Reexamining the Association of Parental Implicit Theories of Intelligence With Children’s Mastery Orientation and Actual Aptitude

Abstract. This study looked into the associations between parents’ implicit theories of intelligence, children’s cognitive aptitude, and children’s tendency to opt for mastery-oriented responses to challenging achievement situations. All child participants ( N = 59, 31 girls; 6;3 – 7;2 years) were individually assessed for cognitive aptitude and mastery orientation, while one of their parents (46 mothers) completed a questionnaire on entity versus incremental beliefs about intelligence. Correlation analyses indicated a statistically significant negative association between parental endorsement of the incremental theory and children’s cognitive aptitude ( r = −.29), as well as between parental endorsement of the entity theory and children’s mastery orientation ( r = −.28). Moreover, two significant canonical functions emerged, one of which was defined by higher parental endorsement of the entity theory along with higher cognitive aptitude and lower mastery orientation of the child, while the second entailed higher parental endorsement of the incremental theory, lower cognitive aptitude of the child, and again, the child’s lower mastery orientation. While confirming the theoretically proposed negative association between parents’ entity beliefs and children’s mastery orientation, the present results challenge a unidimensional conception of implicit theories of intelligence and their assumed independence of cognitive aptitude; moreover, they stimulate several interpretations regarding the psychological mechanisms surrounding children’s lower mastery orientation.