Brief report Attachment orientations, marriage, and the transition to parenthood

Abstract This study examined how a major life stressor-the transition to parenthood-impacts marital satisfaction and functioning in persons with different romantic attachment orientations. As hypothesized, if highly ambivalent women entered the transition perceiving low levels of spousal support, they experienced significant declines (pre-to-postnatal changes) in perceptions of spousal support and marital satisfaction, and their husbands reported significant declines in support giving and marital satisfaction. Changes in both spousesÕ satisfaction were mediated by preto-postnatal changes in wivesÕ perceptions of spousal support. That is, highly ambivalent women who perceived less prenatal support reported significant declines in perceived support over time, which in turn predicted significant declines in their marital satisfaction. These results highlight the critical role that perceptions of support assume when highly ambivalent women encounter a major life stressor

Dads doing diapers: Individual and relational outcomes associated with the division of childcare across the transition to parenthood.

This longitudinal study examined how relative contributions to the division of childcare are related to individual and relational outcomes across the first two years of the transition to parenthood. Data were collected from a large sample of first-time parents 6 weeks before the birth of their child and then at 6, 12, 18, and 24 months postpartum. The results revealed that certain individual differences—especially gender and attachment avoidance—shape individual reactions to childcare, above and beyond the proportion of childcare tasks that partners report completing. Women and less avoidantly attached new parents handle the introduction of childcare tasks better than most men, especially those who are more avoidantly attached. In addition, certain reactions to childcare, such as childcare self-efficacy and perceptions of work-family conflict, moderate the relation between childcare contributions and relationship satisfaction over the course of the transition. We also discuss the need for more research on men’s adjustment during this particularly stressful transition

INTERPERSONAL RELATIONS AND GROUP PROCESSES Adult Attachment, the Transition to Parenthood, and Depressive Symptoms

Testing a model suggested by J

Religious Fundamentalism and Terror Management: Differences by Interdependent and Independent Self-construal

Two studies tested the hypothesis that religious fundamentalism and self-construal are associated with systematic differences in death awareness. We hypothesized that, for individuals low in religious fundamentalism, who presumably experience less of an anxiety buffer based on worldview, interdependent self-construal (a sense of the self as encompassing connections to close others) should be associated ivith reduced baseline death awareness-because relational processes may have anxiety buffering/functions. Results from both studies supported this notion, showing that chronic and primed interdependence were associated with reduced death-awareness for loll, fundamentalists. Among persons scoring high on religious fundamentalism levels of death awareness were unrelated to self-construal. These studies suggest that fundamentalism and self-conceptions interact to influence the terror-management process

Religious Fundamentalism and Terror Management

The study reported herein tested the following hypothesis: Religious fundamentalism can serve a protective function against existential anxiety, such that the need to engage in secular worldview defense when mortality is made salient is reduced for high fundamentalists. The results showed that high fundamentalists engaged in less worldview defense after thinking about their own death versus a control topic. Low fundamentalists, however, engaged in more worldview defense after thinking about their deaths versus a control topic. Exploratory analyses revealed that high fundamentalists' writings about death had a more positive emotional tone and that reactions to the death salience manipulation moderated the impact of fundamentalism on worldview defense. Fundamentalists who saw their deaths in terms of peace and acceptance appeared most protected against terror management concerns

Personality, communication, and depressive symptoms across the transition to parenthood: a dyadic longitudinal investigation

This study adopted a person (actor) by partner perspective to examine how actor personality traits, partner personality traits, and specific actor by partner personality trait interactions predict actor's depressive symptoms across the first two years of the transition to parenthood. Data were collected from a large sample of new parents (both partners in each couple) 6 weeks before the birth of their first child, and then at 6, 12, 18, and 24 months postpartum. The results revealed that higher actor neuroticism and lower partner agreeableness predicted higher levels of depressive symptoms in actors. Moreover, the specific combination of high actor neuroticism and low partner agreeableness was a particularly problematic combination, which was intensified when prepartum dysfunctional problem-solving communication and aggression existed in the relationship. These results demonstrate the importance of considering certain actor by partner disposition pairings to better understand actors’ emotional well-being during major life transitions

Dads doing diapers: Individual and relational outcomes associated with the division of childcare across the transition to parenthood.

This longitudinal study examined how relative contributions to the division of childcare are related to individual and relational outcomes across the first two years of the transition to parenthood. Data were collected from a large sample of first-time parents 6 weeks before the birth of their child and then at 6, 12, 18, and 24 months postpartum. The results revealed that certain individual differences—especially gender and attachment avoidance—shape individual reactions to childcare, above and beyond the proportion of childcare tasks that partners report completing. Women and less avoidantly attached new parents handle the introduction of childcare tasks better than most men, especially those who are more avoidantly attached. In addition, certain reactions to childcare, such as childcare self-efficacy and perceptions of work-family conflict, moderate the relation between childcare contributions and relationship satisfaction over the course of the transition. We also discuss the need for more research on men’s adjustment during this particularly stressful transition

Partner predictors of marital aggression across the transition to parenthood: an I3 approach

© The Author(s) 2018. The stress that arises during the transition to parenthood often places significant strain on marriages that can result in marital problems such as aggression victimization. In this research, we use an I 3 framework to identify specific partner variables that are likely to promote physical aggression victimization across the transition to parenthood. Examining both intercepts (i.e., mean levels of aggression victimization estimated at childbirth) and slopes (e.g., changes in aggression victimization estimated over time), we find support for a three-way interaction anticipated by the I 3 framework. Specifically, male partners were more likely to report being the victim of aggression at childbirth and also during the 24 months that followed when their female partner reported experiencing greater parental stress (an instigator to aggression in the I 3 framework), greater relationship-specific attachment avoidance (an impellor to aggression), and lower relationship satisfaction (the lack of an inhibitor to aggression). Implications for the prevention of marital aggression associated with these I 3 factors are discussed