Parents and their children

1
Parents and their children are there any
relations between optimism levels in family?

• Author Agnieszka Czerw Ph. D.
• Wroclaw University of Technology
• Wroclaw, Poland

2
Research problem

• The main aim of research was to verify if
  parents optimism level is related to childrens
  optimism level
• on general level
• on components level
• Genesis of this problem
• theory of learned optimism (M. Seligman, 1990)
• research on genetic reasons of optimism (Scheier,
  Carver, 1993)

3
Method OPEB Questionnaire (cognition, emotional
and behavioral optimism)

• Polish questionnaire OPEB measuring optimism
  level (Czerw, 2001)
• Questionnaire contains of 37 statements
• Scale of answer from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5
  (strongly agree)
• 4 factors/components
• I attitude towards achievements (? 0.75)
• II carelessness (? 0.80)
• III positive thinking (? 0.87)
• IV openness (? 0.78)

4
Method

• Group
• 90 families (mother, father and child)
• all children were grown-up but still under the
  influence of their parents and without own
  families
• students (20 - 21 years old)
• Procedure
• students fulfilled OPEB questionnaire by
  themselves and they asked their parents about
  doing the same

5
Results

• All analyses are made
• for all children
• for daughters and sons separately
• Correlation analyses
• on optimism general level
• on 4 components of optimism
• Step-wise regression analyses
• on optimism general level
• on 4 components of optimism

6
Optimism (general level)
Childs optimism Daughters optimism Sons optimism
Mothers optimism 0,265() 0,294() 0,276
Fathers optimism 0,312() 0,378() 0,221
Pearsons correlation p 0,01 p 0,05
7
Attitude towards achievements
All children Daughter Son
Mother 0,448() 0,425() 0,502()
Father 0,520() 0,603() 0,478()
Pearsons correlation p 0,01 p 0,05
8
Carelessness
All children Daughter Son
Mother 0,023 0,006 -0,187
Father -0,048 -0,106 0,288
Pearsons correlation
9
Positive thinking
All children Daughter Son
Mother -0,119 0,139 -0,565()
Father -0,200 -0,305() 0,178
Pearsons correlation p 0,01 p 0,05
10
Openness
All children Daughter Son
Mother 0,397() 0,363() 0,448()
Father -0,051 0,372() -0,363()
Pearsons correlation p 0,01 p 0,05
11
Step-wise regression analisys optimism general
level
12
Step-wise regression analisys optimism 4
components (all children)
childrens optimism
attitude towards achievements (father)
ß 0,413
attitude towards achievements
attitude towards achievements (mother)
R2 0,351
ß 0,304
carelessness
positive thinking
openness (mother)
ß 0,397
openness
R2 0,158
13
Step-wise regression analisys optimism 4
components (daughters and sons)
14
Conclusions on general optimism level

• There are some relations between parents
  optimism and childrens optimism
• Fathers optimism has stronger influence on
  childrens optimism than mothers
• Fathers optimism has stronger influence on
  daughters than on sons

15
Conclusions on 4 components of optimism

• Parents influences, in strongest way, on
  childrens level of attitude towards achievements
  and openness
• Fathers optimism has stronger influence on
  optimism components of daughters than sons
• Mothers optimism has stronger influence on
  optimism components of sons than daughters
• Only carelessness is not influenced by parents
  optimism
• Influence of parents positive thinking is
  crossed and reversed

16
Final conclusions

• Relation between parents and childrens optimism
  exists indeed, but it is not very strong
• Probably there are many others factors, beyond
  influence of parents, forming human optimism
  level
• Childs gender and parents gender is moderator
  of that relation

17
Thank You for your attention