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Poster #209 - Maternal Contributions to Toddler Effortful Control

Thu, March 21, 12:30 to 1:45pm, Baltimore Convention Center, Floor: Level 1, Exhibit Hall B

Integrative Statement

Early deficits in effortful control (EC) have been linked to numerous negative outcomes, including externalizing behavior problems (Olson et al., 2005), poor social development (Kochanska et al., 2000), and impulsivity (Calkins & Dedmon, 2000). Parental influences begin to shape the development of EC from birth and continue to do so throughout childhood. Although parenting has often been shown to relate to development of children’s EC (Chang, Shaw, Dishion, Gardner, & Wilson, 2015), the parents’ own temperament and self-efficacy are less often studied. The current study examined the contributions that maternal parenting practices, self-efficacy, and maternal EC had on the development of toddler EC. We anticipated that after controlling for temperament in infancy, positive parenting, maternal self-efficacy, and maternal EC would bolster toddler EC, while negative parenting would hinder it. Additionally, we predicted that maternal self-efficacy would affect children’s EC development differently based on their regulatory abilities, such that infants with higher regulatory capacity would be more readily influenced by maternal self-efficacy.

The current study consisted of 179 mother-infant dyads (47% boys) studied longitudinally from 4 to 24 months of age. Mothers were diverse (63% White, 11% Hispanic, 10% African-American, and 15% Other) and were on average 26.6 years old. Approximately 23% of the families had incomes placing them below the poverty line. Demographics were gathered at 4 months. Infant Negative Affect (NA) and Orienting/Regulation (OR) was evaluated using the Infant Behavior Questionnaire – Revised (IBQ-R, Gartstein & Rothbart, 2003) at 6, 8, 10, and 12 months, averaged to create infant NA and OR composites. Parenting was observed during a lab-based free play task when infants were 8, 10, and 12 months old. Positive and Negative parenting behaviors were coded using the Parent-Child Early Relational Assessment (Clark, 1985). Maternal EC was measured when infants were 4 months old using the Adult Temperament Questionnaire (Evans & Rothbart, 2007). Maternal self-efficacy was evaluated at 12 months using the Maternal Self Efficacy Scale (Teti & Gelfand, 1991). Finally, mothers completed the Early Childhood Behavior Questionnaire (ECBQ; Putnam, Gartstein, & Rothbart, 2006) when toddlers were 24 months of age; the EC subscale was used as the outcome variable in this study.

After missing values were estimated using multiple imputation, a hierarchical regression analysis was conducted with toddler EC as the dependent variable and infant sex, cumulative risk, and infant temperament as covariates (See Table 1). Several parental factors were shown to predict toddler EC. Negative parenting showed a negative relationship (β=-.203, p<.05) with toddler EC, while maternal self-efficacy (β=.222, p<.05) and maternal EC (β=.243, p<.01) both showed positive relationships. The interaction between maternal self-efficacy and infant OR was significant (β=.241, p<.05), and simple slopes analysis showed that infants with average or high levels of OR were significantly impacted by maternal self-efficacy, while those at low levels of OR were not (See Figure 1).

Our results indicate that a variety of maternal characteristics affect the development of toddler EC, and that maternal self-efficacy may be especially influential for infants who show higher levels of OR.

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