Loving and angry? Happy and sad? Understanding and reporting of mixed emotions in mother–child relationships by 6‐ to 12‐year‐olds

The Evaluative Space Model of emotions allows for the coactivation of positive‐appetitive and negative‐avoidant systems, but few studies have examined mixed emotions in child development. Existing research suggests children's understanding of opposite valence emotion combinations emerges by approximately 11 years of age. However, it is not yet clear whether various opposite valence combinations are understood at different ages, nor whether children can understand them in others before they have experienced such mixed emotions themselves. Semi‐structured interviews with 97 children investigated whether they regarded six combinations of opposite valence mixed emotions as possible, could provide reasons for them, and report their own experience of each in the context of mother–child relationships. Both understanding that such combinations are possible and ability to provide reasons for them increased after age 6 and up to age 11, but were still incomplete in 12‐year‐olds. Understanding of different opposite valence combinations developed at different rates. At each age, fewer children who showed understanding of these combinations in others reported having had a similar experience themselves. The findings suggest a need to systematically examine a range of mixed emotions in order to develop a comprehensive theory of the development of mixed emotion understanding. They also suggest extending research into adolescence.     

TEACHING SELF-PROTECTION TO CHILDREN USING TELEVISION TECHNIQUES

This study compared the effectiveness of a videotape training program with other methods of teaching children self-protection to prevent child abduction. Subjects were kindergarten and first-grade students. Four experimental conditions were presented: videotape with behavior rehearsal, videotape only, a standard safety program, and no training. Acquisition of self-protective behaviors was measured at posttraining and follow-up by having confederate adults entice the children near their schools and homes. Results revealed that the videotape program with behavior rehearsal was highly effective in teaching children safe responses to potential abductors. The standard safety program was effective with fewer than half of the children. Three fourths of the children who received no training immediately agreed to go with the confederate suspects. The videotape program can be easily used with groups of young children in a classroom setting.     

TEACHING CHILD-CARE SKILLS TO MOTHERS WITH DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITIES

The present study identified and remediated child-care skill deficits in parents with developmental disabilities to reduce their risk of child neglect. Eleven mothers with developmental disabilities who were considered by social service and child welfare agencies to be providing neglectful child care were found in baseline to have several important child-care skill deficits (e.g., bathing, diaper rash treatment, cleaning baby bottles) compared to nonhandicapped mothers. Parent training (consisting of verbal instructions, pictorial manuals, modeling, feedback, and reinforcement) resulted in rapid acquisition and maintenance of child-care skills in all mothers. Mean percentage correct scores increased from 58% in baseline to 90% in training and 91% in follow-up (M = 31 weeks). The latter two scores compare favorably to the mean score (87%) of 20 nonhandicapped mothers on the same skills. Where observable, parent training was associated with corresponding benefits to the children (e.g., elimination of diaper rash and cradle cap, increased weight gain, successful toilet training). These results indicate that parent training may be a viable option to the removal of the child from the home when parenting skill deficits place the child's well-being in jeopardy.     

PROMOTING LAW ENFORCEMENT FOR CHILD PROTECTION: A COMMUNITY ANALYSIS

The Colorado Occupant Protection Project (COPP) intervention provided police with brief instruction concerning the importance of citations for drivers' failure to use child safety seats and special coupons to accompany citations. Coupons were exchangeable by drivers for a safety seat and brief training in its use, plus a waiver of the $50 citation fine. Over 4.5 years of archival records were employed, using an ABA design and a comparison community to evaluate the program. Few tickets were issued for nonuse of safety seats during the 3-year baseline in either community. Citations for nonuse of safety seats increased to over 50 per month during the intervention period at the test site, whereas rates remained essentially zero at the comparison site. After the COPP intervention was removed at the intervention site, citation rates for nonuse of safety seats decreased to about 15 per month. Differences between intervention conditions and settings were statistically significant. During the intervention, officers were 44 times more likely to write citations than were controls. Results suggested that a behavioral program can increase police citation writing for child protection purposes.     

Making peace in gestational conflicts

Mary Anne Warren's claim that there is room for only one person with full and equal rights inside a single human skin ([1], p. 63) calls attention to the vast range of moral conflict engendered by assigning full basic moral rights to fetuses. Thereby, it serves as a goad to thinking about conflicts between pregnant women and their fetuses in a way that emphasizes relationships rather than rights. I sketch out what a care orientation might suggest about resolving gestational conflicts. I also argue that the care orientation, with its commitment to the significance of the partial and the particular, cannot be absorbed within standard, impartialist moral theory.     

Family interaction and child psychopathology: A comparison of two observation strategies

We examined two systems of assessing family interactions that are in common usage: a home based observation of free parent-child interaction and a clinic based observation of a structured mother-child problem solving discussion. Participants were 18 depressed, 27 conduct disordered and 16 comparison children and their mothers. Results indicated that: 1) these observations may yield very different data about child, and to a lesser extent, parent behavior, 2) parental affect in the clinic was related to their level of aversive behaviour in the home, 3) levels of both aversive and positive behavior for children and their mothers were correlated within each setting, 4) accuracy of diagnostic classifications made on the basis of the observational data were highest for comparison and conduct disordered children, but lowest for depressed children observed in the clinic, and 5) the inclusion of data on mothers' behavior increased classification accuracy for conduct disordered children only.     

Money versus pain: experimental study of a conflict in humans.

Ten healthy human males volunteered to be subjects in an experiment in which they were to be paid to endure a painful sensation. This sensation was produced by isometric muscular contraction in the thighs. For each of six sessions the subjects received either a payment that was changed for each session (0.2, 0.5, 1.25, 3.125, 7.8125 French francs per 20 s) or a lump sum. At the beginning of a session, the subjects assumed a seated position against a wall, but without a seat, and the duration for which they could hold this position was the chief variable measured. Heart rate, blood pressure, and magnitude estimation of pain were also recorded periodically throughout each session. Pain was reported after a mean delay of 15 +/- 7 s (SE), and the magnitude estimates then increased linearly with time. The duration of maintaining the painful position increased linearly in relation to the logarithm of the increase in the amount of payment. Thus, utility of money decreased when pitted against pain.     

Reactivity and unreliability of husbands as participant observers

This study examined the reliability and reactivity of participant observation. Twelve couples engaged in two discussions in a laboratory, one on a conflict topic and one on a consensus topic. For the eight couples in the experimental sequences, a baseline discussion was followed by participant observation in which the husband recorded his wife's use of I while continuing to converse. The four couples in the control sequences conversed without participant observation. Compared to observations made by a trained observer, the husbands were unreliable observers, underestimating their wives' use of I. Participant observation was reactive (P<.01), with more wives decreasing their use of I in the experimental sequences than in the control sequences (p<.094). The topic of discussion did not differentially influence reliability or reactivity.This research was conducted as the first author's independent doctoral research project. We extend gratitude to the Research Council of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro for Grant 0-2-110-218-XXXXX-7548; the Statistical Consulting Center of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro; two anonymous reviewers; and our research assistants, Suzanne Brannon, Ben Hardie, Kathy Lindamood, Amy Mitchem, Regina Pierce, and Elga Wulfert. Portions of this paper were presented at the meeting of the Association for Advancement of Behavior Therapy, Washington, D.C., December 1983.     

Maternal and adolescent depressive symptoms and family conflict: An autoregressive cross-lagged examination of competing models in multi-stressed mothers and adolescents

Maternal and adolescent depression are challenges that often co-occur. Many studies have drawn bivariate associations between maternal depressive symptoms, adolescent depressive symptoms, and family conflict, but few have examined reciprocal effects. Even among extant studies, there is a lack of clarity related to directionality of influence. Three competing theoretical models may explain the relationship between maternal depressive symptoms, adolescent depressive symptoms, and family conflict, and these processes may differ by adolescents’ sex. Using three time points of data from 187 diverse mother-adolescent dyads, we fit a taxonomy of autoregressive cross-lagged structural equation models to simultaneously evaluate the competing theoretical models and also examine differences by sex using multiple-group analyses. Results indicate a symptom-driven model whereby adolescent depressive symptoms predicted increases in family conflict. Sex differences were also found. For males, but not females, greater adolescent depressive symptoms predicted subsequent increases in maternal depressive symptoms, which then predicted lower family conflict—possibly indicating maternal disengagement/withdrawal. Our findings suggest addressing adolescent depressive symptoms in order to prevent family conflict and that distinctive targets for the prevention/intervention of family conflict should account for differences by adolescents’ sex.     

The roles of self-regulation and partner regulation on romantic relationship quality

Research into self-regulation and partner regulation strategies has largely involved parallel lines of research, thus, it is difficult to determine the relative contribution of both forms of regulation when it comes to relationship outcomes. Therefore, the question remains as to which form of regulation is more strongly associated with relationship quality; is it more important to focus on adaptive self-regulation or adaptive strategies to regulate one's partner? The current research addresses this important gap by comparing the relative associations of adaptive self-regulation and adaptive partner regulation strategies on romantic relationship quality. A community sample of mixed gender couples (N = 114) who were predominantly satisfied with their current relationships – but nonetheless still experienced relationship conflict – were administered self-report assessments of various self-regulation and partner regulation strategies as well as a measure of relationship quality. Couples also participated in a videotaped discussion of an unresolved relationship issue that was scored by trained coders for verbal and nonverbal indicators of self-regulation and partner regulation strategies. Actor–partner interdependence modeling revealed that for both men and women, adaptive self-regulation strategies were positively associated with their own evaluations of relationship quality as well as their partner's relationship quality. In contrast, engaging in adaptive partner regulation strategies was not significantly associated with men's or women's own, or their partner's relationship quality. Findings highlight the importance of focusing on self-regulation in relationships, as it is these strategies, over partner regulation strategies, that have more positive implications for the relationship quality experienced by typically satisfied couples.