Social competence, maternal attentiveness, and overprotectiveness: Only children in Korea

Abstract

A study was conducted in South Korea that compared the social competence of sixth graders who had no siblings to those who did. Korea was selected as the site of this study because most urban mothers are homemakers there. The three factors of social competence considered in this study were: popularity, sociability, and brattiness. These three were measured in terms of the combined ratings of mothers and teachers. Maternal attentiveness and overprotectiveness was measured in terms of the mothers rating their own behaviour. Only children were found to score similarly to others on popularity and sociability, but scored worse than others on the brattiness scale. Maternal attentiveness was found to be correlated significantly with all three social competence scores, indicating that mothers who evaluated themselves as more attentive to their children had children who were evaluated as being more popular, sociable, and less bratty. However, mothers of only children were not found to score differently than other mothers on attentiveness or overprotectiveness. The findings about only children were interpreted in terms of Korean perspectives on play. © 1999 The International Society for the Study of Behavioural Development.