Jill Suitor J, Sechrist Jori, Pillemer Karl
Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907, USA.
Can J Aging. 2007 Summer;26(2):85-99. doi: 10.3138/cja.26.2.085.
Research has shown that mothers often differentiate among their adult children in terms of closeness and support; however, studies have not addressed why some mothers report preferences among children and others do not. To distinguish between mothers who do and do not report favouring some of their adult children, we used data from a within-family study in which 553 older mothers were interviewed about each of their children. Almost all of the mothers reported differentiating among their children regarding emotional closeness, confiding, or preference among caregivers. Multivariate analyses revealed that mothers' values and mother-child value similarity predicted which mothers differentiated among their children regarding closeness and confiding, whereas mothers' and children's demographic characteristics predicted which mothers differentiated regarding preferred caregivers. Black mothers were less likely than white mothers to differentiate when seeking a confidant; however, race played no role in mothers' likelihood of differentiating regarding emotional closeness or help during illness. Taken together, these findings indicate that differentiating among adult children is common; further, family-level predictors of mothers' differentiating mirror the patterns shown in dyad-level analyses of mothers' favouritism.
研究表明，母亲们常常在与成年子女的亲密程度和给予的支持方面存在差异；然而，此前的研究并未探讨为何有些母亲表示对某些子女有所偏爱，而另一些母亲则没有。为了区分那些表示偏爱某些成年子女的母亲和不表示偏爱的母亲，我们使用了一项家庭内部研究的数据，该研究对553位年长母亲就她们的每个子女进行了访谈。几乎所有母亲都表示在与子女的情感亲密程度、倾诉情况或对照顾者的偏好方面存在差异。多变量分析显示，母亲的价值观以及母子价值观的相似性能够预测哪些母亲在与子女的亲密程度和倾诉方面存在差异，而母亲和子女的人口统计学特征则能预测哪些母亲在对 preferred caregivers 的偏好上存在差异。在寻找知己时，黑人母亲比白人母亲更不容易表现出差异；然而，种族在母亲在情感亲密程度或生病期间的帮助方面表现出差异的可能性上没有起到任何作用。综合来看，这些发现表明，在成年子女之间存在差异是很常见的；此外，母亲表现出差异的家庭层面预测因素反映了在母亲偏爱行为的二元层面分析中所显示的模式。 （注：“preferred caregivers” 这里原文未明确给出准确中文释义，暂保留英文）
