are correlational, it is possible that high reciprocity reflects parental overcompensation for a generally shy child, which would explain reduced approach to novelty. These results suggest that the impact of reciprocity on child behavior may depend on child and contextual characteristics.

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