Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate age and sex differences in children's representations of mothers in their play narratives and to examine the relationship among positive, negative, and disciplinary representations of mothers. 20 four-year olds and 20 five-year olds were interviewed using the MacArthur Story-Stem Battery. Children's narratives were coded from videotapes based on the coding system of Oppenheim, Emde, & Warren's(1997) study. Positive representations of mothers were most frequently observed, followed by disciplinary and negative representations. Five-year old boys had more positive and disciplinary representations of mothers than four-year old boys. On the other hand, five-year old girls had less positive representations of mothers than four-year old girls. Children with more positive and disciplinary representations of mothers tended to have less negative representations of mothers.