Poster #96 - Perceptions of Coparenting and Infant Negative Affect at the Transition to Parenthood

• In Event: 2-163 - Poster Session 08
  In Poster Session: PS 08 Section - Family Context & Processes

Integrative Statement

Family systems theory postulates that individuals influence and are influenced by their family systems (Cox & Paley, 1997). Therefore, it is possible for relationship subsystems within the family to influence perceptions of one family member. We examined 1) if new parents' reports of infant negative affect changed over time and 2) if changes existed, were those changes explained by new parents' perceptions of their coparenting relationship. Given that there are few studies that examine the associations between infant negative affect and coparenting, and even fewer that have done so longitudinally (Burney & Leerkes, 2010), we aimed to fill this gap.
We used data from a longitudinal study of 182 dual-earner, different-gender married or cohabiting couples expecting their first biological child. Eighty-five percent of parents identified as white, the annual median household income was $81,000, 75% of mothers and 65% of fathers had completed at least a bachelor's degree, and expectant parents’ ages ranged from 18 to 50 years old. At 3, 6, and 9 months postpartum (labeled 0, 1, 2 in Figure 1), mothers and fathers independently reported their perceptions of their infant’s temperament over the past week using the Revised Infant Behavior Questionnaire-Very Short Form (Rothbart & Gartstein, 2000) on a 1 (never) to 7 (always) scale. We used the negative affect subscale (12 items; e.g., “When tired, how often did your baby show distress?”). We created a composite score of coparenting—as rated independently by mothers and fathers—using the 33-item Coparenting Relationship Scale (Feinberg, Brown, & Kan, 2012), which measured six dimensions of coparenting (agreement, conflict, closeness, endorsement, support, undermining) on a 0 (not true of us) to 6 (very true of us) scale. We estimated missing data using Expectation Maximization.
We used a linear growth model in SPSS (Raudenbush & Bryk, 2002) to determine the initial levels and change in perceived infant negative affect across time for parents with a time-varying covariate of coparenting and a control for parent gender. At 3 months postpartum, infant negative affect was rated by mothers as B = 4.36 (p < .05), and fathers rated their infants’ negative affect B = .02 higher than mothers (NS). Additionally, for each unit increase in coparenting, the intercept of negative affect was reduced by B = -.31 (p < .05). There were no significant effects of partner or coparenting on the slope of negative affect. Over each phase, both parents’ ratings of negative affect increased by B = .25 (p < .05).
Results indicate that despite overall increases in perceived infant negative affect from 3 to 9 months postpartum, a positive coparenting relationship is associated with lowered initial ratings of infant negative affect. Prior to conference, future analyses will include coding observed coparenting interactions to examine if associations hold with observational data, as well as testing these associations using other aspects of infant temperament (e.g., surgency, effortful control). This work adds to a small, but growing body of literature on the associations between coparenting and infant temperament.

Authors

• Anna Olsavsky, The Ohio State University
  Presenting Author

• Miranda Berrigan, The Ohio State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Sarah J Schoppe-Sullivan, Ohio State University
  Non-Presenting Author