Dyadic interactions may be affected by the mental health of either partner; however, both partners’ symptoms are typically not considered simultaneously in observational studies of parent-child relationships. Using the Actor Partner Interdependence Model (APIM), we examine how depression and PTSD symptoms in mothers and adolescent daughters predict their own and each other’s relational behaviors (warmth, hostility, communication) during interactions, and whether partners’ relational behaviors predict changes in symptoms one month later. Participants include 150 mother (mean age = 41.6) and daughter (mean age = 15.1) dyads from diverse (57% Latina; 23% Black, 20% White), low-income families. Mothers and daughters reported on their symptoms and participated in a videotaped interaction task. A subset completed a follow-up interview one month later. For both depression and PTSD, mothers’ and daughters’ symptoms predicted their own relational behaviors (actor effects). In contrast, partner effects varied by symptom type and family role. Adolescents’ depressive symptoms predicted how their mothers acted towards them, beyond maternal symptoms (an additive partner effect); the converse was not true. Mother and daughter PTSD symptoms interactively predicted daughters’ relational behaviors (an actor*partner interaction), with buffering or exacerbating effects based on dyad symptom similarity. PTSD symptoms had unique effects beyond depression. In longitudinal analysis, mothers’ relational behaviors predicted changes in adolescents’ depressive symptoms, but adolescent behaviors were unrelated to subsequent maternal symptoms. Findings suggest that depression and PTSD symptoms may affect family relationships differently, and highlight the importance of considering both members’ symptoms during interactions. Implications for dyadic interventions are discussed.
The Parental Reflective Functioning Questionnaire (PRFQ) provides an efficient way to measure a parent's capacity to recognize their child's mental states and to understand the relationship between underlying mental states and behavior. To date, limited work evaluates its psychometric properties beyond initial validation studies. Here we examined the reliability and validity of the PRFQ in three samples of varying clinical risk (e.g., community sample, previous mental health diagnosis, substance use disorder diagnosis). Across samples, the majority (e.g., 75%–78%) of mothers identified as White; all mothers were from the USA. We compared the PRFQ to task‐based measures of mentalization, the Parent Development Interview (PDI), and measures of the parent‐child relationship. The PRFQ was a reliable measure across samples, and it was associated in theoretically consistent ways with task‐based measures of mentalization. Parental RF across the PDI and PRFQ were not highly correlated in a sample of mothers with substance use disorders. Existing RF measures may be tapping into a different component of the broader construct of parental reflective functioning (PRF). The PRFQ was further validated by demonstrating relationships with parent‐report measures of the parent‐child relationship. Taken together, these findings provide additional support for the reliability and validity of the PRFQ.
Adults who experienced childhood maltreatment (CM) are at increased risk for parenting problems. Mentalization capacity may disrupt intergenerational patterns of problematic parenting among mothers with a CM history. In this study, we examine: (a) parents' use of negative emotion socialization practices as one path of intergenerational transmission of risk in mothers with CM and (b) whether mothers' ability to mentalize about the emotion socialization behaviors of attachment figures diminishes intergenerational similarity in negative emotion socialization practices. Mentalization was operationalized as the frequency of cognitive processing words in mothers' narrative responses to questions about how and why attachment figures responded to their negative emotions during childhood. Participants included 154 mothers with and without a self-reported CM history in a case-control design, matched on child age, gender, maternal education, and race/ethnicity. Mothers with CM recollected more unsupportive responses to their negative emotions during childhood, which in turn predicted using more punishing, ignoring, and magnifying responses toward their own child's negative emotions (i.e., a significant indirect effect). However, greater cognitive processing language when describing the emotional climate of childhood diminished this pathway (i.e., a significant moderated effect). Among mothers who recollected unsupportive responses to emotions from their parents, those whose narratives included more cognitive processing words did not act in similar ways toward their own child whereas those who used fewer cognitive processing words did. These preliminary findings support the growing body of research suggesting that the quality of mentalization can be a protective factor among adults who experienced childhood maltreatment.
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