Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-9pm4c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-28T05:55:19.827Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Determinants of parenting attitudes in mothers with severe psychopathology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 October 2008

Fred A. Rogosch ,
Carol T. Mowbray  and
G. Anne Bogat
Fred A. Rogosch*
Affiliation:
Mt. Hope Family Center, University of Rochester
Carol T. Mowbray
Affiliation:
School of Social Work, Wayne State University
G. Anne Bogat
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Michigan State University
*
Address reprint requests to: Fred A. Rogosch, Mt. Hope Family Center, 187 Edinburgh Street, Rochester, NY 14608.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Determinants of individual differences in the sensitivity of parenting attitudes were investigated in mothers with schizophrenic or major mood disorders. Constructs from the major domains of the mother's childhood relational experiences, personality, social context, and child characteristics were evaluated in a developmental model to predict differences in parenting attitudes. Two pathways were identified. An index of the severity and chronicity of the mother's disorder was shown to predict less-adaptive parenting attitudes. A second pathway revealed that emotional support from network members influenced self-esteem, which predicted more adaptive parenting attitudes. However, perceptions of childhood relational experiences, particularly maternal uninvolvement, predicted parenting attitudes as well as accounted for relationships among emotional support, self-esteem, and parenting. The results were discussed from an attachment theory perspective. The implications of individual differences in maternal functioning for both the mother and the child's adaptation were discussed, and treatment issues were addressed.

Type
Research Article
Information
Development and Psychopathology , Volume 4 , Issue 3 , July 1992 , pp. 469 - 487
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1992

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Achenbach, T. M. (1986). The Child Behavior Checklist for ages 2–3. Burlington: University of Vermont.Google Scholar
Achenbach, T. M., & Edelbrock, C. S. (1983). Manual for the Child Behavior Checklist and revised Child Behavior Profile. Burlington: University of Vermont.Google Scholar
American Psychiatric Association. (1980). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (3rd ed.). Washington, DC: Author.Google Scholar
Baumrind, D. (1967). Child care practices anteceding three patterns of preschool behavior. Genetic Psychology Monographs, 75, 43–88.Google ScholarPubMed
Baumrind, D. (1971). Current patterns of parental authority. Developmental Psychology Monograph, 4 (1, Pt. 2).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beardslee, W. R., Bemporad, J., Keller, M. B., & Klerman, G. L. (1983). Children of parents with major affective disorder: A review. American Journal of Psychiatry, 140, 825–831.Google ScholarPubMed
Belle, D. (1982). Social ties and social support. In Belle, D. (Ed.), Lives in stress (pp. 133–144). Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.Google Scholar
Belsky, J. (1984). The determinants of parenting: A process model. Child Development, 55, 83–96.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Belsky, J. E., Robins, E., & Gamble, W. (1984). The determinants of parental competence: Toward a contextual theory. In Lewis, M. (Ed.), Beyond the dyad (pp. 251–279). New York: Plenum.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Belsky, J., & Vondra, J. (1989). Lessons from child abuse: The determinants of parenting. In Cicchetti, D. & Carlson, V. (Eds.), Child maltreatment (pp. 153–202). New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Benedek, T. (1959). Parenthood as a developmental phase: A contribution to libido theory. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 7, 389–417.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bogat, G. A., Chin, R., Sabbath, W., & Schwartz, C. (1983). Social Support Questionnaire. Unpublished instrument, Michigan State University, Psychology Department.Google Scholar
Brown, G. W., & Harris, T. (1978). The social origins of depression. New York: Free Press.Google ScholarPubMed
Brown, G. W., Harris, T., & Bifulco, A. (1986). Longterm effects of early loss of parent. In Rutter, M., Izard, C. E., & Read, P. B. (Eds.), Depression in young people (pp. 251–296). New York: Guilford.Google Scholar
Cicchetti, D. (1990). Perspectives on the interface between normal and atypical development. Development and Psychopathology, 2, 329–333.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cicchetti, D. (in press). What developmental psychopathology is about: Reactions, reflections, projections. Developmental Review.Google Scholar
Cicchetti, D. & Rizley, R. (1981). Developmental perspectives on the etiology, intergenerational transmission, and sequelae of child maltreatment. New Directions for Child Development, 11, 31–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cochran, M. M., & Brassard, J. A. (1979). Child development and personal social networks. Child Development, 50, 601–616.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, J. (1968). Weighted kappa: Nominal scale agreement with provision for scaled disagreement or partial credit. Psychological Bulletin, 70, 213–220.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cohler, B. J. (1984). Parenthood, psychopathology, and child care. In Cohen, R. S., Cohler, B. J., & Weissman, S. H. (Eds.), Parenthood: A psychodynamic perspective (pp. 119–147). New York: Guilford.Google Scholar
Cohler, B. J., Gallant, D. H., Grunebaum, H. U., Weiss, J. L., & Gamer, E. (1980). Child-care attitudes and development of young children of mentally-ill and well mothers. Psychological Reports, 46, 31–46.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cohler, B. J., & Musick, J. S. (1983). Psychopathology of parenthood: Implications for mental health of children. Infant Mental Health Journal, 4, 140–164.3.0.CO;2-E>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crnic, K. A., & Greenberg, M. T. (1990). Minor parenting stresses with young children. Child Development, 61, 1628–1637.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Crockenberg, S. B. (1981). Infant irritability, mother responsiveness, and social support influence on the security of mother-infant attachment. Child Development, 52, 857–865.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crook, T., Raskin, A., & Eliot, J. (1981). Parent-child relationships and adult depression. Child Development, 52, 950–957.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dozier, M. (1990). Attachment organization and treatment use for adults with serious psychopathological disorders. Development and Psychopathology, 2, 47–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fraiberg, S., Adelson, E., & Shapiro, V. (1975). Ghosts in the nursery: A psychoanalytic approach to the problems of impaired infant-mother relationships. Journal of the American Academy of Child Psychiatry, 14, 387–421.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frommer, E. A., & O'Shea, G. (1973a). Antenatal identification of women liable to have problems in managing their infants. British Journal of Psychiatry, 123, 149–156.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Frommer, E. A., & O'Shea, G. (1973b). The importance of childhood experience in relation to problems of marriage and family building. British Journal of Psychiatry, 123, 157–160.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Garmezy, N. (1974). Children at risk: The search for antecedents of schizophrenia. Part I: Conceptual models and research methods. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 8, 14–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ghiselli, E. E., Campbell, J. P., & Zedeck, S. (1981). Measurement theory for the behavioral sciences. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman.Google Scholar
Goodman, S. H., & Brumley, H. E. (1990). Schizophrenic and depressed mothers: Relational deficits in parenting. Developmental Psychology, 26, 31–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grunebaum, H., Weiss, J. L., Cohler, B. J., Hartman, C. R., & Gallant, D. H. (1982). Mentally ill mothers and their children (2nd ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Heard, D. H., & Lake, B. (1986). The attachment dynamic in adult life. British Journal of Psychiatry, 149, 430–438.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hollingshead, A. B. (1975). Four factor index of social status. New Haven, CT: Yale University, Department of Sociology.Google Scholar
Hooley, J., Orley, J., & Teasdale, D. J. (1986). Level of expressed emotion and relapse in depressed patients. British Journal of Psychiatry, 148, 642–647.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kagan, J., Resnick, J. S., & Snidman, N. (1987). Behavioral inhibition to the unfamiliar. Child Development, 58, 1459–1473.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kauffman, C., Grunebaum, H., Cohler, B. J., & Gamer, E. (1979). Superkids: Competent children of psychotic mothers. American Journal of Psychiatry, 136, 1398–1402.Google ScholarPubMed
Klehr, K. B., Cohler, B. J., & Musick, J. S. (1983). Character and behavior in the mentally ill and well mother. Infant Mental Health Journal, 4, 250–271.3.0.CO;2-W>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kobak, R. R., & Kazan, C. (1991). Attachment in marriage: Effects of security and accuracy of working models. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 60, 861–869.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Leavy, R. L. (1983). Social support and psychological disorder: A review. Journal of Community Psychology, 11, 3–21.3.0.CO;2-E>CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Leff, J., & Vaughn, C. (1985). Expressed emotion in families: Its significance for mental health. New York: Guilford.Google Scholar
Maccoby, E. E., & Martin, J. A. (1983). Socialization in the context of the family: Parent-child interaction. In Mussen, P. H. (Ed.), Handbook of child psychology (Vol. 4), Hetherington, E. M. (Vol. Ed.), Socialization, personality, and social development (pp. 1–101). New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Main, M., & Goldwyn, R. (1984). Predicting rejection of her infant from mother's representation of her own experience: Implications for the abused-abusing intergenerational cycle. Child Abuse and Neglect, 8, 203–217.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Main, M., Kaplan, N., & Cassidy, J. (1985). Security in infancy, childhood, and adulthood: A move to the level of representation. Monographs for the Society for Research in Child Development, 50 (1–2, Serial No. 209), 66–104.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mishler, E. G., & Waxier, N. E. (1983). Family processes and schizophrenia. New York: Jason Aronson.Google Scholar
Morris, D. (1982). Attachment and intimacy. In Fisher, M. & Strieker, G. (Eds.), Intimacy (pp. 305–325). New York: Plenum.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parker, G., & Barnett, B. (1988). Perceptions of parenting in childhood and social support in adulthood. American Journal of Psychiatry, 145, 479–482.Google ScholarPubMed
Patterson, G. R. (1980). Mothers: The unacknowledged victims. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 45, (5, Serial No. 186).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Patterson, G. R. (1986). Maternal rejection: Determinant or product of deviant child behavior. In Hartup, W. W. & Rubin, Z. (Eds.), Relationships and development (pp. 73–94). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Raskin, A., Boothe, H. H., Reatig, N. A., Schulterbrandt, J. G., & Odle, D. (1971). Factor analyses of normal and depressed patients’ memories of parental behavior. Psychological Reports, 29, 871–879.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ricks, M. H. (1985). The social transmission of parental behavior: Attachment across generations. Monographs for the Society for Research in Child Development, 50 (1–2, Serial No. 209), 211–227.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosenberg, M. (1965). Society and the adolescent self image. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rutter, M., & Madge, N. (1976). Cycles of disadvantage. London: Heinemann.Google Scholar
Sameroff, A. J., Seifer, R., & Zax, M. (1982). Early development of children at risk for emotional disorder. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 47 (1, Serial No. 199).CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sarason, B. R., Shearin, E. N., Pierce, G. R., & Sarason, I. G. (1987). Interrelationships of social support measures: Theoretical and practical implications. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52, 813–832.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scarr, S. (1985). Constructing psychology: Making facts and fables for our times. American Psychologist, 40, 499–512.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schaefer, E. S. (1963). Children's reports of parental behavior: An inventory. Child Development, 36, 413–424.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schaefer, E. S., & Bayler, N. (1967). Validity and consistency of mother-infant observations, adolescent maternal interviews, and adult retrospective reports of maternal behavior. Proceedings of the 75th Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association, 1, 147–148. (Summary)Google Scholar
Stollak, G. E., Scholom, A., Kallman, J., & Saturansky, C. (1973). Insensitivity to children: Responses of undergraduates to children in problem situations. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 2(1), 169–180.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Test, M. A., & Berlin, S. B. (1981). Issues of special concern to chronically mentally ill women. Professional Psychology, 12, 136–145.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Teti, D. M., Gelfand, D. M., & Pompa, J. (1990). Depressed mothers’ behavioral competence with their infants: Demographic and psychosocial correlates. Development and Psychopathology, 2, 259–270.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Teyber, E. C., Messe, L. A., & Stollak, G. E. (1977). Adult responses to child communications. Child Development, 48, 1577–1582.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Watt, N. F., Anthony, E. J., Wynne, L. C., & Rolf, J. E. (Eds.). (1984). Children at risk for schizophrenia. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Wahler, R. G. (1980). The insular mother: Her problems in parent-child treatment. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 13, 207–219.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wahler, R. G., Leske, G., & Rogers, E. S. (1979). The insular family: A deviance support system for oppositional children. In Hamerlynck, L. A. (Ed.), Behavioral systems for the developmentally disabled: I. School and family environments (pp. 102–127). New York: Brunner/Mazel.Google Scholar
Wolkind, S., Hall, F., & Pawlby, S. (1977). Individual differences in mothering behavior: A combined epidemiological and observational approach. In Graham, P. J. (Ed.), Epidemiological approaches in child psychiatry (pp. 107–123). New York: Academic.Google Scholar
Wynne, L. C. (1981). Current concepts about schizophrenia and family relationships. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 169, 82–89.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed