Origins and development of maternal self-efficacy in emotion-related parenting during the transition to parenthood: Toward an integrative process framework beyond Bandura’s model.

Abstract

For new mothers, coping with infant distress is challenging. Mothers' self-efficacy in emotion-related parenting plays critical roles in shaping their adaptation and children's development. Research on antecedents of maternal parenting self-efficacy has been predominantly based on the global self-efficacy theory outlined by Bandura in the 1970s. Despite the utility of Bandura's theory, subsequent research on emotion-related parenting has highlighted avenues for extending and adapting his model to more adequately elucidate the cognitive, affective, and behavioral processes underlying the development of maternal emotion-related parenting self-efficacy. In view of the basic and applied value of a clearer account of how new mothers' emotion-related parenting self-efficacy emerges and evolves, the increasing amount of research on this topic, and the absence of syntheses of extant studies, we reviewed relevant literature. First, constructs and propositions in prevailing theoretical perspectives are examined for their utility to elucidate the development of new mothers' emotion-related parenting self-efficacy, particularly the implicated cognitive, affective, and behavioral mechanisms and how they work together. Second, a framework is outlined that integrates strengths of various theories to delineate processes underlying the emergence and evolution of new mothers' emotion-related parenting self-efficacy. Third, findings across disparate studies are summarized to provide a foundation for the offered framework. To better inform future research, we demonstrated how to build testable mid-range models with substantive constructs and hypotheses from the proposed framework through deductive theorizing process. We also evaluated the utility of the proposed model for studying new fathers. Last, implications for future research and practice are discussed.

Primiparous mothers’ parenting self-efficacy in managing toddler distress: Childhood nonsupportive emotion socialization, adult attachment style, and toddler temperament as antecedents.

“…Moreover, avoidant mothers' various attachment-related vulnerabilities should be most revealed in the face of intense child distress (i.e., an attachment-related threat) and work in conjunction with each other as defensive mechanisms that interfere with the adaptive operation of their caregiving behavioral system, including cognitive processing of child distress cues, affective arousal and regulation in response to child distress, and actions to soothe child distress. Mothers' disrupted caregiving system elevates their risk of failures in managing child distress, which should contribute to their lack of confidence in managing child distress (Cao et al, 2022).…”

“…In particular, as compared to maternal sensitivity to child non-distress, maternal adaptive responses to child distress cues have been found to be uniquely more predictive of child subsequent social-emotional adaptation (Conradt & Ablow, 2010; Leerkes, 2011; Leerkes et al, 2009; McElwain & Booth-LaForce, 2006). Thus, it seems important to understand the origins of maternal self-efficacy in managing child distress, which refers to a mother's confidence in her abilities to accurately detect, understand, and appropriately respond to child negative emotions (Cao et al, 2022; Leerkes, 2010; Leerkes et al, 2004). However, research in this area still remains extremely scarce.…”

“…Furthermore, such experiences disrupt how they make meaning of and regulate their emotional arousal in the face of children's distress cues (e.g., crying; Leerkes & Crockenberg, 2006; Leerkes & Siepak, 2006), which, in turn, would interfere with their abilities to respond to child negative emotions in an adaptive manner (i.e., the intergenerational transmission of nonsupportive emotion socialization; Lee et al, 2021; Leerkes et al, 2020). According to the cognition–affect–behavior process framework outlined by Cao et al (2022) for the emergence and evolution of maternal self-efficacy in emotion-related parenting, mothers’ deficits in cognitive and affective abilities in responding to child distress sensitively are likely to elevate the risk of their failures in soothing child distress, which contribute to mothers’ lack of confidence in managing child distress. Thus, we expect a negative link between mothers’ early experiences of maternal nonsupportive emotion socialization and their later confidence in managing child distress.…”

“…Maternal parenting self-efficacy also has long been an important intervention target due to its modifiable property (e.g., Gilkerson et al, 2020). Notably, to more effectively promote predictive validity and also guide the designs of more targeted interventions, researchers have increasingly advocated for studies investigating domain-specific (vs. the global) parenting self-efficacy (Cao et al, 2022; Junttila et al, 2015). Coping with child distress represents one of the most emotionally evocative tasks during the first few years of life, especially for primiparous mothers (Kurth et al, 2011).…”

“…Thus, each of the two approaches appears to tap distinct aspects of adult attachment security. Accordingly, scholars have called for research administrating Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) and self-reports of adult attachment in tandem to examine their relative, unique links with various facets of parenting, including parenting self-efficacy (see Cao et al, 2022; Jones et al, 2015; Roisman et al, 2007 for discussions). Thus, both self-reported and interview-based adult attachments were considered in the model.…”