Casey, C. (2015).

Cassady Casey

Do Maternal Mood and Cognitions Match?: A Study Examining Reportedly Stressful Parent-Child Interactions

Chair: Hilary Vidair, PhD

Abstract

Maternal mood and cognitions are two factors associated with parenting stress during parent-child interactions, and there are advantages to capturing cognitions in real time. Using video mediated recall (VMR) methodology, Ohr and colleagues (2010) assessed the relationship between negative maternal mood and maternal video-mediated cognitions in reportedly stressful interactions with 2- to 5-year-old children. They found levels of maternal negative mood, particularly depressed mood, to be significantly associated with higher percentages of dysfunctional cognitions and lower percentages of functional cognitions. However, the match between specific maternal mood states (e.g., depression, anxiety, and anger) and specific cognitive themes found within stressful parent-child interactions had not been investigated. This study aimed to assess if there were matches between specific types of mood and cognitive themes in this context. It was hypothesized that levels of maternal anxious mood and depressed mood would be significantly positively associated with percentages of anxious cognitive content, that levels of depressed mood would be significantly positively associated with percentages of depressed cognitive content, and that levels of hostile mood would be significantly positively associated with percentages of angry/hostile cognitive content. Data from 43 mothers in Ohr et al.’s (2010) study were utilized. Results did not support these hypotheses. However, total negative mood (levels of anxious, depressed, and angry/hostile mood combined) together with parenting stress was significantly positively associated with percentages of angry/hostile cognitions. These findings build upon cognitive-content specificity research by demonstrating that mothers of preschoolers with overall negative mood states are likely to also experience angry/hostile cognitions during reportedly stressful parent-child routines. Additionally, the results highlight the usefulness of VMR in eliciting cognitions in real-time over the traditional use of self-report measures and can inform clinical interventions to address maternal negative mood and hostile/angry cognitions experienced during stressful parent-child encounters. Through targeting negative maternal mood and angry/hostile cognitions during daily stressors, clinicians may be able to help modify maladaptive cognitions, improve negative mood, and reduce parenting stress, thus, improving the quality of parent-child relationships and these routine parent-child interactions.