Natural Groups And Centroid Clusters Of Mother-Child Dyads Observed In The Home

Cluster analysis (Wishart, 1972) was applied to the interactive behavior of 136 2 1/2-year-old male twins and singletons with their mothers. The clustering was based on the Facilitating Power (FP) that various forms of maternal control exerted on child compliance and non-compliance. The clustering process generated clusters that reflected the pre-existing division of the sample into twins and singletons. In general, singletons seem to be less dependent in their expression of obedience or disobedience on some overt mode of parental verbal control than are twins. Singletons may be actuated more readily by other subtler parental actions, e.g., praise or nonverbal gestures. That the clusters represented "real" distinctions was indicated by a discriminant function analysis which also discriminated between twins and singletons by largely the same measures as the clustering procedure did. The clustering was also validated by a replication via Ward's (1963) method.