Infant Affect Regulation with Mothers and Fathers: The Roles of Parent Psychopathology and Marital Satisfaction

• In Event: Poster Session 09
  In Poster Session: PS 09 Topic - Family Context & Processes

Abstract

Parents are the primary contributors to the development of a child’s regulatory abilities beginning in infancy (Bridges & Grolnick, 1995), and these contributions can significantly influence a child’s developmental outcomes, including social competence and mental health (Moutsiana et al., 2014). Individual differences in affect regulation can be examined to better understand the influence of specific parenting factors (Moore et al., 2001). According to the determinants of parenting model, parenting is a product of complex, interactive and interwoven factors which are affected by a variety of characteristics including parent characteristics (i.e., mental health), and the family environment (i.e., marital quality; Belsky, 1984; Taraban & Shaw, 2018). Together, these influences could act as risk factors that place infants at an increased risk for affect regulation difficulties (Taraban & Shaw, 2018). The current study extended previous research by examining how multiple factors of parenting (psychopathology symptoms, marital satisfaction) are associated with changes in infant affect regulation with mothers and fathers.

The present study used data from a larger longitudinal study examining socioemotional development when infants are 4, 6, and 8 months of age (+/- 14 days). Participants in the current study included mothers, fathers, and infants when infants were 4-months and 8-months old (n=89 families). Mothers and fathers individually completed questionnaires assessing their overall marital satisfaction (Short Marital Adjustment Test; Locke & Wallace, 1959) as well as their depression and anxiety symptoms at the 4-month time-point (Inventory of Depression and Anxiety Symptoms; Watson et al., 2007). Infant negative affect was rated by trained, reliable coders (Braungart-Rieker et al., 2014) during a face-to-face parent-infant play task at the 8-month time-point (Still-Face Paradigm, parent order counterbalanced; Tronick et al., 1978), and proportion scores were created. Higher scores on each scale represents higher marital satisfaction, higher psychopathology symptoms, and more infant negative affect.

Multiple regression model results revealed differences in predictors of infant negative affect with mothers and fathers. For mother models, a significant main effect of well-being was found (B=-.020, SE=.008, p=.014). For father models, a significant marital satisfaction by social anxiety symptoms interaction predicted infant negative affect (B=.002, SE=.001, p=.018). Follow-up simple slope analyses revealed that for fathers lower in social anxiety symptoms, there was a negative association between marital satisfaction and infant affect (B=-.007, SE=.003, t=-2.047, p=.045; see Figure 1). For fathers higher in social anxiety symptoms, this association was nonsignificant. Findings support the determinants of parenting model; suggesting that parenting is a result of complex, interactive factors which are associated with their infants’ socioemotional development.

Authors

• Ashley N Quigley, Oklahoma State University - Stillwater
  Presenting Author

• Diane M Lickenbrock, Western Kentucky University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Lauren Bailes, Vanderbilt University
  Non-Presenting Author