Poster #143 - Impacts of Infant Temperament, Marital Satisfaction, and Parental Psychopathology on Parenting across Early Infancy

• In Event: 1-061 - Poster Session 02
  In Poster Session: PS 02 Section - Parenting & Parent-Child Relationships

Integrative Statement

The multiple determinants of parenting model (Belsky & Jaffee, 2006) suggests that parenting is influenced by child (i.e., temperament), contextual (i.e., marital satisfaction), and intrinsic factors (i.e., psychopathology). Infant temperament can directly impact the marital relationship and serve as mediator between the marital relationship and parenting quality (Mehall et al., 2009). The spillover effect between the marital relationship and parenting is well documented but varies by parent gender. Mothers compartmentalize their roles better than fathers, who are more likely to let marital conflict affect parenting (Cummings et al., 2010). Parent psychopathology might further clarify the link between the marital relationship and parenting quality. Depression symptomology for mothers and fathers, for example, is associated with increases in spillover (Kouros et al., 2014; Lovejoy et al., 2000). The effects of parental anxiety, however, vary by gender. Maternal anxiety is associated with more intrusive parenting (Adam et al., 2004), whereas paternal anxiety negatively influences the family system as opposed to dyadic interactions (Gibler et al., 2018). Research is less clear on how these factors influence a specific component of parenting, parenting efficacy, which is known to further impact parenting practices and later developmental outcomes (Jones & Prinz, 2004). The current study examined how infant temperament, marital satisfaction, and psychopathology influenced parenting efficacy in both mothers and fathers.

Participants included families (mother, father, and infant) at 4, 6, and 8 months of age. Parents completed questionnaires assessing infant temperament (Infant Behavior Questionnaire – Revised; Gartstein & Rothbart, 2003), psychopathology symptoms (Inventory of Depression and Anxiety Symptoms; Watson et al., 2007), marital satisfaction (Short Marital-Adjustment Test; Lock & Wallace, 1959), and parenting efficacy (Parenting Sense of Competence Scale; Johnston & Mash, 1989). Two experimenters rated temperament during emotion-eliciting tasks (Infant Behavior Record; Stifter et al., 2008). Infant temperamental positivity and negativity scores were created by standardizing/averaging subscales from the parent and experimenter-report measures.

Preliminary regression analyses were run for mother- (n= 50) and father-infant (n= 49) dyads. For fathers, results revealed a three-way interaction between temperamental positivity, depression, and marital satisfaction at 4 months predicting 8 month parenting efficacy (B= .079, SE= .039, p< .05; see Figure 1). For infants low in positivity, there was a negative association between depression and parenting efficacy, but only for fathers higher in marital satisfaction (B= -1.64, SE= .59, t= -2.76, p< .01). For infants average in positivity, there was a negative association between depression and parenting efficacy, but only for fathers average in marital satisfaction (B= -.53, SE= .24, t= -2.22, p< .05). For infants higher in positivity, there was a negative association between depression and efficacy for fathers average in marital satisfaction (B= -.73, SE= .32, t= -2.29, p< .05). For mothers, results were either marginally significant or nonsignificant. Subsequent analyses will include additional participants. Overall, results suggest that there are complex processes between intrinsic, contextual, and infant driven factors that impact paternal self-efficacy.

Authors

• Lauren Bailes, UNC Greensboro
  Presenting Author

• Diane Lickenbrock, Western Kentucky University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Ashley Nicole Quigley, Western Kentucky University
  Non-Presenting Author