Preschool children's social status and maternal instructions to assist group entry.

Mothers' preparatory instructions (comments, helpful advice, and suggestions) intended to assist their child in subsequently joining the play of an unknown pair of children were studied. What mothers said to their child while they actually joined in (contemporaneous instructions) was investigated, as well as their claims about the kind of feedback they would give the child after the play. Mothers of popular, rejected, and neglected children were compared. It was hypothesized that the instructions mothers gave would parallel the known group-entry behavior of these groups of children. Hypotheses were substantially supported for mothers of popular children, moderately supported for mothers of neglected children, and less supported for mothers of rejected children. The most consistent finding was that mothers of popular children were more likely to suggest a group-oriented entry strategy to their child. These results tend to support previous studies suggesting that there are links between the social behavior of parents and their children and that family experiences may be involved in the acquisition of peer relationship skills. The mechanisms by which such family influence might operate are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of mood on mothers' evaluations of children's behavior.

Examined the effects of mood on mothers' evaluations of their children's behavior. Ss were 54 mothers and their 4- to 5-yr-old children. Families were randomly assigned to a depressed, positive, or neutral mood condition. Mothers evaluated their children's behavior after participating in a mood induction. Independent observers also evaluated children's behavior. Mothers in the positive mood condition evaluated their children's behavior as more favorable than did mothers in the depressed and neutral mood conditions. Mothers in the positive mood condition also evaluated their children's behavior as more favorable than did independent observers of the children's behavior. Evaluations provided by mothers in the depressed mood condition did not differ from those provided by mothers in the neutral mood condition or from those provided by independent observers. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mothers' interactions with normal and conduct-disordered boys: Who affects whom?

Compared the reactions of 16 mothers of 6–11 yr old conduct-disordered (CD) boys with those of 16 mothers of normal boys. The dyads in the 2 groups were matched pairwise on age and sex of the child and education of the mother. Each mother interacted with her own child (CD or normal) and with 2 other children of the same or different classification over 3 tasks in a laboratory. Mothers' positive, negative, or requesting behaviors and the children's compliance were counted. The 2 groups of mothers did not differ in the 3 behaviors, but they all addressed more negatives and requests to CD than to normal children. CD children were less compliant, irrespective of type of mother. The type of mother?×?type of child interaction did not produce a significant effect on either mothers' or children's behavior. Findings suggest that the child's, and not the mother's, behavioral tendency is the major influence in CD. Mothers of CD children were also more coercive toward their own children than to other CD children, indicating the operation of transactional effects arising from cumulative past interactions. (28 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Elementary-school children's rough-and-tumble play and social competence.

The intent of this study was to describe relations between elementary-school children's rough-and-tumble play and their social competence. Elementary-school children (Grades K, 2, and 4) were observed on the school playground during their recess periods. Results suggested that rough-and-tumble play for popular children led to games-with-rules, whereas it led to aggression for rejected children. Furthermore, popular children's rough-and-tumble was positively correlated with measures of social competence. These results are discussed in terms of the possible effects of the sociometric composition of rough-and-tumble play groups. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Maternal behaviors and cognitions during discipline episodes: A comparison of power bouts and single acts of noncompliance.

Maternal behaviors and cognitions within power bouts and single acts of noncompliance were compared by, using 2 methodologies. Ninety mothers completed daily telephone interviews concerning their children's misbehavior for 12 days. Half of the mothers also completed a computerized simulation of 3 different power bouts, and the other half of the mothers completed a similar simulation of 3 sets of single noncompliance episodes. Mothers made behavioral intention choices and rated their perceptions of the child's behavior in the computer simulation. Results indicate that power bouts formed a special class of discipline episodes distinct from single noncompliance. Mothers reported more negative perceptions of the child as well as more aversion during extended power bouts. Discussion focuses on possible different types of power bouts and the need for theories of socialization to include the transactive nature of discipline episodes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The structure of mother–child play: Young children with Down syndrome and typically developing children.

This study explored developmental changes and effects of Down syndrome on mothers' structuring of their children's play. Mothers and their young children with Down syndrome (n?=?28) were compared with socioeconomically matched samples of mothers and their mental age-matched (n?=?28) and chronological age-matched (n?=?28) typically developing children. Mothers of typically developing children exhibited more object demonstrations with their developmentally younger children, who exhibited less object play. Mothers of children with Down syndrome were more directive and supportive than were mothers of younger and older typically developing children, who did not differ in their frequencies of these behaviors. More maternal supportive object behavior was associated with more object play and vocalization by children with Down syndrome. Mothers and children in all 3 groups were contingently responsive to their partners' behavioral signals. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Evaluative pressure in mothers: Effects of situation, maternal, and child characteristics on autonomy supportive versus controlling behavior.

This study examined the effects of situational pressure and maternal characteristics (social contingent self-worth, controlling parenting attitudes) on mothers' autonomy support versus control in the social domain. Sixty 4th-grade children and their mothers worked on a laboratory task in preparation for meeting new children, with mothers in either an evaluation (mothers told their child would be evaluated by other children) or no-evaluation (no mention of evaluation) condition. Mothers in the evaluation condition spent more time giving answers to their children. Mothers with controlling parenting attitudes exhibited more controlling behavior. Further, mothers with high social contingent self-worth in the evaluation condition were most controlling. Results suggest the importance of interactions between situations and maternal characteristics in determining levels of mothers' autonomy support versus control and have implications for helping parents support children's autonomy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Contextual factors in children's social information processing.

Attributions and social problem solutions of socially accepted and rejected boys and girls (M age?=?9.33 yrs) were assessed by verbal responses to hypothetical vignettes embedded in a computer mathematics game involving 3 contextual factors: interpersonal context (competition or collaboration), outcome of the game (success or failure), and story type (ambiguous provocation or peer group entry). More hostile attributions of intent were provided in the failure than in the success condition and in the ambiguous provocation than in the peer group entry stories. More aggressive problem solutions were provided in ambiguous provocation than in peer group entry stories. Boys offered more aggressive solutions than girls in the cooperation condition but not the competition condition and for the provocation stories but not the peer group entry stories. Rejected children offered somewhat more aggressive solutions than accepted children. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

In vivo age-related changes in hepatic drug-oxidizing capacity in humans

Mothers of problem and nonproblem toddlers rated videotapes of their own and unfamiliar children's behavior. They classified the behaviors as positive, negative, or neutral, and evaluated the intensity of the positive or negative behaviors. Ratings did not differ by problem status; however, all mothers classified their own children's behavior as less negative than did an independent observer. Mothers also evaluated all children's negative behavior as less aversive than did the observer. Finally, mothers "mistakenly" classified less of their own children's behavior as negative and more as positive when compared to their biases in classifying unfamiliar children's behavior.     

Mapping cardiac physiology and parenting processes in maltreating mother–child dyads.

Child maltreatment (CM) lies on an extreme end of the continuum of parenting-at-risk, and while CM has been linked with a variety of behavioral indicators of dysregulation in children, less is known about how physiological markers of regulatory capacity contribute to this association. The present study examined patterns of mother and child physiological regulation and their relations with observed differences in parenting processes during a structured interaction. Abusing, neglecting, and non-CM mothers and their 3- to 5-year-old children completed a resting baseline and moderately challenging joint task. The structural analysis of social behavior was used to code mother–child interactions while simultaneous measures of respiratory sinus arrhythmia were obtained. Results indicated that physically abusive mothers were more likely to react to children's positive bids for autonomy with strict and hostile control, than either neglecting or non-CM mothers. CM exposure and quality of maternal responding to children's autonomous bids were uniquely associated with lower parasympathetic tone in children. Results provide evidence of neurodevelopmental associations between early CM exposure, the immediate interactive context of parenting, and children's autonomic physiology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Glibenclamide suppresses stretch-activated ANP secretion: involvements of K+ATP channels and L-type Ca2+ channel modulation

College students (n = 132) and mothers (n = 64) listened to simulated hotline calls and rated level of suicide risk and the helpfulness of interventions. Students also rated their intent to take action in a similar situation; mothers rated their child's intent to take action. Students, more than mothers, perceived emotional problems to be associated with risk; mothers, more than students, perceived changes in behavior to be associated with risk. Students and mothers generally agreed regarding the helpfulness of different interventions, rating talking as most helpful. However, students, more than mothers, perceived social distraction as helpful. Mothers were generally accurate in their perceptions of their children's intended actions. Results suggest the need for additional research on the skills adolescents bring to crisis situations.     

Attributional Biases in Aggressive Children and Their Mothers.

To investigate if mothers and their aggressive children share the tendency to infer hostile motives from others' behavior in ambiguous social situations, 100 pairs of mothers and their clinic-referred or comparison children (50 boys and 50 girls) were asked to interpret hypothetical situations involving both overtly and relationally provocative scenarios. Results replicated previous findings of studies on social information processing of aggressive children and extended the findings to mothers of aggressive children. Findings were generally consistent with the hypothesis that mothers of aggressive children tend to view others' ambiguous actions as hostile, increasing the probability of responding with aggression and, in effect, modeling a hostile attributional bias for their children. Examinations of mothers' and their children's attributional and behavioral intentions suggested that mothers' and daughters' attributions and behavioral intentions were significantly correlated, whereas mothers' and sons' were not. Gender effects with regard to provocation type are also discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mothers' attributions regarding their children's social behavior and personality characteristics.

Sixty mothers of four 12-yr-old children described their children's positive and negative characteristics and specific instances of their children's desirable and undesirable social behavior. They rated (a) the environmental versus dispositional basis of their child's behavior, (b) the behavior's probable origins, cross-situational consistency, and temporal stability, (c) the child's controllability, and (d) personal responsibility for engaging in each behavior. As predicted from attribution theory, mothers perceived desirable child behaviors as dispositional and undesirable ones as unstable and situationally caused. Positive personal characteristics were seen as stable and inborn, but negative ones as transitory. Children perceived as difficult to manage, however, were also seen as dispositionally and stably oppositional. Older children were considered more difficult to manage than younger ones, but only their misbehavior was seen as more innately determined. Girls' conduct of all types was considered more dispositional, and sons' characteristics were seen as more stable, especially during adolescence. The results suggest a positive bias in mothers' perceptions of their children, except when they are considered difficult to control. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mealtime behavior and parent-child interaction: a comparison of children with cystic fibrosis, children with feeding problems, and nonclinic controls

Examined the role of family interaction factors in dietary compliance problems reported by parents of children with cystic fibrosis (CF). The family mealtime interactions of children with CF, children with feeding problems and nonclinic controls were observed, and parents monitored children's eating behavior at home. Parents of children with CF reported more concern about feeding problems and recorded more disruptive mealtime behavior than parents of nonclinic children. Observational data showed children with CF to display overall rates of disruptive mealtime behavior not significantly different from either comparison group. Mothers of children with CF were observed to engage in higher rates of aversive interaction with their child than did mothers of nonclinic controls. Fathers of children with CF reported lower marital satisfaction than fathers of controls. Both mothers and fathers of children with CF reported lower parenting self-efficacy than non-CF families. Clinical implications are discussed.     

Chronicity, severity, and timing of maternal depressive symptoms: Relationships with child outcomes at age 5.

The relationships between severity, chronicity, and timing of maternal depressive symptoms and child outcomes were examined in a cohort of 4,953 children. Mothers provided self-reports of depressive symptoms during pregnancy, immediately postpartum, and when the child was 6 months old and 5 years old. At the age 5 follow-up, mothers reported on children's behavior and children completed a receptive vocabulary test. Results suggest that both the severity and the chronicity of maternal depressive symptoms are related to more behavior problems and lower vocabulary scores in children. The interaction of severity and chronicity of maternal depressive symptoms was significantly related to higher levels of child behavior problems. Timing of maternal symptoms was not significantly related to child vocabulary scores, but more recent reports of maternal depressive symptoms were associated with higher rates of child behavior problems. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mothers' supervision of their children's peer play: Relations with beliefs, perceptions, and knowledge.

Mothers (N?=?76) of 3- to 5-year-old children completed questionnaires assessing beliefs in the importance and modifiability (vs. innateness) of children's peer relationship skills, perceptions of their children's social competence with peers, and strategies they would use in response to children's peer interaction problems. A subsample of mothers (n?=?34) was observed supervising the play of their own children and a peer. Maternal perceptions of children's competence were negatively associated with the extent of mothers' involvement in children's play, whereas the quality of supervision was predicted by knowledge of socialization strategies and the interaction of beliefs and knowledge. Beliefs appeared to moderate the effects of maternal knowledge on mothers' behavior in that knowledge was associated with the quality of supervision only when mothers believed social skills were important and modifiable. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The role of affective information in the determination of intent.

The role that affective information plays in the intentions popular and rejected 4th graders attribute to others in hypothetical situations was investigated. Popular and rejected children viewed videotaped vignettes used by K. A. Dodge et al (1984) that depicted a provocation between 2 children where the intention of the provocateur (i.e., protagonist) was ambiguous. Information about the affect (i.e., happy or angry) of the protagonist was provided. After viewing each vignette, Ss were asked to specify the intention of the protagonist. Analyses indicated that popular and rejected children differed in how the affective information affected their responses. Unlike rejected children, popular children modified their interpretations of the protagonist's intent on the basis of the affective information they received. Implications for future research and intervention are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Characteristics of holding, patterns of play, and social behaviors between parents and infants in New Delhi, India.

Characteristics of holding, play, and social behaviors between 54 mothers and fathers and their 1-year-old infants were observed within the context of their extended families in New Delhi, India. Mothers picked up and held infants more than did fathers, and were more likely to feed and comfort them and to invest more time feeding and displaying affection to them than were fathers. When parents held infants they were more likely to display affection than to feed, comfort, or play with them. Fathers engaged in more rough play than did mothers, and mothers engaged in more peek-a-boo than did fathers. Mothers and fathers treated boys and girls quite similarly. Infants smiled at, vocalized to, and followed mothers more than they did fathers. Parents were generally preferred over relatives as social partners. The data point to the cultural specificity of certain parent–child activities. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mother-Child Discourse in Two Contexts: Links With Child Temperament, Attachment Security, and Socioemotional Competence.

The goal of this study was to examine whether attachment security and child temperament predicted differences in the elaboration and emotional content of mother-child discourse in 2 contexts and whether those differences were related to a child's socioemotional development. Fifty-one preschool children and their mothers were videotaped reading a storybook and discussing the child's previous behavior. These conversations were coded for maternal elaboration and emotional content. Mothers also completed reports of child temperament, attachment security, and social behavior. Children completed measures of emotional understanding, behavioral internalization, and representations of relationships. The findings suggested that both aspects of mother-child discourse were related to attachment, temperament, and socioemotional competence, although the findings varied depending on the context of the discourse. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effects of maternal attributions on parenting: An experimental analysis.

To address the direction of causality underlying the robust association of mothers' attributions for child misbehavior and mothers' parenting, mothers' child-centered responsibility attributions for their hard-to-manage toddlers' misbehavior were experimentally manipulated. Mothers and children were then videotaped interacting in typical but challenging situations. Relative to mothers who were told that their children were not to blame for misbehaving, mothers who were told that their children would misbehave voluntarily and with negative intent were rated as significantly more overreactive in their discipline and felt angrier; their children exhibited higher rates of negative affect. Therefore, mothers' attributions for children's misbehavior can determine the harshness of their discipline. Further research on attribution-focused interventions and their role in facilitating treatment response and maintenance in parenting programs is warranted. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)