Cross-cultural, gender, and age differences in Singaporean mothers' conceptions of children's intelligence

The effect of mothers' ethnic affiliation on their conceptions of children's intelligence was examined. Seven hundred eight Singaporean mothers of Chinese, Malay, and Indian ethnic origin responded to a 55-item questionnaire. For each item, the respondents indicated, on a 9-point scale, how typical they thought the specified behavior was for an intelligent child. There was a high level of similarity among the factor structures of the three subsamples, but several specific intergroup differences indicated that the mothers' conceptions of children's intelligence were affected to a certain extent by their ethnic affiliations and by the age and the sex of the child.