Abstract

This study purposed to determine the relationships between parents' intrinsic and extrinsic motivation in parenting and their self-efficacy with regarding to nurturance, instrumental care, discipline, play, and teaching. Also, the two types of motivation can be activated in a complex way according to their levels. Cluster analysis revealed types of patents' motivation based on the nature of motivation, and the study investigated the differences in parenting self-efficacy. Mothers (N=437) completed questionnaires along with a parenting motivation scale and the Korean version of the Echelle Globale du Sentiment de Competence Parentals (K-EGSCP), a scale for domain-specific self-efficacy in parenting. The results revealed that the relationships among intrinsic motivation and all the domains of self-efficacy were positive. However, extrinsically motivated mothers were likely to show low parenting self-efficacy in instrumental care, discipline, and teaching. The four distinct motivational groups were as follows: high intrinsic/high extrinsic motivation, high intrinsic/low extrinsic motivation, low intrinsic/high extrinsic motivation, and low intrinsic/low extrinsic motivation. A multiple analysis of variance revealed that the groups differed significantly on all the domains of self-efficacy with regard to parenting.