Doctoral Dissertations

Date of Award

12-1990

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

Psychology

Major Professor

Robert G. Wahler

Committee Members

Ann Mclntyre, Richard Saudargas, Arie Nettles

Abstract

This study explored a predictive model in which maternal perceptions, contextual stress, and child aversive behavior were hypothesized to predict dysfunctional maternal behavior. Thirty-three mothers of conduct-disordered children participated in the study. Measures of dysfunctional maternal behavior (aversive and indiscriminate) were obtained from home observations. An index of contextual stress was obtained via scores from the Beck Depression Inventory and a socioeconomic disadvantage questionnaire. To assess maternal perceptions, mothers observed videotapes of their own mother-child interactions and coded the occurrence of positive and negative child behavior. Afterwards, they again observed the behaviors they had marked on the videotape and described their reasons for coding positive or negative child behaviors. By contrasting maternal coding with observer coding, measures of maternal monitoring were obtained. The maternal descriptions provided measures of the mothers' use of diffuse observational categories ( maternal descriptions that were affectively biased and global). Regarding monitoring, mothers were found to be highly inaccurate and exhibit a positive bias in their coding of child behavior. They also gave conservative estimates of negative child behavior by undercoding the occurrence of this behavior. Stepwise regressions of monitoring variables revealed conservative estimates of negative child behavior to be the only monitoring variable significantly associated with maternal aversive and indiscriminate behavior. Conservative monitoring of negative child behavior and the use of diffuse observational categories were found to be independent measures of maternal perception and were involved in separate path analyses. The maternal perception variables, along with measures of contextual stress and child aversive behavior, were entered in several path analyses to predict dysfunctional maternal behavior (maternal aversive behavior and indiscriminate behavior). Child aversive behavior and contextual stress predicted maternal aversive and indiscriminate behavior. Of the perception variables, diffuse observational categories predicted maternal dysfunctional behavior, but conservative monitoring of negative behavior did not. Interestingly, the use of diffuse observational categories did not correlate with child aversive behavior or contextual stress. The use of diffuse observational categories appeared to be a maternal characteristic that the mother brought to the parent-child arena. Conservative monitoring of negative child behavior was associated with child aversive behavior, suggesting mothers with difficult children become insensitive to child aversive behavior. Implications for treatment and future research are discussed.

Download
Files over 3MB may be slow to open. For best results, right-click and select "save as..."

Share

COinS