Mothers with depressive symptoms: cross-situational consistency and temporal stability of their parenting behavior

In the present study, it has been hypothesized that anxious and depressed mothers may show less typical behavior in a laboratory observational setting because they may be more affected by unfamiliarity and the social evaluative meaning of the situation. They may thus show low consistency across laboratory and home assessments. A sample of 101 mother-infant pairs participated in the longitudinal study. Laboratory and home observations of mother-infant interaction episodes were conducted at the infant ages of 4, 8, and 12 months. Consistent with expectations, at 4 months the association between laboratory- and home-assessed maternal sensitivity was significantly moderated by maternal depression/anxiety: in highly anxious/depressed mothers the association between laboratory- and home-assessed sensitivity was weak, whereas a strong association was found in mothers with low anxiety/depression. At 8 months this interaction was still marginally significant and at 12 months it had disappeared. Thus, mothers with depressive symptoms showed less consistent behavior across the two settings of the first assessment wave, and with increased familiarity with the procedures of the longitudinal study, their behavioral consistency increased and no longer differed from that of well mothers.