Scaring Parenting? The influence of psychological control on the approach-withdrawal motivation in a performance context.

Psychological control is a parenting technique, that is described as parental controlling behaviour that intrudes on the emotional and psychological world of their child. As psychological control is suggested to create a link between the child’s behaviour and relational consequences with the parent, the child may experience it’s behaviour can be threatening the security of the parent-child relationship. This might specifically be true in a performance context, where the child’s performance on a task may be perceived as possibly threatening the security of the relationship. It is suggested that this relational consequences still emerge up to young adulthood. For these young adults, it is hypothesized that they will show more withdrawal tendencies from a performance task. These tendencies can be measured through electroencephalogram (EEG) activity of the frontal cortices. This thesis sought to determine whether psychological control influences the frontal brain asymmetry, that serves...Show morePsychological control is a parenting technique, that is described as parental controlling behaviour that intrudes on the emotional and psychological world of their child. As psychological control is suggested to create a link between the child’s behaviour and relational consequences with the parent, the child may experience it’s behaviour can be threatening the security of the parent-child relationship. This might specifically be true in a performance context, where the child’s performance on a task may be perceived as possibly threatening the security of the relationship. It is suggested that this relational consequences still emerge up to young adulthood. For these young adults, it is hypothesized that they will show more withdrawal tendencies from a performance task. These tendencies can be measured through electroencephalogram (EEG) activity of the frontal cortices. This thesis sought to determine whether psychological control influences the frontal brain asymmetry, that serves as a measure for approach-withdrawal motivation, in young adulthood. Baseline frontal EEG was recorded from 26 female undergraduates, preceding and after doing a time-estimation task. Approach motivation was observed preceding the task, and changed to withdrawal motivation afterwards. No influence of psychological control was found. An additional exploration of how motivation to perform well, and satisfaction with the performance, related to the approach-withdrawal motivation, yielded no significant results either. Despite the lack of significant results, some suggestions for further research emerge from this thesis. Replication with an increased sample size and additional measurements of the characteristics of the participants in the sample could contribute to the research in the field of psychological control and cortical activity.Show less

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Scaring Parenting? The influence of psychological control on the approach-withdrawal motivation in a performance context.