Poster #144 - Relations Among Mothers’ Perceived Father Involvement, Marital Satisfaction, Maternal Warmth, and Children’s Behavior Problems

• In Event: 3-206 - Poster Session 13
  In Poster Session: PS 13 Section - Parenting & Parent-Child Relationships

Integrative Statement

Mothers’ perceived father involvement in child rearing has often been found to lend more positive affect toward their marital satisfaction and quality (Galovan, Holmes, Schramm, & Lee, 2014). In addition, while greater maternal marital satisfaction prompted fewer children’s externalizing behavior problems (Woo, 2016), more such problems were associated with more marital conflicts and harsh parenting (Downey & Coyne, 1990). Although several studies have charted the relations among father involvement, mothers’ warm parenting, maternal marital satisfaction, and children’s behavior problems, little research has considered their interactions with mothers’ perceived father involvement. To fill this gap, the present study aims to investigate the relations among mothers’ perceived father involvement, maternal warmth, marital satisfaction, and children’s externalizing behavior problems. Specifically, the study analyzes data from a longitudinal research project, The Panel Study on Korean Children, which was collected in 2012. A total of 1,666 families with a four-year old child (851 boys, 815 girls; M age = 4 years, 5 months, SD = 1 month) participated. Four questionnaires were used in this study to measure mothers’ perceived father involvement, maternal warmth, marital satisfaction, and children’s externalizing behavior problems. Path analysis within structural equation modeling (SEM) in Mplus was utilized. First, there were significant direct effects (see Figure) from mothers’ perceived father involvement to maternal marital satisfaction, from father involvement to maternal warmth, from maternal marital satisfaction to children’s externalizing behavior problems, and from maternal warmth to children’s externalizing behavior problems. Second, there were also significant indirect effects (see Table): from mothers’ perceived father involvement to children’s externalizing behavior problems via maternal marital satisfaction, and from father involvement to children’s externalizing behavior problems via maternal warmth. Finally, there were notable gender differences between the boys and girls models. Specifically, the direct effect from maternal marital satisfaction to children’s externalizing behavior problems was significant only for the boys group. The differences of the path coefficient between the two gender groups in the direct path was statistically and significantly different. And, the indirect effect from father involvement to children’s externalizing behavior problems via marital satisfaction was also only significant for boy’s group. These main results imply that greater father involvement as perceived by mothers predicts greater maternal marital satisfaction and maternal warmth, and that these higher marital satisfaction and maternal warmth subsequently predict fewer children’s externalizing behavior problems. This emphasizes the importance of how mothers perceive their husbands’ involvement in child rearing, which will ultimately affect children’s development. Also, the different results in mother-son and mother-daughter relationships do not support the same-gender modeling hypothesis (Bandura, 1999; Eckes & Trautner, 2000). In previous work, boys tended to show more externalizing behavior problems than girls (Bandura, 1965), and mothers with depressive symptoms reported lower marital satisfaction and more children’s behavior problems (Henderson, Sayger, & Horne, 2003). Thus, mothers with lower marital satisfaction might have depressive symptoms and might perceive boys’ externalizing behavior problems more readily than girls’ behaviors. Investigating whether maternal depression mediates the relationship between marital satisfaction and children’s externalizing behaviors problems could improve future studies.

Authors

• Yookyung Lee, The University of Texas at Austin
  Presenting Author

• Kyongjoo Hong, The University of Texas at Austin
  Non-Presenting Author

• Sunyoung Park, California Lutheran University
  Non-Presenting Author