Older adults’ support seeking from their adult children: The Support-Seeking Strategy Scale.
Journal of Family Psychology, Vol 37(6), Sep 2023, 841-852; doi:10.1037/fam0001063Due to the unavailability of assessment tools focused on support recipients, the aged-care literature has not been able to document the support seeking that occurs within familial support contexts. Therefore, we developed and validated a Support-Seeking Strategy Scale in a large sample of aging parents receiving care from their adult children. A pool of items was developed by an expert panel and administered to 389 older adults (over 60 years of age), all of whom were receiving support from an adult child. Participants were recruited on Amazo...
Source: Journal of Family Psychology - April 13, 2023 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Childhood maltreatment predicts maternal sensitivity to distress: Negative attributions during the transition to parenthood.
Journal of Family Psychology, Vol 37(5), Aug 2023, 709-719; doi:10.1037/fam0001088Childhood maltreatment is a predictor of subsequent parenting behaviors; however, the mechanisms explaining this association have been understudied. The present study examined the indirect effect of childhood maltreatment on maternal sensitivity to distress via (a) emotion regulation difficulties, (b) negative attributions about infant crying, (c) minimizing attributions about infant crying, and (d) situational attributions about infant crying. The sample included 259 primiparous mothers (131 Black and 128 White) and their 6-month-old infants...
Source: Journal of Family Psychology - April 13, 2023 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Social support as a resilience factor for parent–infant dyads experiencing homelessness.
Journal of Family Psychology, Vol 37(5), Aug 2023, 689-698; doi:10.1037/fam0001073Despite the considerable prevalence of homelessness among very young children in the United States, there is a notable lack of research on risk, resilience, and developmental well-being of infants who experience family homelessness. In the present study, we considered social support as a resilience factor for quality of parent–infant relationships and parent depression among a sample of 106 parents and their infants (ages birth to 12 months) residing in emergency shelters for families experiencing homelessness. We assessed social support, p...
Source: Journal of Family Psychology - April 13, 2023 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Strengthening couple functioning promotes resilience to COVID-19-related stressors among Black Americans.
Journal of Family Psychology, Vol 37(4), Jun 2023, 497-506; doi:10.1037/fam0001082The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in substantial hardship for Black Americans, leading to increased stress and mental health difficulties. We used longitudinal data from the Protecting Strong African American Families (ProSAAF) intervention study to test the hypothesis that improved couple functioning following ProSAAF participation would serve as a constructed resilience resource during the pandemic, buffering the impact of elevated pandemic-related stressors on change in depressive symptoms. We found that COVID-19-related stress predicted chan...
Source: Journal of Family Psychology - April 13, 2023 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Parents’ adaptation from conflict: Bicultural socialization beliefs and acculturative family conflict in Chinese American families.
Journal of Family Psychology, Vol 37(4), Jun 2023, 443-452; doi:10.1037/fam0001094Many Chinese American parents desire for their children to take on both Chinese heritage and mainstream American values and behaviors, referred to as their bicultural socialization beliefs. Parents’ development of such beliefs appears linked with parent–adolescent conflict concerning cultural values, yet the direction and temporal ordering of this relation is unclear. The present study aimed to resolve discrepancies in the literature through examining the bidirectional relations between Chinese American parents’ bicultural socialization...
Source: Journal of Family Psychology - April 13, 2023 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Fathers’ and mothers’ sensitivity during free play with gendered toys.
This study examined whether fathers’ and mothers’ sensitivity toward sons and daughters varies depending on whether they play with stereotypical girls’ toys or boys’ toys. In a sample of 144 predominantly White Dutch families with a child aged 4–6 years, fathers’ and mothers’ sensitivity was observed during two free play episodes while they played with their son or daughter. One play episode was with stereotypical boys’ toys, and the other was with stereotypical girls’ toys. Results showed that mothers’ but not fathers’ sensitivity scores, depended on whether they played with a son or daughter and whe...
Source: Journal of Family Psychology - April 6, 2023 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
A prospective study of marital distress and mental health symptoms across the deployment cycle.
Journal of Family Psychology, Vol 37(4), Jun 2023, 507-516; doi:10.1037/fam0001079Although recent findings imply that marital distress and mental health symptoms are intertwined among military personnel, a prospective longitudinal study is needed to evaluate the bidirectionality of the link between marital distress and mental health symptoms across the deployment cycle. We investigated over time associations using data from the Pre–Post Deployment Study component of the Army Study to Assess Risk and Resilience in Servicemembers (Army STARRS). Married soldiers (N = 2,585) reported on their marital distress, anxiety sympto...
Source: Journal of Family Psychology - March 30, 2023 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
White and Black parents’ emotion coaching beliefs: Differential associations with preschooler’s behavioral problem tendencies.
This study investigated three-way interactions among parental emotion coaching beliefs, toddlers’ baseline respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), and child race (Black or White), in predicting preschoolers’ behavioral problem tendencies 1 year later. Participants included 204 children (140 White and 64 Black) and their families, recruited from low-income, rural areas. When children were 2, child baseline RSA was collected, and both parents answered questionnaires concerning their emotion coaching beliefs. When children were 3, mothers answered questions about child behavioral problem tendencies. Path analyses revealed a t...
Source: Journal of Family Psychology - March 30, 2023 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Childhood family stress modifies the association between perinatal stressful life events and depressive symptoms.
This study tests whether childhood family stress modifies the association between stressful life events and depressive symptoms in pregnancy and consecutive postpartum periods. A sample of 127 women reported on depressive symptoms after one birth, during a subsequent pregnancy, and postpartum following that birth. Childhood family stress was assessed with the Risky Families Questionnaire. Stressful life events were measured at all three timepoints to capture the number of life events during both pregnancies and between pregnancies. Associations between stressful life events and depressive symptoms varied as a function of c...
Source: Journal of Family Psychology - March 30, 2023 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Longitudinal transmission of risk behaviors between mothers, fathers, and adolescents.
This article investigates links between parental substance use at child age 9 and children’s substance use and delinquent behaviors at age 15, and relational mediators of these associations (coparenting, parent–child closeness). Data from 2,453 mothers, fathers, and children from the Fragile Families and Child Well-Being Study (Reichman et al., 2001) were analyzed. Fathers’ drug and alcohol use at child age 9 were not directly associated with adolescent risk behaviors at age 15, but his drug use was associated with adolescent substance use indirectly via its influence on maternal coparenting and thereafter father–c...
Source: Journal of Family Psychology - March 27, 2023 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Intergenerational solidarity of adult children with parents from emerging to established adulthood.
Journal of Family Psychology, Vol 37(6), Sep 2023, 853-863; doi:10.1037/fam0001087Although researchers have focused on adult children’s intergenerational solidarity with their parents following the transition to adulthood, less is known about continuity and change in the multiple dimensions of solidarity as children transition from emerging to established adulthood. Therefore, we focused on reciprocal longitudinal associations between dimensions of latent forms of solidarity (normative and affectual solidarity) and manifest forms of solidarity (associational and functional solidarity) as reported by young adults at three...
Source: Journal of Family Psychology - March 23, 2023 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Child aggression and parenting behavior: Understanding the child-driven effects with parents’ emotion regulation as a moderator.
Journal of Family Psychology, Vol 37(5), Aug 2023, 624-634; doi:10.1037/fam0001081The present study examined the longitudinal relations between child aggression and coercive parenting behaviors and the moderating role of parental emotion regulation strategies in these relations. The sample of this study were 168 children (88 girls; Mage = 60.97 months, SD = 5.51) and their parents recruited from five kindergartens. At Time 1 (T1), parents reported their own use of coercive parenting behaviors (i.e., physical coercion and psychological control) and emotion regulation strategies (i.e., suppression and reappraisal). A colorin...
Source: Journal of Family Psychology - March 23, 2023 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Ethnic–racial socialization, family climate, and anxiety among African American and Latinx emerging adults.
Journal of Family Psychology, Vol 37(4), Jun 2023, 453-463; doi:10.1037/fam0001080Ethnic–racial socialization (ERS) is an essential strategy that families of color utilize to discuss race, racism, and promote ethnic–racial pride. These strategies are necessary to help youth navigate a racialized world, particularly in emerging adulthood as youth transition away from home. There are mixed findings about the psychological benefits of messages focused on racial barriers, which raise questions about whether certain ERS messages may elicit anxiety symptoms and if there are conditions (e.g., family climate) under which ERS m...
Source: Journal of Family Psychology - March 23, 2023 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Frustration responses of single and partnered mothers to prolonged infant crying.
In this study, we compared frustration responses to prolonged infant crying between single and partnered mothers and attempted to identify variables that mediated any difference between the two groups. We also identified acoustic characteristics of infant cries that were related to higher levels of reported maternal frustration. Twenty-five single and 25 partnered mothers with infants under the age of 6 months completed several mental health questionnaires, and then rated their frustration level after listening to each of 50 consecutive 15s infant cry videos from 50 different infants. As expected, greater maternal perceive...
Source: Journal of Family Psychology - March 16, 2023 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Actor and partner effects of PTSD and relationship functioning in a recently traumatized sample.
Journal of Family Psychology, Vol 37(4), Jun 2023, 517-527; doi:10.1037/fam0001064A robust negative association exists between self-reported posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and self-reported interpersonal relationship functioning. However, the extent to which each member of a dyad’s subjective PTSD ratings influence the other’s subjective relationship functioning ratings is less understood. The present study tested: (a) associations between self- and partner-PTSD severity ratings and relationship functioning ratings and (b) whether exposure to the index trauma, gender, and relationship type (i.e., intimate vs. non...
Source: Journal of Family Psychology - March 13, 2023 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
