어머니의 심리적 통제와 부부갈등이 남녀 유아의 불안에 미치는 영향

The Effects of Maternal Psychological Control and Parents’ Marital Conflict on Anxiety in Boys and Girls

This study examined the effects of maternal psychological control and parents’ marital conflict on young children’s anxiety. The participants of the study were 326 children (159 boys, 167 girls) who were 4-5 years old and enrolled in kindergartens and day care centers located in Seoul, Gyeonggi-do and Chungcheongbuk-do and their mothers. The anxiety of children, maternal psychological control, and parents’ marital conflict were measured by the Korean version of Behavior Assessment System for Children-2 (Ahn, 2017), the Psychological Control Scale-Youth Self-Report (Barber, 1996), and the O Leary-Porter Scale (1980), respectively. For all the scales, the mothers were asked to respond to the questionnaire. The data were analyzed by means of descriptive statistics, t-test, correlation analyses, and hierarchical regression analyses. Regression analyses were conducted for boys and girls separately. The results of the current study revealed that the level of maternal psychological control increased the level of anxiety for both boys and girls. In addition, the level of parents’ marital conflict had a positive effect on the level of anxiety for boys, but not for girls. The outcomes of the current study suggested that decreasing the level of maternal psychological control and marital conflict could be an effective way to reduce anxiety in young children.