Maternal personality and psychopathology as determinants of parenting behavior: A quantitative integration of two parenting literatures.

Abstract

A substantial literature has examined the association between parenting behavior and maternal psychological characteristics (i.e., personality and psychopathology). Although research has provided evidence indicating that personality and psychopathology are not independent of one another, parenting research has mainly focused on these characteristics separately. In the present study, I quantitatively integrated these literatures through meta-analytic path analysis. First, meta-analyses were conducted on articles, book chapters, and dissertations that examined associations between personality or psychopathology and warmth or control in mothers of children age 12 months or older. Using mixed-effects regression, meta-analyses revealed significant, small effect sizes suggesting that low levels of neuroticism and psychopathology and high levels of agreeableness, extraversion, and conscientiousness were associated with adaptive parenting. Moderator analyses indicated that variability among individual studies was partially explained by report method, study design, and conceptualizations of parenting behavior. Meta-analytic path analyses showed that the observed associations between maternal personality/psychopathology and parenting behaviors as reported in the literature may be explained by variance shared among these psychological characteristics. Furthermore, some maternal psychological characteristics explained a significantly larger portion of variance in parenting behavior than others. Findings supported the proposal that maternal personality and psychopathology are not independent in the associations they demonstrate with parenting behaviors and that these areas of research can be integrated. The present study is limited by including only mothers, excluding infants, and using cross-sectional analyses. However, results have implications for future conceptualizations of maternal psychological characteristics as determinants of parenting behaviors and for the refinement of parenting interventions.

Predictors of mother–child interaction quality and child attachment security in at-risk families

“…Altogether these findings speak in favor of classical approaches to psychological development of children living in at-risk families according to which the predictive value of each factor is moderated by its intensity and by the co-occurrence of other specific risk conditions (Belsky, 1984; Greenberg et al, 1993; Lyons-Ruth et al, 1993). Also, these findings are consistent with theoretical models (Belsky, 1984) and psychometrics evidences (Markon et al, 2011) according to which considering risk variables in a binary, instead of continuous, fashion might lower the possibility to describe the risk conditions in a valid and complete way (McCabe, 2014). …”

“…This field of research has been dominated by studies on maternal depression showing its detrimental effect on mother–child relationship and child healthy development (Downey and Coyne, 1990; Campbell et al, 1992, 1995; Beck, 1995; Murray et al, 1999; Edhborg et al, 2001; Nagata et al, 2004; Toth et al, 2009; McCabe, 2014). Maternal depression has been empirically linked to lower levels of attachment security (Lyons-Ruth et al, 1990; Lyons-Ruth et al, 1990; Murray, 1992; Teti et al, 1995; Goodman and Gotlib, 1999, 2002; Lyons- Martins and Gaffan, 2000) and diminished maternal sensitivity connected to the nature of depressive symptoms has been accounted to mediate this association (Ammaniti et al, 2007).…”

“…Nevertheless most of the studies within this body of literature took into account one risk factor at the time. Moreover, some inconsistency in the results might be related to the tendency to operationalize risk factors only in a dichotomic way by comparing families with and without a specific risk condition, disregarding factors’ intensity that can be instead accounted by considering risk factors at a continuous level (McCabe, 2014). Starting from the above considerations, the present study aimed to assess the influence of psychosocial and socio-demographic risk factors on mother–child EA and on children’s attachment security in a sample of at-risk families living in Northern Italy.…”

Extending Models of Sensitive Parenting of Infants to Women at Risk for Perinatal Depression

“…Our findings on anxiety as a predictor of sensitivity are consistent with descriptions of under-responsiveness that others have noted in mothers with mixed anxiety and depression (for a review, see Kaitz & Maytal, 2005). More broadly, our finding contributes to the literature on maternal personality and parenting (McCabe, 2014). …”

Examining pathways linking maternal depressive symptoms in infancy to children’s behavior problems: The role of maternal unresponsiveness and negative behaviors

“…For example, mothers with depressive symptoms may focus on their own emotional and physical needs ahead of their infants’ needs, and struggle to read infant cues, leading to less adaptive behaviors (Dix, Moed, & Anderson, 2014; Scheutze & Zeskind, 2001). Such mothers may also experience hostility towards their infants, which may also undermine caregiving quality (McCabe, 2013). …”