Abstract
Research evidence on parenting in a digital society has not kept pace with the growing use of digital resources by mothers (e.g., smartphones, the internet), along with human resources (i.e., partners, family members, friends), to overcome parental control challenges. Overcoming these challenges helps mothers attain a sense of maternal achievement. This study explored the effects of using human and digital resources to address parental control challenges on the sense of maternal achievement. A survey was conducted with a random sample of 373 mothers of 3-year-old children, who were more likely to face parental control challenges. The questionnaire focused on participants’ characteristics, human and digital resource use, and maternal achievement. An exploratory factor analysis confirmed the validity of an original scale to measure resource use in addressing control challenges. Multiple regression analysis was then used to examine its effects on the sense of maternal achievement. Significant main effects on sense of maternal achievement were found only for partner support but not for digital resources. A moderating effect was identified between digital resources and family support, with digital resources being unrelated to a sense of maternal achievement in situations of high family support. In contrast, digital resources predicted a lower sense of maternal achievement in situations of low family support. Consequently, digital resources may play a limited role as a complement or substitute for human resources. Therefore, even in a digital society, it is desirable for parents to focus on human resources in the context of overcoming parental control challenges.
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Data availability
The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
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Acknowledgements
We offer special thanks to the participants who cooperated with this study. This work was supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science KAKENHI [grant no. 19K19728, Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists].
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This work was supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science KAKENHI [grant no. 19K19728, Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists].
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All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by Ryuta Onishi. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Ryuta Onishi and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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This study was conducted with the approval of the ethical review board of the Faculty of Health Sciences, Hokkaido University (Approval Number: 20–3-1) and performed in line with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki.
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Onishi, R., Saeki, K. & Hirano, M. Increasing the sense of maternal achievement from overcoming parental control challenges using human versus digital resources: A cross-sectional survey. Curr Psychol 43, 6584–6594 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-023-04817-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-023-04817-5