Mothers’ and fathers’ attributions for adolescent behavior: An examination in families of depressed, subdiagnostic, and nondepressed youth (original) (raw)
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Journal of abnormal child psychology, 2000
The purpose of this study was to explore the relations between child responses to interparental depressive behavior and subsequent child depressive symptomatology. Data were collected on 156 two-parent families. Families completed questionnaire data and participated in problem-solving interactions, which were coded using a microsocial observational system. Three potential child responses to interparental depressive behavior were examined: facilitative, aggressive, and depressive. Results indicated that for female adolescents the displays of facilitative and depressive behavior as well as the suppression of aggressive behavior in response to interparental depressive behavior were related to increases in depressive symptomatology. For males, on the other hand, the display of aggressive and depressive behavior in response to interparental depressive behavior was related to increases in depression. Results provide preliminary support both for the examination of child responses to confli...
Adolescent recognition of parental affect: Influence of depressive symptoms
Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 2011
This study examined depressive biases in adolescents' labelling of parental affect. Adolescents (151 girls; 82 boys) and their parents engaged in videotaped problem-solving interactions (PSIs). Adolescents then participated in a video-mediated recall procedure in which they watched the videotaped interaction and indicated how they thought their parents were feeling. Indices of parents' affect during the PSIs were also provided by parent self-report and behavioral observations. Adolescent depressive symptoms were associated with over-reporting of parental aggressive affect and under-reporting of parental happy and neutral affects, relative to both directly observed and self-reported parental affect. Depressive symptoms were not associated with over-reporting of parental dysphoric affect. Given the importance of accurately reading affective cues for negotiating interpersonal interactions, these findings likely have implications for understanding processes that contribute to adverse relationships amongst the families of adolescents with depressive symptoms.
Personal Relationships, 2013
Parents' negative responsibility attributions about their child's misbehavior are related to a perception that the child has more behavior problems. The current study used a dyadic framework to explore how mothers' and fathers' attributions relate to their own perceptions and to their partner's perceptions of the child's externalizing problems. Participants included 102 couples interviewed when children were 7 years old. Results confirmed that mothers reported more externalizing behavior problems in their children than did fathers, and fathers of boys reported more child behavior problems than fathers of girls. Dyadic analyses suggested that parents' negative responsibility attributions of the child's behavior were associated with greater perceptions of child externalizing problems on behalf of parents and their partners. Keywords Parental attributions; children's problem behavior; dyadic data analysis Attributions, or interpretations of behavior, provide individuals with a way to make sense of their environments (Heider, 1958). With the ever-changing demands of parenting, parental attributions of children's behavior are commonly utilized to interpret and understand children's actions in a broad range of situations. These beliefs are important to understand as they have been shown to be associated with parents' responses to their children (Daggett,
Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 2019
Parents' attributions about their child's personality and behaviour are known to predict the quality of parent-child interactions and outcomes for the child, including those from parenting interventions. Nothing is known, however, about the quantity and quality of attributions parents use during free speech about their children referred for treatment of behavioural and emotional problems. We tested hypotheses about the types of attributions and associations among parental attributions, parental psychopathology and child conduct problems, using 504 five-minute speech samples (FMSS) coded using the Parent Attribution Speech Sample (PASS) coding system. Both mothers and fathers talked about their thoughts and feelings regarding their children with disruptive behaviour problems (N = 295; 74% male; 3-8 years old). The assessment of spontaneous parental attributions via the PASS coding system was shown to be valid and reliable. Mothers made more negative, dispositional attributions than fathers, however, parents of either gender made, on average, more positive than negative attributions about their children. Parents' natural attributions about these children with emotional and behavioural problems were rather independent from parents' own mental health, but were consistently related to child factors. Specifically, across parent gender and across all attribution dimensions, levels of callous-unemotional traits were associated with spontaneous parental attributions above and beyond other child and parent factors. Overall, the results show that parents' spontaneous speech about referred children contains important information about their causal attributions, and that these are associated with child temperament rather than specific referral symptoms.
Parenting Behaviors, Adolescent Depressive Symptoms, and Problem Behavior
Journal of Family Issues, 2014
Cross-sectional data from 589 Chinese adolescents were used to investigate whether parenting behaviors are directly or indirectly (through self-esteem and school adjustment difficulties) associated with adolescent depressive symptoms and problem behavior. Structural equation modeling results showed that school adjustment difficulties fully mediated the relations between two parenting behaviors (parental punitiveness and paternal monitoring) and adolescent problem behavior and partially mediated the relation between maternal monitoring and adolescent problem behavior. Adolescent self-esteem partially mediated the relations between maternal punitiveness and adolescent depressive symptoms and fully mediated the relations between parental support and adolescent depressive symptoms. Parental love withdrawal was not significantly related to any adolescent adjustment when other parenting practices were controlled. The findings highlight the interactions between family and school contexts i...
Adolescent Perceptions of Parental Behaviors, Adolescent Self-Esteem, and Adolescent Depressed Mood
Journal of Child and Family Studies, 2007
Using symbolic interaction, we developed a research model that proposed adolescent perceptions of parental support and psychological control would be related to adolescent depressed mood directly and indirectly through self-esteem. We tested the model using selfreport questionnaire data from 161 adolescents living with both of their biological parents. To examine possible gender of adolescent differences, we tested two multigroup models separately for adolescents' perceptions of mothers' and fathers' parental behaviors. Both the fathers' and mothers' models yielded (a) direct paths from self-esteem to depressed mood (for boys and girls), psychological control to depressed mood (for boys) and (b) an indirect path from support to self-esteem to depressed mood (for girls and boys) and an indirect path from psychological control to self-esteem to depressed mood (for girls). In addition, in the fathers' model a significant direct path was found between fathers' support and depressed mood (for girls).
2018
Introduction: Studies in the recent two decades have shown that the quality of parental and adolescent communication has a major impact on the development of risk behaviors in adolescents. Objectives: The purpose of this study was to investigate the causal model for depression in adolescents, based on the parenting styles through the mediating role of the parent-adolescence conflict. Materials and Methods: The sample consisted of 150 male high school students in the first grade selected by a multistage random sampling method. In this research, the subjects completed the Children's Depression Inventory short form (CDI-S), Baumrind Parenting Styles Questionnaire (BPSQ), and Parent-Adolescent Conflict (PAC) scale. The proposed model was evaluated using structural equation modeling method. Indirect relationships were tested by the Bootstrap method. Results: The results of this study showed that the proposed model had an acceptable fit to the data, and all paths showed a significant relationship between parenting style (mediated by the parent-adolescent conflict) and for depression in young people, except for the authoritative parenting style. The results of several indirect paths showed that a significant relationship between permissive and authoritarian parenting styles (through parent-adolescent conflict) and depression in adolescents. Conclusion: The conflict between parents and adolescents can have an impact on children's psychological health. Therefore, solving family problems and providing an appropriate environment at home leads to physical and mental health in adolescents and also improves the proper functioning of the school and community.
Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 2014
The current study examined the congruence of parent and adolescent reports of positive and negative parenting with observations of parent-adolescent interactions as the criterion measure. The role of parent and adolescent depressive symptoms in moderating the associations between adolescent or parent report and observations of parenting also was examined. Participants were 180 parents (88.9 % female) with a history of clinical depression and one of their 9-to-15 year old children (49.4 % female). Parents and adolescents reported on parenting skills and depressive symptoms, and parenting was independently observed subsequently in the same session. Findings indicated adolescent report of positive, but not negative, parenting was more congruent with observations than parent report. For negative parenting, depressive symptoms qualified the relation between the parent or adolescent report and independent observations. For parents, higher levels of depressive symptoms were associated with more congruence with observed parenting (supporting a depressive realism hypothesis) whereas an opposite trend emerged for adolescents (providing some supporting evidence for a depression-distortion hypothesis).
Journal of abnormal child psychology, 2000
Despite recent suggestions that depression can be conceptualized as a disorder of affect regulation, relatively little research has focused on affect regulation skills in depressed individuals. This paper investigated whether depressed adolescents (N = 25) differ from nondepressed adolescents (N = 25) on two indices of affect regulation (i.e., duration of negative affective states and reciprocity of maternal negative affect) as well as whether these indices are related to microsocial family interactional processes. Analyses revealed that depressed teens differed from their nondepressed peers with regard to duration of negative affective states but not in their likelihood of reciprocating negative affect. Additionally, indices of adolescent affect regulation were related to family interactional processes. Duration of depressive affect was positively associated with maternal display of facilitative behavior contingent on adolescent depressive behavior. Duration of aggressive behavior ...
Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 1998
One hundred and ninety-eight adolescents and their mothers (N l 189) and fathers (N l 136) participated in a 4-year longitudinal study. Adolescent problem behaviour was assessed by the Youth Self-Report (YSR) and the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL). In addition, parental stress and marital adjustment were determined. Results showed that mothers and fathers showed high agreement, especially about their daughters, whereas parents and adolescents showed little agreement. Agreement was higher for internalising than for externalising behaviours. In general, adolescents reported more symptomatology than their parents did. However, mothers' ratings of their children's behaviours were significantly correlated with adolescents' self-ratings, but fathers' ratings were not. Statistical tests of correlations showed that mothers experiencing stress caused by marital problems perceived more problem behaviours in their children. Fathers' perceptions were relatively unaffected by personal adjustment. However, poor marital adjustment perceived by both parents showed a significant negative relation to adolescent externalising problem behaviour.