Acting or hesitating? Long-term relations between parents' action orientation and the child's later shyness and sociability in adulthood

This study aimed to find long-term relations between action orientation (the ability to act efficiently and to reach goals even under adverse conditions) in mothers and fathers, measured when the child was 8 years old, and the adult child’s active coping, shyness, and sociability, measured 22 years later. The hypothesis was that active coping serves as a mediator between parents’ action orientation and the child’s shyness in adulthood. Participants were 134 mother-child and 116 father-child dyads in the German-speaking part of Switzerland. All questionnaires were sent and returned by mail. Separate structural equation models for mothers and fathers confirmed the expected mediating effect of active coping within both samples. In addition, action orientation in mothers (not in fathers) was positively associated with the child’s sociability in adulthood. No gender differences between sons and daughters emerged. The findings of this study support the notion that action orientation is a useful parameter that should be systematically adopted in future research on socialization processes.