Child Misbehavior and Negative Parenting: Moderating Role of SES and Maternal Cognitive Regulation

• In Event: 3-180 - Cognition and Parenting in Low-Income Families

Integrative Statement

Parental self-regulation is implicated in individual differences in parenting practices (Crandall, Deater-Deckard & Riley, 2015). Effortful control (EC) and executive function (EF) are two aspects of self-regulation that are positively associated with more parental responsiveness, sensitivity and positivity (Gonzalez, Jenkins, Steiner, & Fleming 2012; Chico, Gonzalez, Ali, Steiner & Fleming, 2014), and negatively linked with harsher reactive parenting (Monn, Naryan, Kalstabakken, Schubert & Masten, 2017; Valiente, Lemery-Chalfant & Reiser, 2007). However, these self-regulation processes may not function well in chronically stressed home contexts. In a study of 3-7-year olds (Deater-Deckard et al., 2012), among parents in lower-SES “chaotic” households (i.e., lack of routines, noisy, cluttered; Evans et al., 2013), good parent self-regulation minimized the link between child behavior problems and harsher parenting, but this only functioned in middle and high SES households; in contrast, in low-SES households the link between child problems and harsher parenting was unaffected by parent self-regulation.
In the current study, we extended this finding and idea to examine the interplay of family SES, child problem behavior, and parental cognitive regulation, in their links with harsh, reactive and intrusive parenting. A socioeconomically diverse sample of mothers (N= 241) of 2.5-year-olds completed questionnaires and a battery of EF tasks in the lab (e.g., color word Stroop, backward digit span, Wisconsin Card Sort, and Tower of Hanoi) that assessed inhibitory control, working memory, attention shifting and planning (Miyake & Friedman, 2012). Scores were averaged across all standardized task performance scores to obtain an overall composite z-score of mother EF. We also assessed mother reports on: mother EC (Adult Temperament Questionnaire; Derryberry & Rothbart, 1988); harsh, reactive and intrusive parenting (Dysfunctional Parenting scale; Arnold, O’Leary, Wolff, & Acker, 1993); and the Child Misbehavior Scale total score (Pinderhughes, Dodge, Bates, Pettit, & Zelli, 2000).
Regression equations were estimated to test the interaction of EC or EF, child problem behavior, and family SES, in the prediction of variance in dysfunctional parenting; we also included all lower-order two-way interactions and main effects. The interaction effects were not significant for EF. For EC, the three-way interaction between child misbehavior, EC and SES was significant, F(7, 194) = 6.47, p < .001. Post-hoc probing revealed a complex pattern. One clear pattern was that among the lowest SES families (bottom 25%), the link between child problem behaviors and dysfunctional parenting was similar (standardized slopes of .42 to .48) across all levels of parent EC. In contrast, in middle and high SES families (top 75%), higher EC moderated the link—from .42 (2 SDs below EC mean) to .02 (at EC mean). This pattern is consistent with Deater-Deckard et al. (2012), and points to the importance of considering the effects of parental self-regulation in the context of SES and related chronic stressors, as well as method and type of assessment of self-regulation.

Authors

• MAMATHA CHARY, University of Massachusetts-Amherst
  Presenting Author

• Maureen E. McQuillan, Indiana University
  Non-Presenting Author

• John Bates, Indiana University - Bloomington
  Non-Presenting Author

• Kirby Deater-Deckard, University Massachusetts
  Non-Presenting Author