3 research outputs found
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Maternal depression and children's adjustment problems : the role of mothers' affective reactivity
textMothers with depressive symptoms often express more negative emotions than other mothers, react more punitively, and express more frustration (e.g., Belsky, 1984). Paradoxically, mothers with depressive symptoms are also often found to be less, not more, reactive and to express flat rather than negative affect. These mothers are often described as emotionally "flat", unresponsive, and withdrawn (Kochanska, Kuczynski, Radke-Yarrow, & Welsh, 1987). Mothers' depressive symptoms are also associated with problematic parenting, interfering with children's social development (e.g., Goodman et al., 2011). This study investigated the possibility that mothers with depressive symptoms regulate their affect as a coping strategy to minimize distress when facing aversive child behaviors. Using observational and reported longitudinal data from 319 mother-child dyads, we examined how mothers' affective reactivity changes as a function of (a) changes in mothers' depressive symptoms, and (b) changes in childrenâs aversiveness during the course of the mother-child interaction. Depressive symptoms were associated with mothers' under-reactivity to low aversive child behaviors. Depressive symptoms also predicted rapid increases in mothers' negative reactivity as children's aversiveness increased, and negative over-reactivity to highly aversive child behaviors. Mothers' affective under-reactivity, over-reactivity, and depressive symptoms were all associated with children's adjustment problems over a two-year period. Results suggest that when aversive child behaviors are minimally disturbing, mothers with depressive symptoms minimize child rearing strain by not reacting; when aversive child behaviors are highly disturbing, they do so by resisting and controlling the child. Findings may enable us to understand adaptations that undermine parenting and place children at risk.Human Development and Family Science
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Mothers' aversion sensitivity in the regulation of negative mother-child interactions
Recent research suggests that aversion sensitivityâthe tendency to increase negative expression rapidly as the aversive properties of childrenâs behavior increaseâmay alter how mothers react to difficult child behaviors. When sensitive to, and thus distressed by childrenâs aversive behavior, mothers may express negative emotions to children that, in turn, activate childrenâs reciprocal negativity, leading to further negativity from the mother, and so on. Yet unknown is whether being emotionally sensitive to aversive child behaviors predicts distinct patterns of mother-child interactions. Based on predictions from emotion theory and research on coercive family interaction, this study examined whether mothersâ aversion sensitivity is associated with distinct patterns of parent, child, and reciprocal negative expressions in mother-child interactions. Using longitudinal data from 319 mother-child dyads, we tested multilevel models that specified within-dyad relations between mothersâ aversion sensitivity and observed patterns of mother-child emotion and behavior during interactions. From codes of mother-child conversations over time, forty-seven child behaviors were ranked from least to most aversive based on their probability of eliciting negative emotion from mothers. Using these ranks, we measured at each assessment aversion sensitivity: the rate at which the probability of a motherâs expressing negative emotion increased as child behaviors went from low to high aversive. Results supported predictions from coercion and emotion theories even when controlling for mothersâ general tendencies to express negative emotion and childrenâs tendencies to react negatively to mothers. These data demonstrate how emotionsâand specifically easy activation of maternal distressâ may lead to negative mother-child patterns in which mothers orient toward suppressing aversive child behavior to reduce their distress, which have been previously shown to promote childrenâs resistance and poor adjustment. Understanding these emotional processes may help clarify the biosocial processes responsible for the adverse effects of stress, depression, and other psychosocial factors on parenting competence and child adjustment.Human Development and Family Science