Poster #91 - Autobiographical Memory Specificity and Reminiscing in Maltreating and Nonmaltreating Mothers

• In Event: 1-005 - Poster Session 01
  In Poster Session: PS 01 Section - Family Context & Processes

Integrative Statement

Mother-child reminiscing conversations—discussions of past everyday experiences—are critical for fostering development among typically developing and maltreated children (Nelson & Fivush, 2004; Valentino et al., 2015). Maternal reminiscing styles vary in terms of elaboration (i.e., statements and questions adding new information) and sensitive guidance (i.e., the coherent and emotionally supportive nature of reminiscing). However, little is known regarding processes underlying individual differences in reminiscing. One factor that may be associated with how mothers reminisce is their autobiographical memory specificity (AMS), the ability to recount specific past experiences. Both AMS and reminiscing involve retrieving and providing detail concerning specific memories. Preliminary evidence has identified an association between maternal AMS and sensitive guidance during reminiscing (Jobson, Burfor, Burns, Baldry, & Wu, 2018). We hypothesized maternal AMS would be positively correlated with maternal elaboration and sensitive guidance during reminiscing.

Given maltreatment is often perpetrated by a parent, maltreatment represents a pathogenic relational experience occurring within the family. Maltreating mothers tend to be low in elaboration and sensitive guidance during reminiscing (Valentino et al., 2015). We investigated whether the hypothesized link between maternal AMS and maternal reminiscing was moderated by maternal maltreating status. We hypothesized that AMS would be positively associated with reminiscing for nonmaltreating mothers, whereas maltreating mothers would be low in reminiscing regardless of their AMS, as the pathogenic nature of the maltreating relationship may surpass other factors in influencing reminiscing.

Mothers (155 maltreating and 79 nonmaltreating) and their 3- to 6-year-olds reminisced about times the child felt happy, sad, scared, and angry. Maternal elaboration represents the total number of non-repetitive maternal elaborations, wh-questions, yes/no-questions, and confirmations. Maternal sensitive guidance was coded from videos of reminiscing using the Autobiographical Emotional Events Dialogue scheme (Koren-Karie, Oppenheim, Haimovich, & Etzion-Carasso, 2003). The sensitive guidance composite averaged ratings of focus, acceptance, involvement, resolution of negative feelings, structuring, and overall adequacy, and coherence of the narratives. Mothers also completed the Autobiographical Memory Test (Williams & Broadbent, 1986), in which they were prompted to provide specific memories for ten emotion cues. Responses to each cue were coded from transcriptions as specific if the recalled event lasted for a day or less. Maternal AMS represents the total number of specific responses. Reliability was achieved with a subset of the sample. Intraclass correlations coefficients for elaborations, sensitive guidance, and AMS were ICCs>.77, ICCs>.73, and ICCs>.96, respectively.

AMS was positively associated with maternal sensitive guidance, but not maternal elaborations (Table 1). Two hierarchical regressions were performed examining maltreatment and AMS (block 1), and their interaction (entered in block 2) in predicting elaboration and sensitive guidance. In both models, the interaction between maltreatment and AMS was not significant. With regard to maternal elaborations, only maltreatment was a significant predictor. However, additive effects of maltreatment and maternal AMS were supported by the model predicting maternal sensitive guidance (Table 2). The pattern of results was identical when controlling for child age. These findings expand the literature by highlighting the role of AMS in reminiscing, particularly sensitive guidance, in an at-risk sample.

Authors

• Katherine Edler, University of Notre Dame
  Presenting Author

• Monica Lawson, University of Notre Dame
  Non-Presenting Author

• Ruth Speidel, University of Notre Dame
  Non-Presenting Author

• Kristin Valentino, University of Notre Dame
  Non-Presenting Author