Associations between maternal envy and parenting practices

Abstract

Children’s achievements factor significantly into Chinese mothers’ sense of self-worth and related parenting practices. Mothers often evaluate themselves and their children through social comparison, which might lead to malicious envy or benign envy toward another advantaged parent. This research examined how malicious envy and benign envy were differently associated with autonomy support, helicopter parenting, and psychological control, and whether parental mastery or performance achievement goals mediated these associations. Study 1 included 250 Mainland Chinese mothers (Mage = 44.22, SD = 2.40), who reported dispositional malicious and benign envy, achievement goals, and parenting practices. Study 2 manipulated mothers’ (N = 205, Mage = 42.48, SD = 3.83) recall of malicious or benign envy experiences, and investigated the immediate effects on their attitudes toward parenting practices. Study 1 found that malicious envy positively predicted helicopter parenting and psychological control, through performance-avoidance goals. Benign envy positively predicted helicopter parenting through performance-approach goals, and also positively predicted autonomy support through mastery goals. Results of Study 2 showed that malicious envy prompted stronger endorsement of psychological control than benign envy. Findings call attention to the risks that maternal envy, especially malicious envy, might hold for engagement in childrearing motivations and behaviors characterized by heightened control.