Children’s Intent Attributions and Feelings of Distress: Associations with Maternal and Paternal Parenting Practices

Abstract

Many studies point to the importance of social information processing mechanisms in understanding distinct child behaviors such as aggression. However, few studies have assessed whether parenting might be related to such mechanisms. This study considers how aversive forms of parenting (i.e., corporal punishment, psychological control) as well as parental warmth and responsiveness might be concurrently associated with children's hostile intent attributions and emotional distress in response to ambiguous provocation scenarios (both instrumental and relational). A sample of 219 children (101 boys, 118 girls) and their parents participated. Bivariate associations showed that parenting dimensions and child variables were significantly associated in mostly expected ways, but only in father-child relationships (especially father-son relationships). Analyses generally showed dimensions of aversive parenting by fathers to be associated with a greater tendency toward hostile attributional bias in children. Moreover, paternal warmth and responsiveness, as well as corporal punishment, were associated with less emotional distress in boys. In contrast, paternal psychological control predicted greater emotional distress in boys. The findings suggest that the tone of the father-son relationship, in particular, may help set the tone for how boys interpret their social world. Psychological control figures prominently in this regard.

A Longitudinal Investigation of Maternal Influences on the Development of Child Hostile Attributions and Aggression

“…In a second study of older children (9-10 years) self-reported paternal psychological control correlated with hostile attributions in boys in instrumental provocation contexts, with equivalent effects in relational contexts that approached significance. However, these findings did not emerge in girls, and maternal self-reported parenting was not related to child hostile attributions in boys or girls (Nelson & Coyne, 2009). By contrast, a longitudinal study of 9-10 year old aggressive boys found that child perceptions of maternal control and support were associated positively and negatively, respectively, with hostile attributions 1-year later; and child SIP disturbances mediated the association between perceived parenting and aggression (Gomez, Gomez, DeMello, & Tallent, 2001).…”

“…The current study In sum, previous research has demonstrated that parents who interpret their child's behaviour in a hostile way show more negative parenting characteristics (Nix et al, 1999). There is also preliminary evidence for a direct link between parenting behaviour and child hostile attributions (Gomez et al, 2001;Nelson & Coyne, 2009), as well as partial support for a direct link between parental and child hostile attribution tendencies (Nelson et al, 2008;Halligan et al, 2007). Nonetheless, numerous questions remain.…”

Paternal Depressive Symptoms and Child Behavioral or Emotional Problems in the United States

“…[14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21] One study found an association between paternal depression and excessive infant crying. 45 Another study found that children aged 9 to 24 months with depressed fathers are more likely to show speech and language delays, 19,21 whereas another study reported that children aged 2 years with depressed fathers tended to be less compliant with parental guidance.…”

“…[6][7][8][9][10][11][12] In stark contrast, there is a paucity of literature regarding the association between paternal depression and other mental health problems and child health and functioning. [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25] The limited amount of research literature that does exist focuses, in large part, on postpartum paternal depression, suggesting an association between postpartum paternal depression and poor childhood outcomes. 26 However, studies investigating paternal mental health outside the newborn period have tended to use small and often atypical samples from which it is difficult to generalize to the population at large, although they too tend to suggest a similar association between fathers' mental health and child outcomes.…”

“…26 However, studies investigating paternal mental health outside the newborn period have tended to use small and often atypical samples from which it is difficult to generalize to the population at large, although they too tend to suggest a similar association between fathers' mental health and child outcomes. [14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25] Given that mothers spend substantially more time in direct interaction with their children than do fathers, it seems reasonable to hypothesize that maternal mental health problems would be associated with higher rates of children's emotional or behavioral problems than paternal mental health problems would be. Similarly, the literature on the high concordance between mothers' and fathers' mental health and the transmission of depression within families might suggest that mental health problems in general, and depression in particular, when occurring in both mothers and fathers in the same family, is associated with even higher rates of child emotional or behavioral problems.…”