Depressive Symptoms and Perceptions of Child Behavior

The Impact of the Big Five Personality Traits on Reports of Child Behavior Problems by Different Informants

“…As already suggested in the literature (e.g., Richters, 1992;Youngstrom et al, 2000), distortion related to the psychological symptoms of the informant appears to hold for different types of informants, including teachers and other child-care professionals. Our findings are consistent with the results of other studies showing child behavior ratings to be systematically related to the psychological symptoms of peer raters (Epkins, 1994), sibling raters (Epkins & Dedmon, 1999), and university student raters (Johnston & Short, 1993). Our results also suggest that perceptual distortion is not confined to neuroticism, but may involve extraversion and openness as well.…”

“…In two related studies, Johnston and Short (1993) examined the relations of depressive symptomatology to perceptions of child behavior for both mothers and female undergraduate students. More specifically, the adult females were asked to complete measures of depressive symptomatology and rate the videotaped behaviors of child actors.…”

“…The results of the studies by Johnston and Short (1993) suggest that depressive symptomatology may negatively influence adult perceptions of child behavior, and that perceptual distortion is not limited to depressed mothers judging their own problem children but also applies to other adults with depressive symptoms, judging unfamiliar children. This stresses the need, as already noted by Richters (1992), to examine the influence of depression on adults working professionally with children, which may include teachers and child-care workers.…”

The Effects of Instructions on Mothers’ Ratings of Child Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder Symptoms

“…Socioeconomic level may impact a variety of factors related to parents' identification of child ADHD symptoms, including knowledge of ADHD (Bussing et al 2007) or access to mental health information and treatments (Larson et al 2011). Other studies consistently relate maternal depressive symptoms to inaccuracies or biases in reports of child ADHD symptoms (Chi and Hinshaw 2002;Johnston and Short 1993). Therefore, we hypothesized that instructions describing ADHD and how to rate the symptoms in children would be of greater benefit to mothers of lower socioeconomic status or with higher levels of depressive symptoms as these mothers might be those most in need of health information or most likely to show biases in their ratings.…”

The Relationship of Depressed Mood and Life Stress to Maternal Perceptions of Child Behavior

“…For example, studies have shown that maternal depression is a better predictor of child referral than is actual child behavior (e.g., Forehand elt al., 1982;Griest, Wells, & Forehand, 1979), and there is evidence suggesting that clinic-referred clhildren of mothers with greater depressed mood actilally show less aversive behavior and more compliance than other referred children (Dumas, Gibson,, & Albin, 1989;Johnston & Pdham, 1990). Finally, recent research using videotape presentations to hold constant the effects of child behavior has confirmed the association between maternal depressed mood and negative perceptions of child behavior (Johnston & Downloaded by [Simon Fraser University] at 20:19 02 February 2015 Krech, 1991). In this study, we adopt a similar methodology and provide the same written descriptions of child behavior to all mothers.…”