Mothers' personality and its interaction with child temperament as predictors of parenting behavior

In this longitudinal, multimethod investigation, the authors examined mothers' personality and its interaction with infants' negative emotionality as predictors of parenting behavior. When infants were 8-10 months old (N = 112), mothers completed personality self-reports, and the authors observed infants' negative emotionality in both standard procedures and naturalistic daily contexts. When infants were 13-15 months old (N = 108), the authors observed two aspects of parenting, power assertion and maternal responsiveness, in mother-child interactive contexts. Maternal personality alone and also in interaction with child emotionality predicted future parenting behaviors. The longitudinal links established between personality and parenting behaviors indicate the predictive utility of personality. Findings also highlight the bidirectionality of the early parent-child relationship.     

Revisiting the accuracy hypothesis in families of young children with conduct problems

Revisited the accuracy hypothesis in an examination of the relation between maternal depressive symptomatology and child conduct problems. All data were gathered as part of the pretreatment assessment in an outcome study of families with clinic-referred children with conduct problems (age 3 to 6). The mothers varied in their depressive symptomatology, from not at all symptomatic to severely symptomatic. Correlations indicated that with increasing depressive symptomatology, mothers (N = 97) displayed a higher rate of physical negative behaviors towards their child and reported more child conduct problems. Regression analyses revealed that at the lowest levels of maternal depressive symptomatology there was a discrepancy between mothers' reports of child behavior problems and child deviant behaviors observed during mother-child interaction. In contrast, at higher levels of depression, mothers' reports of child behavior were consistent with laboratory observations of their child's behavior. These findings provide evidence to support the accuracy hypothesis in reference to mothers who display a high degree of depressive symptomatology, but the results also call into question the validity of maternal report in families with children with conduct problems.     

Continuity in mind-mindedness from pregnancy to the first year of life

Relations between parents' representations of the unborn child and postpartum infant-parent interaction were investigated in 25 couples and 3 solo mothers. In the last trimester of pregnancy, participants reported on involvement with the fetus and predicted what the unborn child would be like at age 6 months. Mothers (n=21) and fathers (n=17) were observed during separate interactions with their 6-month olds, which yielded measures of their tendency appropriately to interpret their infants' internal states (mind-mindedness). Parents' involvement with the fetus was unrelated to antenatal predictions and to postnatal mind-mindedness. Parents who had predicted more about the unborn child's characteristics were more likely to comment appropriately on their infants' internal states during infant-parent interaction. For fathers, overall antenatal predictions were also positively associated with misinterpretations of their infants' thoughts and feelings. Findings are discussed with reference to mind-mindedness being governed by caregiver-centered factors and differences between mothers and fathers in caregiving practices.     

Mothers' and infants' responses to their partners' spontaneous action and vocal/verbal imitation

Twenty mother-infant dyads (10 boys, 10 girls) were videotaped longitudinally at ages 10, 13, 17, and 21 months during in-home free play and bath sessions. Mothers' and infants' responses to their partners' naturally occurring action and vocal/verbal imitations were described, and relations to infants' imitation rates and vocabularies were examined. Mothers' response rates were consistently high and unrelated to infants' imitation rates. As early as 10 months, infants responded to the great majority of maternal imitations, especially action imitations, often with actions. Infants' return imitations to action matching indicated increasing awareness of being imitated. Infants' responses to mothers' vocal/verbal imitation were associated with their later vocabulary levels. Children who would be more lexically advanced at 17 and/or 21 months provided more social responses at 10 months, more socially responsive actions and return verbal imitations at 13 months, and more non-imitative socially responsive words at 17 and 21 months.     

Relation of birth weight, maternal intelligence and mother–child interactions to cognitive and play competence of Jamaican two-year old children

The present study assessed whether birth weight, maternal child rearing behaviors, and maternal intelligence combine in an additive or in a non-linear interactive fashion to influence cognitive performance in a sample of 24-month old full-term appropriate and low birth weight Jamaican children. Child cognitive performance was measured using the Griffiths Scale and a laboratory based assessment of the amount of time the child utilized different levels of play behavior. Mothers were videotaped while playing with their children under different instructional conditions and videotapes were coded for 8 maternal interaction patterns. Maternal verbal intelligence was assessed using the PPVT. Results supported the operation of both additive co-action as well as non-linear interactive processes. Birth weight, maternal behaviors toward her child and maternal intelligence predicted child cognitive performance. In addition, low birth weight infants were either less sensitive to facilitative aspects of maternal behaviors and/or more sensitive to maternal inhibitory behaviors than were appropriate birth weight infants. Further, child rearing behaviors of more intelligent mothers were a stronger influence on their child's cognitive performance than those of less intelligent mothers, even when there were no differences in the level of behaviors of more or less intelligent mothers.     

Perceptions of breastfeeding in mothers of babies born preterm in comparison to mothers of full-term babies

The purpose of the present study was: a) to describe the theme of verbalizations about breastfeeding in mothers' pre-term (M-PT) and full-term (M-FT) infants; b) to examine the association between these themes and mother's anxiety and depression indicators and socio-demographic characteristics and, neonatal characteristics of the infants. The sample consisted of 50 M-PT and 25 M-FT. The mothers were assessed through State-Trait Anxiety Inventory and Beck Depression Inventory and were interviewed using a Guide focusing breastfeeding issues. The M-PT group had significantly more mothers with clinical symptom of anxiety than the M-FT group. The M-PT reported more uncertainties and worries about breastfeeding and figured out more obstacles for the successful breastfeeding than the M-FT. These reports were associated positively with the infants' risk neonatal status; lower birth-weight, higher neonatal clinical risk, and more length time stay in NICU were associated with more mothers' worries and seeing obstacles for breastfeeding. In conclusion, the strategies to enhance the breastfeeding rate in the preterm population have to take into account the mothers' psychological status and their ideas in addition to offering information about the advantages of breastfeeding for child development.     

A comparison of Estonian,Swedish, and Finnish mothers' controlling attitudes and behaviour

The current study examined maternal control of children across families with early adolescents from different sociocultural backgrounds. The intention was to find out whether belonging to the same ethnic group/language community (i.e., Estonian or Finnish) is more important for determination of child‐rearing attitudes and practices than sharing the immediate sociocultural context (i.e., Swedish society). In addition, attention was paid to the relationship between attitudes and behaviour. The results were obtained from three monocultural samples of Estonian, Swedish, and Finnish families living in their country of origin; two bicultural samples consisted of Estonian and Finnish families residing in Sweden. Two types of data—mothers' reported attitudes towards the importance of control over children's behaviour (the Control Scale) and video‐recorded real‐life verbal behaviour—were used to determine how the mothers' attitudes towards control relate to the behavioural control exhibited in their real‐life interactions. The study showed that the Finno‐Ugric mothers living in their countries of origin controlled their children's behaviour significantly more frequently than those Finno‐Ugric mothers who live in Sweden, but both Estonian samples outperformed Finns in their reported control attitudes. The Swedish mothers were the least directive among monocultural mothers both in maternal beliefs and in real‐life behaviour, but they differed from Estonian and Finnish mothers residing in Sweden only in their lower scores on the Control Scale. The study revealed that mothers' real‐life control behaviour corresponded rather modestly to their reported attitudes toward the importance of controlling children. Analyses of actual mother—child interaction showed that only the Estonian mothers living in Estonia actually put their relatively high scores on the Control Scale into practice in real‐life interactions with their children. Finally, some characteristics of Estonian, Finnish, and Swedish languages and cultures are discussed that might determine the cultural differences in child rearing that emerged.     

Mothers' insightfulness regarding their infants' internal experience: relations with maternal sensitivity and infant attachment

This study examined the associations among mothers' insightfulness into their infants' internal experience, mothers' sensitivity to their infants' signals, and infants' security of attachment to their mothers. The insightfulness of 129 mothers of 12-month-old infants was assessed by showing mothers 3 videotaped segments of observations of their infants and themselves and interviewing them regarding their infants' and their own thoughts and feelings. Interviews were classified into 1 insightful and 3 noninsightful categories. Mothers' sensitivity was assessed during play sessions at home and at the laboratory, and infant-mother attachment was assessed with the Strange Situation. Mothers classified as positively insightful were rated as more sensitive and were more likely to have securely attached children than were mothers not classified as positively insightful. Insightfulness also accounted for variance in attachment beyond the variance explained by maternal sensitivity. These findings add an important dimension to research on caregiving, suggesting that mothers' seeking of explanations for the motives underlying their infants' behavior is related to both maternal sensitivity and infant attachment.     

PATERNAL SEPARATION ANXIETY:

Employed mothers of young children worry about the effects of daily separation on their children Do fathers have similar anxieties? Because fathers are expected to leave the home and go to work, psychologists have not studied fathers' concerns about daily separation from their babies and pre-school children In this study, we investigated fathers' and mothers' separation anxiety and the relationships between separation anxiety and family and child-care characteristics The sample included 589 married couples from a larger study of families and center-based child care Data were collected through in-home and center visits Fathers and mothers had similar levels of Separation Anxiety However, fathers reported slightly higher Concern for the Child, and mothers reported higher Employment Concerns Fathers' perceptions of their wives' anxieties were higher by half a standard deviation compared with mothers' reports Fathers' and mothers self reported separation anxieties were modestly correlated Paternal separation anxiety was most strongly associated with fathers' perceptions of their wives' separation concerns, not with mothers' reported anxieties, which suggested ego defensiveness and projection     

Influences of parent and child negative emotionality on young children's everyday behaviors

Negative emotionality is linked to unfavorable life outcomes, but studies have yet to examine negative emotionality of parents and children as predictors of children's problem behaviors and negative emotion word use in everyday life. This study used a novel naturalistic recording device called the Electronically Activated Recorder to investigate the separate and interactive influences of parent and child negative emotionality on daily child behaviors in a sample of 35 preschool-aged children over two time points separated by 1 year. Fathers' negative emotionality predicted children's whining at Time 1; mothers' negative emotionality predicted children's negative emotion word use at Time 1 and increases in children's arguing/fighting from Time 1 to Time 2. Parents' ratings of child negative emotionality also were associated with increases in children's arguing/fighting from Time 1 to Time 2, and child negative emotionality moderated the association between mothers' negative emotionality and children's arguing/fighting. Further, children with mothers high in negative emotionality displayed higher levels of problem behaviors when their mothers self-reported low levels of positive emotional expressiveness and/or high levels of negative emotional expressiveness. These findings offer preliminary evidence linking parent and child negative emotionality to everyday child behaviors and suggest that emotional expressiveness may play a key role in moderating the links between maternal negative emotionality and child behavioral problems. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).     

Maternal anxiety and toddler depressive/anxiety behaviors: The direct and moderating role of children's focused attention

Attention mechanisms have a pertinent role in shaping developmental pathways to anxiety and depressive disorders. The current study examined the direct and interactive associations between maternal anxiety symptoms, children's focused attention, and children’s anxiety and depression behaviors in early toddlerhood. Participants were 150 mother-child dyads (50 % female) that were assessed at two time points. At 12 months of child age, mothers reported about their anxiety symptoms and children's focused attention. Children's focused attention was also observed and rated from an individual play task. At 18 months of age, mothers reported about children's anxiety and depression behaviors. Focused attention predicted child anxiety and depressive behaviors, with different patterns of associations between observed and reported measures of attention. There was also a significant interaction between maternal anxiety symptoms and observed children's focused attention. A positive association between maternal anxiety symptoms and child anxiety and depression symptoms was evident only for children with above-average levels of observed focused attention during play. Results suggest that different aspects of focused attention play a role in maternal reported anxiety and depression behaviors in early development and may modulate the intergenerational transmission of anxiety.     

Self-esteem and social desirability in relation to college students' retrospective perceptions of parental fairness and disciplinary practices

This study examined the relationships that fathers' and mothers' interactive of disciplinary behaviors have with college students' Coopersmith Self-esteem Inventory scores, Social Desirability scale scores, and their retrospective perceptions of their parents' fairness (50 sons, 84 daughters). Sons with higher scores in self-esteem reported that their mothers were fairer, had more interest in their activities, and were less likely to use verbal put-downs (abuse). Daughters with high self-esteem reported both of their parents were more interested in their activities, used praise more often, and refrained from verbal abuse. Also, these daughters reported that their mothers were more fair and encouraged their independence more. Daughters who reported their fathers as being more strict had lower self-esteem scores. There was no evidence that spanking, grounding, scolding, or monetary rewards had any effect on children's self-esteem scores, whether these methods were used by mothers or by fathers. Both sons and daughters who perceived their parents as being more fair also saw them as being more interested, having used praise more often, and having been less likely to have used verbal abuse. Daughters were less likely to view either fathers or mothers as being more fair if they had used spanking, grounding, or scolding more, and had been over-all stricter. Sons who had less strict fathers or who had received monetary rewards from them tended to regard them as being more fair. Higher social desirability scores correlated with higher self-esteem of women. Also, women with these higher social desirability scores tended to report that both their fathers and mothers used scolding and grounding less often.     

Mothers with hostile, Type A predisposing child-rearing practices.

The authors examined characteristics of Finnish mothers (N = 924) who use hostile child-rearing practices (i.e., they ignore the child, are punitive and irritable, and perceive the child as a burden), practices that have been shown (R?ikk?nen & Keltikangas-J?rvinen, 1992) to predispose children to Type A behavior. The results of this study indicate that two factors--Type A behavior in the mothers and the mothers' sociodemographic background (low occupational status, low educational level and young age)--increase the probability of the mothers' treating their children in a hostile manner. Also, the mothers of boys in this study reported more hostile child-rearing practices than the mothers of girls did.     

“Hey mom, look at me!”

The degree to which infant and maternal characteristics were related to maternal psychological distress and play competence was examined in 40 mother preterm and full-term dyads. Measures of maternal psychological distress, self-efficacy, infant temperament, and mother-infant interaction in a play situation, were obtained at 4 months corrected for prematurity. Results revealed that maternal self-efficacy was the strongest correlate of maternal psychological distress but was not related to maternal play competence. Interaction effects for unadaptable temperament and infant behavioral involvement were found in the regressions predicting both maternal psychological distress and maternal play competence. Mothers of more adaptable and less behaviorally involved infants reported greater psychological distress and exhibited greater play competence than mothers of more adaptable and involved infants. The results suggest that a lack of concordance between mothers' perceptions of their infants' behavior and actual behavioral experiences adversely affects mothers' affect and the quality of their play interactions.     

婴幼儿消极行为特征与影响母亲抚养困难的因素

以５７２名１－６岁儿童的母亲为研究对象,探讨了婴幼儿消极行为特征在各年龄组的分布、与母亲抚养困难的关系,并考察了在儿童消极行为较多情况下,与母亲抚养困难有关联的若干因素。结果表明;１．儿童消极行为特征的分布在各年龄组水平上是相似的。２．儿童的消极行为特征与母亲的抚养困难有显著的正相关。３．在儿童消极行为较多的情况下,母亲的职业、文化程度、生产年龄、婚姻关系及获得社会支持的程度等因素与母亲抚养困难有密切的关系。     

Neonatal imitation, gaze aversion, and mother-infant interaction

A relationship between elicited imitation in neonates and social interaction has been proposed by several investigators. The present work examines if such a relationship can be found when studying neonatal imitation, gaze aversion, and mother-infant interaction. Thirty-two infants were observed at 2 to 3 days, 3 weeks, and 3 months of age. Imitation of tongue protrusion and mouth opening was assessed in all three observations. In addition, a face-to-face interaction between mother and child was included when the child reached 3 months of age. The most striking result was a negative relationship between the infants' brief gaze aversion observed at 3 months of age while interacting with their mothers and the infants' imitative reactions at 2 to 3 days, 3 weeks, and 3 months of age. Behaviorally, these patterns indicate that high-imitating infants tend to display fewer episodes of brief gaze aversion when interacting with their mothers.     

Attitudinal and demographic predictors of breast-feeding and bottle-feeding behavior by mothers of six-week-old infants

The demographic and attitudinal characteristics of 42 bottle feeding and 41 breast feeding mothers of 6 week old infants were compared. The women were patients of private physicians in Nashville, Tennessee. Data was obtained from self-administered questionnaires distributed through the physicians' offices. The women were primarily middle class whites and one-half of the women were multiparous and one-half were primiparous. On the basis of the information obtained in the questionnaires respondents were given scores on 13 demographic and family history characteristics and on 16 attitudinal scales which measured the mothers' preceptions of family life, child rearing, and breast feeding. Discriminant function analysis was used to assess the differences in the mean scores on each of the 29 variables for the 2 groups of mothers. Major findings were: 1) breast feeding mothers were significantly more educated and had significantly more breast feeding friends than bottle feeding mothers; 2) breast feeding mothers viewed their husbands as significantly more supportive of their feeding method than bottle feeding mothers; 3) bottle feeding mothers perceived more conflict in their marriages than breast feeding mothers; 4) bottle feeding mothers tended to favor accelerating the development of their infants more than the other mothers; and 5) breast feeding mothers had more positive attitudes toward breast beeding than bottle feeding mothers. Most of the women in both groups decided on their method of feeding prior to delivery, and complications during and following delivery did not alter their plans significantly. The 2 groups did not differ significantly in the degree to which they: 1) fostered dependency in their infants; 2) felt possessive toward their infants; 3) rejected the housewife role; and 4) were secluded at home.     

Knowledge gained by mothers enrolled in a home visitation program

This study examined whether new mothers would gain knowledge of child development after participating in a home visitation program for six months, and whether there would be differences between adolescent mothers and older mothers. Forty-seven mothers were administered the Knowledge Inventory of Development and Behavior: Infancy to School-age (KIDS) after the birth of their babies and six months later. Results indicated an overall increase in total knowledge of child development for mothers (of all ages) participating in a home visitation program. KIDS subscale scores indicated a significant increase in new mothers' knowledge about both infant and school-age development. There was no significant difference between the adolescent and older mothers in knowledge of infant development.     

Infants' vagal regulation in the still-face paradigm is related to dyadic coordination of mother-infant interaction

The authors investigated relations between mother-infant dyadic coordination and infants' physiological responses. Mothers (N=73) and 3-month-old male and female infants were observed in the still-face paradigm, and mothers' and infants' affective states were coded at 1-s intervals. Synchrony and levels of matching between mother-infant affective states were computed, and infants' heart rate and vagal tone were measured. Infants showed increased negative affect and heart rate and decreased vagal tone during mothers' still-face, indicating physiological regulation of distress. Infants who did not suppress vagal tone during the still-face (nonsuppressors) showed less positive affect, higher reactivity and vagal suppression in normal play and reunion episodes, and lower synchrony in normal play with mothers. The results indicate that infants' physiological regulation in social interaction differs in relation to dyadic coordination of affective behaviors.     

Parenting Disruptive Preschoolers: Experiences of Mothers and Fathers

This study examined parental functioning and interactions with young children with Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD), with emphasis on differences between mothers and fathers in their responses to their child and in their unique contributions to the prediction of child disruptive behavior. Participants were 53 3- to 6-year olds with ODD who presented for treatment with two parents. Mothers reported more severe disruptive behavior and higher parenting stress than fathers. During parent-child interactions, mothers showed more responsiveness than fathers, even though children were more compliant during interactions with fathers. Regression analyses showed that fathers' parent-related stress was predictive of both mothers' and father's reports of disruptive child behavior; mothers' marital satisfaction was predictive of behavioral observations of child compliance with both mothers and fathers. This study revealed several important differences in the experiences of mothers versus fathers of disruptive children and indicates the importance of including the father in the child's assessment and treatment.