Life Stress and Parenting Outcomes in a Disadvantaged Sample: Results of the Mother-Child Interaction Project

Reports on the relations between stress experienced by mothers and mother-child interaction at two points in time in a longitudinal study of high-risk families. Mothers' interpersonal stress was related to low scores on maternal cooperation at 6 months and to maladaptive interaction between mothers and daughters at 42 months. The data are discussed relative to the effects of stress on mother-child relationships over time, and the individuals' strategies for regulating their interaction.

[1]  Auke Tellegen,et al.  The study of stress and competence in children: a building block for developmental psychopathology , 1984 .

[2]  R. Pianta,et al.  Maternal relationship history as an indicator of developmental risk. , 1986, The American journal of orthopsychiatry.

[3]  S. Folkman,et al.  Stress and adaptational outcomes. The problem of confounded measures. , 1985, The American psychologist.

[4]  T. Field,et al.  Infants of depressed mothers show "depressed" behavior even with nondepressed adults. , 1988, Child development.

[5]  B. Egeland,et al.  Infant-mother attachment: factors related to its development and changes over time. , 1984, Child development.

[6]  Patrick E. Shrout,et al.  "Hassles" in the conceptualization and measurement of life stress variables. , 1985 .

[7]  R. Pianta,et al.  Risk and protective factors in the development of psychopathology: Maternal stress and children's development: prediction of school outcomes and identification of protective factors , 1990 .

[8]  M. Main,et al.  Predicting rejection of her infant from mother's representation of her own experience: implications for the abused-abusing intergenerational cycle. , 1984, Child abuse & neglect.

[9]  B. Vaughn,et al.  The assessment of infant temperament: A critique of the carey infant temperament questionnaire , 1981 .

[10]  D. Chiriboga,et al.  Dimensions of stress: perspectives from a longitudinal study. , 1978, Journal of psychosomatic research.

[11]  Differential weights in life change research: useful or irrelevant? , 1980, Psychosomatic medicine.

[12]  J. Belsky,et al.  The determinants of parenting: a process model. , 1984, Child development.

[13]  A. Tellegen,et al.  Competence and stress in school children: the moderating effects of individual and family qualities. , 1988, Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines.

[14]  J. Rabkin,et al.  Live events, stress, and illness. , 1976, Science.

[15]  E. Tronick.  Emotions and emotional communication in infants. , 1989, The American psychologist.