Individual Submission Summary
Share...

Direct link:

Poster #229 - Responses to Peer Acceptance Moderate the Relation between Parent Stress and Child Externalizing Problems

Sat, March 23, 12:45 to 2:00pm, Baltimore Convention Center, Floor: Level 1, Exhibit Hall B

Integrative Statement

Parents’ stress levels are an important contributor to the family’s emotional climate (Eisenberg, Cumberland, & Spinrad, 1998). Research suggests that stressful home environments, which can provide little to no structure for daily activities and diminished socioemotional support, are positively related to children’s externalizing problems (Lemery-Chalfant, Kao, Swann, & Goldsmith, 2013; Valiente, Lemery-Chalfant, & Reiser, 2007). The relation between parent stress and children’s externalizing problems may depend on how children engage in social relationships, such as how they respond to social feedback. Higher levels of peer rejection and social isolation among school-aged children have been related to greater levels of externalizing problems (Ladd, 1990). Although there is a large body of research to suggest that peer relationships are important in the early school years (e.g., Rimm-Kaufmann & Pianta, 2000), little research has used ecologically valid laboratory-based measurements of how children process social feedback (Howarth, Guyer, Pérez-Edgar, 2013). The current study examined how children’s responses to social feedback moderated the relation between parent stress and children’s externalizing problems.

Participants were 96 5- to 7-year-old children (45 boys; Mage=5.58 years, SDage=0.66; 92% Caucasian) and their primary caregivers. Responses to peer acceptance were measured with a computerized version of the playdate task (Howarth et al., 2013), an ecologically valid experimental paradigm in which children sorted pictures of unknown peers into groups based on whether they wanted to play with them. The participants were later told whether or not these peers also wanted to play with them. After receiving feedback, the children were asked to rate how they felt using a 4-point scale from sad (1) to happy (4). Parents completed the Child Behavior Checklist (Achenbach & Rescorla, 2000) to measure child externalizing problems. Parent stress was measured using the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales Short-Form, Stress Scale (DASS-21; Henry & Crawford, 2005).

Multiple regression analyses indicated that the model including parent stress, child responses to social acceptance, and their interaction predicting externalizing problems was significant F(3,92) = 9.943, p < .01, R2 = .245. In particular, there was a significant interaction between parent stress and children’s responses to peer acceptance (B = -0.424, t = -2.873, p < .01). Regions of significance analyses indicated that when children’s responses to peer acceptance were below 0.11 (mean centered, raw M = 3.46), children had more externalizing problems when their parents reported experiencing more stress. The effects including children’s responses to peer rejection were not significant. These findings suggest that children who experience a more stressful emotional climate and who feel less happy when experiencing peer acceptance are more likely to have externalizing problems. Broadly, these results underscore how both stressful environments and response to feedback from peers may be particularly salient to children’s behavioral adjustment in the early school years.

Authors