Top

Gepubliceerd in:

08-11-2023 | Original Paper

Sequential Change in Postpartum Mothers’ Affect between Conflict Discussions with Partners and Play Interactions with Infants

Auteurs: Rachel A. Level, Rachel L. Hutt, Micah A. Mammen, Ginger A. Moore

Gepubliceerd in: Journal of Child and Family Studies | Uitgave 5/2024

Abstract

Negative marital relationships are associated, concurrently, with less warm parenting (i.e., spillover) and this may be exacerbated for mothers with postpartum depression, who typically experience more marital conflict than other mothers. When examining time-lagged effects, however, previous work has found that mothers may compensate following negative marital interactions by investing more positively in parenting. Based on an emotion regulation perspective that emphasizes the temporal nature of affective experiences and the concept of positive emotions “undoing” the effect of negative emotions, we hypothesized that mothers with higher levels of depression may show greater increases in positive affect with their children in an effort to regulate negative affect elicited by marital conflict. To examine this temporal process, we coded mothers’ (N = 46) positive and negative affect during marital conflict discussions and subsequent play interactions with their seven-month-old infants and examined sequential change in affect between the interactions. Mothers’ self-reported depressive symptoms (BDI-II scores) were examined in relation to sequential change. Although all mothers were more positive with infants than with partners, higher levels of depressive symptoms were related to greater increases in positive affect with infants following more negative interactions with partners. Findings suggest mothers with depression may try to regulate negative affect elicited within marital relationships by engaging in positive interactions with their infants. Maternal depression may contribute to greater investment in parent-child relationships relative to marital relationships.

vorige artikel Children’s Play and Leisure Engagements: The Effect of Maternal Traumatic Events

volgende artikel Maternal Beliefs about the Costs and Benefits of Solitude in Childhood and Adolescence

American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed.). https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.books.9780890425596.

Beck, A. T., Steer, R. A., & Brown, G. K. (1996). Manual for the Beck Depression Inventory-II. San Antonio, TX: Psychological Corporation

Behnke, M., Pietruch, M., Chwiłkowska, P., Wessel, E., Kaczmarek, L. D., Assink, M., & Gross, J. J. (2023). The Undoing Effect of Positive Emotions: A Meta-Analytic Review. Emotion Review, 15(1), 45–62. https://doi.org/10.1177/17540739221104457.CrossRef

Belsky, J., Lang, M., & Rovine, M. (1985). Stability and change in marriage across the transition to parenthood: A second study. Journal of Marriage & the Family, 47, 855–865. https://doi.org/10.2307/352329.CrossRef

Belsky, J., Youngblade, L., Rovine, M., & Volling, B. (1991). Patterns of Marital Change and Parent-Child Interaction. Journal of Marriage and Family, 53(2), 487–498. https://doi.org/10.2307/352914.CrossRef

Braiker, H. B., & Kelley, H. H. (1979). Conflict in the development of close relationships. In R. L. Burgess & T. L. Huston (Eds.), Social exchange in developing relationships (pp. 135-168). New York: Academic

Camisasca, E., Miragoli, S., Di Blasio, P., & Feinberg, M. (2019). Co-parenting mediates the influence of marital satisfaction on child adjustment: The conditional indirect effect by parental empathy. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 28(2), 519–530. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-018-1271-5.CrossRef

Campbell, S. B., Cohn, J. F., & Meyers, T. (1995). Depression in first-time mothers: Mother-infant interaction and depression chronicity. Developmental Psychology, 31(3), 349–357. https://doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.31.3.349.CrossRef

Campbell, S. B., Cohn, J. F., Meyers, T., Popper, S., & Flanagan, C. (1992). Course and correlates of postpartum depression during the transition to parenthood. Development and Psychopathology, 4, 29–49. https://doi.org/10.1017/S095457940000554X.CrossRef

Carter, A. S., Mayes, L. C., & Pajer, K. A. (1990). The role of dyadic affect in play and infant sex in predicting infant response to the Still-Face situation. Child Development, 61, 764–773. https://doi.org/10.2307/1130961.CrossRefPubMed

Cazzell, A., Rivers, A. S., Sanford, K., & Schnitker, S. (2022). Positive exchanges buffer negative exchanges: Associations with marital satisfaction among U.S. mixed-sex couples. Journal of Family Psychology. 36. https://doi.org/10.1037/fam0000963.

Coan, J. A. & Gottman, J. M. (2007). The specific affect (SPAFF) coding system. In J. A. Coan & J. J. B. Allen (Eds.), Handbook of emotion elicitation and assessment (pp. 106-123). New York, NY: Oxford University Press

Cohn, J. F., Campbell, S. B., Matias, R., & Hopkins, J. (1990). Face-to-face interactions of postpartum depressed and nondepressed mother-infant pairs at 2 months. Developmental Psychology, 26(1), 15–23. https://doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.26.1.15.CrossRef

Cummings, E. M., Goeke-Morey, M. C., & Papp, L. M. (2003). Children’s responses to everyday marital conflict tactics in the home. Child Development, 74(6), 1918–1929. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1467-8624.2003.00646.x.CrossRefPubMed

Cummings, E. M., & Davies, P. T. (2010). The Guilford series on social and emotional development. Marital conflict and children: An emotional security perspective. New York, NY, USA: Guilford Press.

Dennis-Tiwary, T. A. (2019). The future of emotion regulation research is in how we measure the dynamics of change. Developmental Psychology, 55(9), 2006–2008. https://doi.org/10.1037/dev0000752.CrossRefPubMed

Erel, O., & Burman, B. (1995). Interrelatedness of marital relations and parent-child relations: A meta-analytic review. Psychological Bulletin, 118, 108–132. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.118.1.108.CrossRefPubMed

Falconier, M. K., Jackson, J. B., Hilpert, P., & Bodenmann, G. (2015). Dyadic coping and relationship satisfaction: A meta-analysis. Clinical Psychology Review, 42, 28–46. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2015.07.002.CrossRefPubMed

Frederickson, B. L., Mancuso, R. A., Branigan, C., & Tugade, M. M. (2000). The undoing effect of positive emotions. Motiv Emot, 24(3), 237–258. https://doi.org/10.1023/a:1010796329158.CrossRef

Fredrickson, B. L., Mancuso, R. A., Branigan, C., & Tugade, M. M. (2000). The undoing effect of positive emotions. Motiv Emot, 24(4), 237–258. https://doi.org/10.1023/a:1010796329158.CrossRefPubMedPubMedCentral

Goodman, S. H., Rouse, M. H., Connell, A. M., Robbins Broth, M., Hall, C. M., & Heyward, D. (2011). Maternal depression and child psychopathology: A meta-analytic review. Clinical Child Family Psychological Review, 14(1), 1–27. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10567-010-0080-1.CrossRef

Gotlib, I. H., & Whiffen, V. E. (1989). Depression and marital functioning: An examination of specificity and gender differences. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 98(1), 23–30.CrossRefPubMed

Gottman, J. M. (1993). A theory of marital dissolution and stability. Journal of Family Psychology, 7(1), 57–75. https://doi.org/10.1037/0893-3200.7.1.57.CrossRef

Gottman, J. M., & Levenson, R. W. (1992). Marital processes predictive of later dissolution: Behavior, physiology and health. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 63, 221–233. https://doi.org/10.1037//0022-3514.63.2.221.CrossRefPubMed

Gottman, J. M., & Notarius, C. I. (2000). Decade review: Observing marital interaction. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 62(4), 927–947. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-3737.2000.00927.x.CrossRef

Gottman, J. M. (1979). Marital interaction: Experimental investigations. New York: Academic Press

Gruber, J., Kogan, A., Quoidbach, J., & Maus, I. B. (2013). Happiness is best kept stable: Positive emotion variability is associated with poorer psychological health. Emotion, 13(1), 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0030262.CrossRefPubMed

Joormann, J., & Gotlib, I. H. (2010). Emotion regulation in expression: Relation to cognitive inhibition. Cognition and Emotion, 24(2), 281–298. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699930903407948.CrossRefPubMed

Klein, R. C. A., & Milardo, R. M. (2000). The social context of couple conflict: Support and criticism from informal third parties. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 17(4-5), 618–637. https://doi.org/10.1177/0265407500174008.CrossRef

Kouros, C. D., Papp, L. M., Goeke-Morey, M. C., & Cummings, E. M. (2014). Spillover between marital quality and parent-child relationship quality: Parental depressive symptoms as moderators. Journal of Family Psychology, 28(3), 315–325. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0036804.CrossRefPubMedPubMedCentral

Levenson, R. W. (1988). Emotion and the autonomic nervous system: A prospectus for research on autonomic specificity. In H. L. Wagner (Ed.), Social psychophysiology and emotion: Theory and clinical applications, 17–42

Low, R. S. T., Overall, N. C., Cross, E. J., & Henderson, A. M. E. (2019). Emotion regulation, conflict resolution, and spillover on subsequent family functioning. Emotion, 19(7), 1162–1182. https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0000519.CrossRefPubMed

Mäntymaa, M., Puura, K., Luoma, I., Latva, R., Salmelin, R. K., & Tamminen, T. (2015). Shared pleasure in early mother-infant interaction: Predicting lower levels of emotional and behavioral problems in the child and protecting against the influence of parental psychopathology. Infant Mental Health Journal, 36(2), 223–237. https://doi.org/10.1002/imhj.21505.CrossRefPubMed

Mattson, R. E., Rogge, R. D., Johnson, M. D., Davidson, E. K. B., & Fincham, F. D. (2012). The positive and negative semantic dimensions of relationship satisfaction. Personal Relationships, 20(2), 328–355. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-6811.2012.01412.x.CrossRef

Mesman, J., van IJzendoorn, M. H., & Bakermans-Kranenburg, M. J. (2009). The many faces of the Still-Face Paradigm: A review and meta-analysis. Developmental Review, 29(2), 120–162. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dr.2009.02.001.CrossRef

Moore, G. A. (2009). Infants’ and mothers’ vagal reactivity in response to anger. The Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 50, 1392–1400.CrossRefPubMed

Moore, G. A. (2010). Parent conflict predicts infants’ vagal regulation in social interaction. Development and Psychopathology, 22, 23–33.CrossRefPubMedPubMedCentral

Moore, G. A., Quigley, K. M., Voegtline, K. M., & DiPietro, J. A. (2016). Don’t worry, be (moderately) happy: Mothers’ anxiety and positivity during pregnancy independently predict lower mother-infant synchrony. Infant Behavior and Development, 42, 60–68. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.infbeh.2015.11.002.CrossRefPubMed

Moore, G. A., Powers, C. J., Bass, A. J., Cohn, J. F., Propper, C. B., Allen, N. B., & Lewinsohn, P. M. (2013). Dyadic Interaction: Greater than the Sum of its Parts? Infancy : the official journal of the International Society on Infant Studies, 18(4), https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1532-7078.2012.00136.x.

Najman, J. K., Khatun, M., Mamum, A., Clavarino, A., Williams, G. M., Scott, J., O’Callaghan, M., Hayatbaksh, R., & Alati, R. (2014). Does depression experienced by mothers lead to a decline in marital quality: a 21-year longitudinal study. Social Psychiatry Psychiatric Epidemioly, 49, 121–132. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00127-013-0749-0.CrossRef

Neff, L. A., & Karney, B. R. (2003). The dynamic structure of relationship perceptions: differential importance as a strategy of relationship maintenance. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 29(11), 1433–1446. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167203256376.CrossRefPubMed

Nelson, S. K., Kushlev, K., Dunn, E. W., & Lyubomirksy, S. (2013). In defense of parenthood: Children are associated with more joy than misery. Psychological Science, 24, 3–10. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797612447798.CrossRefPubMed

Pauley, A. M., Moore, G. A., Mama, S. K., Molenaar, P., & Symons Downs, D. (2020). Associations between prenatal sleep and psychological health: a systematic review. Journal of clinical sleep medicine : JCSM : official publication of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, 16(4), 619–630. https://doi.org/10.5664/jcsm.8248.CrossRefPubMed

Radloff, L. S. (1977). The CES-D Scale: A self-report depression scale for research in the general population. Applied Psychological Measurement, 1(3), 385–401. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146621677001003.CrossRef

Riskind, J. H., Kleiman, E. M., & Shafer, K. E. (2013). “Undoing” effects of positive affect: Does it buffer the effects of negative affect in predicting changes in depression? Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 32(4), 363–380. https://doi.org/10.1521/jscp.2013.32.4.363.CrossRef

Schudlich, T. D. D. R., Papp, L. M., & Cummings, E. M. (2004). Relations of husbands’ and wives’ dysphoria to marital conflict resolution strategies. Journal of Family Psychology, 18, 171–183. https://doi.org/10.1037/0893-3200.18.1.171.CrossRef

Staines, G. L. (1980). Spillover versus compensation: A review of the literature on the relationship between work and nonwork. Human Relations, 33(2), 111–129. https://doi.org/10.1177/001872678003300203.CrossRef

Strathearn, L., Li, J., Fonagy, P., & Montague, P. R. (2008). What’s in a smile? Maternal brain responses to infant facial cues. Pediatrics, 122(1), 40–51. https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2007-1566.CrossRefPubMed

Tronick, E., Als, H., Adamson, L., Wise, S., & Brazelton, T. B. (1978). Infants’ response to entrapment between contradictory messages in face-to-face interaction. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 17, 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0002-7138(09)62273-1.CrossRef

Twenge, J. M., Campbell, K. W., & Foster, C. A. (2003). Parenthood and marital satisfaction: A meta-analytic review. Journal of Marriage and Family, 65(3), 574–583. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-3737.2003.00574.x.CrossRef

Wang, Y. P., & Gorenstein, C. (2013). Psychometric properties of the Beck Depression Inventory – II: A comprehensive review. Revista Brasileira de Psiquiatria, 35, 416–431. https://doi.org/10.1590/1516-4446-2012-1048.CrossRefPubMed

Widaman, K. F. (2006). Best practices in quantitative methods for developmentalists: III. Missing data: What to do with or without them. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 71(3), 42–64. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5834.2006.00404.x.CrossRef

Wolf, J. B. (2016). Framing mothers: Childcare research and the normalization of maternal care. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 41(31), 627–651. https://doi.org/10.1086/684240.CrossRef

Xu, Y., Yu, Y., Xie, Y., Peng, L., Liu, B., Xie, J., Bian, C., & Li, M. (2015). Positive affect promotes well-being and alleviates depression: The mediating effect of attentional bias. Psychiatry Research, 228(3), 482–487. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2015.06.011.CrossRefPubMed

Yuan, J. W., McCarthy, M., Holley, S. R., & Levenson, R. W. (2010). Physiological down-regulation and positive emotion in marital interaction. Emotion, 10(4), 467–4. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0018699.CrossRefPubMed

Titel: Sequential Change in Postpartum Mothers’ Affect between Conflict Discussions with Partners and Play Interactions with Infants
Auteurs: Rachel A. Level
Rachel L. Hutt
Micah A. Mammen
Ginger A. Moore
Publicatiedatum: 08-11-2023
Uitgeverij: Springer US
Gepubliceerd in: Journal of Child and Family Studies / Uitgave 5/2024
Print ISSN: 1062-1024
Elektronisch ISSN: 1573-2843
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-023-02698-7

Bohn Stafleu van Loghum

Deel dit onderdeel of sectie (kopieer de link)

Abstract

Log in om toegang te krijgen

Andere artikelen Uitgave 5/2024

Etch the Emotional Life: Mother-Child Emotion Socialization from Age 3 to 6 Years

Maternal Processes Contributing to Child Internalizing and Externalizing Symptoms: Comparing Military, Two-parent, and Single-parent Families

Maternal Beliefs about the Costs and Benefits of Solitude in Childhood and Adolescence

Perceived Parental Control, Parent-Adolescent Relationship and Adolescents’ Psychological Adjustment. Does Gender Matter?

Author Correction: Differential Effects of an Early Childhood Care Preventive Intervention Program on Behavior and Emotional Problems

Observing Parental Need Supporting Behaviors Toward Adolescents: Comparing Four Coding Strategies