Marital Adjustment, Quality of Maternal Caregiving and Preschoolers Attachment Security in MexicanAm

1
Marital Adjustment, Quality of Maternal
Caregiving and Preschoolers Attachment Security
in Mexican-American FamiliesOlga A. Carbonell
Germán E. Posada, Purdue University

•  
• 44 mother-preschool child dyads. Both parents
  were Mexican-American first generation
  immigrants, low-income, and from non-clinical
  sectors of the population. 
• Gender 27 boys and 17 girls 
• Childs age M 4.6 years SD .53
• Range 3.8 years 5.5 years 
• Mothers age M 29.9 years SD 4.9
• Range 21 years 41 years 
• Mothers Education M 9.44 years SD 3.3
• Range 1-16 years 
• Family Income monthly M 1,877 SD 753.25
• Range 0 - 4,000 
• Number of siblings zero (11.4), one (38.6),
  
• two (22.7), three (13.6), and four or more
  (13.7)

Introduction
Participants
Conclusions
Analyses and Results

 

• 1. Marital adjustment and marital conflict
  Associations with quality of maternal care and
  childs attachment security.
• Overall, results indicated that quality of
  maternal care was marginally associated with
  mothers marital adjustment. This trend goes in
  the direction of the Spillover hypothesis.
  However, verbal and physical aggression from
  husband to wife were not related to mothers
  quality of care.
• Non-significant associations between mothers
  marital adjustment and the two dimensions of
  marital conflict with child attachment security.
  This replicates previous findings in some studies
  with Caucasian, middle class samples.
• 2. Quality of maternal care and childs
  attachment security.
• Findings provide empirical support to the
  theoretical assumption that quality of maternal
  care keeps having a key role in the organization
  and maintenance of the secure base behavior
  beyond infancy.
• Results support the link between quality of
  maternal care-attachment security in other ethnic
  and socio-economic groups that are not
  white-American and/or middle class populations.
• 3. Quality of care as a mediator of the relation
  between marital adjustment and childs
  attachment security.
• Quality of maternal care as a potential mediator
  between marital adjustment and childs attachment
  security could not be tested directly given that
  the three assumptions for mediation (Baron
  Kenny, 1986) were not met. Mothers marital
  adjustment was not significantly related to
  childs attachment security.
• The assessment of indirect effects and model fit
  through Path Analysis showed that the proposed
  model was not plausible for this sample.
• Possible explanations

Empirical evidence has demonstrated that both
quality of care and attachment behavior seem to
be influenced by characteristics of the family
context. Therefore, it is important for research
to take into account the ecology in which
attachment relationships are formed. Mothers in
hostile marital relationships may redirect her
negative emotions to the child, and in turn the
child will also manifest negative emotions. Thus,
negative emotionality is transferred from the
marital subsystem to the mother-child subsystem
disrupting the quality of their interactions
(Crockenberg Langrock, 2001).   Studies have
shown that in chronic marital conflict mothers
tend to be less accepting, responsive,
emotionally available, warm and sensitive to
childs needs, demands and misbehaviors compared
to mothers in harmonious marital relationships
(Davies, Cummings, 1994 Kriskanakumar
Buehler, 2000).   Findings have demonstrated
that infant-mother secure attachments are more
likely to occur in families where husbands and
wives are satisfied with their marriages, have
higher marital adjustment and experience less
marital conflict (Glober-Tippelt Huerkamp,
1998).   There is scant research about the
relationships between mother marital adjustment
and preschool childs attachment security in
non-clinical samples, and the existing studies in
preschool samples have shown inconsistent
findings.   Few studies have examined the
underlying mechanisms that link mother marital
adjustment with attachment security in preschool
child-mother samples.   Finally, most studies
have been conducted with Caucasian samples and
generally restricted to middle class families. 
Table 1  
    M SD t M-  

•  
•  
•  

Two 2.5-hour home visits, two 2.5-hour
playground visits, and one 1-hour laboratory
visit to administer the questionnaires about
marital adjustment and conflict per family were
conducted.   Trained observers in Q-methodology
collected information about the childs
attachment behavior and maternal care.   A
mothers quality of care score and child
attachment security score were calculated by
correlating mother or child descriptions with
criterion sorts of the theoretically sensitive
mother and securely attached child, respectively.
An overall composite q-description (for home and
park) was obtained for mother and child. For
descriptions of child behavior, reliability,
based on inter-observer agreement, was .80 for
home and .79 for park visits. For descriptions of
maternal behavior, reliability, based on
inter-observer agreement, was .79 for home and
.79 for park visits. Quality of maternal care
was assessed with The Maternal Behavior for
Preschoolers Q-Set (MBPQS, Posada et al., 1998).
The MBPQS consists of 90 items descriptive of
maternal behavior when interacting with her
preschool child. Quality of attachment security
was assessed with The Attachment Behavior Q-Set
(AQS Waters, 1995). This 90-item q-sort is used
to describe 1-5 year olds behaviors relevant to
the use of the parent as a secure base in
naturalistic contexts. Global marital
adjustment Self-reports about marital adjustment
and conflict were obtained from mothers through
the Dyadic Adjustment Scale -DAS- (Spanier,
1976).   Verbal and physical aggression from
husband to wife was assessed with the Family
Behavior Survey part 2 (Posada Waters, 1990).
Mothers completed a 67 items scale about
frequency of occurrence of verbal and physical
aggressive incidents during spousal conflict in
the last 6 months.

• Note Significant differences by gender regarding
  child attachment security were found (Table 1).
  Girls obtained higher security scores than boys
  (t (44) -3.54, plt.01). Gender differences were
  controlled for in subsequent analyses.
• Bivariate Correlations Matrix
• Marital adjustment is marginally significant
  with quality of
• maternal care (plt.10).
• Quality of maternal care is significantly and
  concurrently
• associated with child attachment security
  (plt.05).
• Family income, and birth order are significantly
  
• associated at plt.05, and number of siblings at
  plt .01 to
• quality of maternal care. 
•  

Procedures and Assessment
2. Path Analysis Estimated indirect
effects on the model. The standardized
coefficients (ß) (.22 ns) and (.43) following
the direction of the arrows in the model (Figure
1) were calculated using correlations in table1.
The implied correlation (.22 x .43) .09. The
observed correlation is r (44) .08, ns.
Adjusted R2 .32. Variance of errors .68.
Research Questions
1. Are global marital adjustment and specific
domains of marital conflict (i.e.,
husbands verbal and physical aggression
against wife) associated with both the quality of
maternal care and child attachment security
in Mexican- American first generation
immigrants, low-income families? 2. Is
maternal quality of care during mother-child
interactions in naturalistic settings
associated with child attachment security
in Mexican-American first generation immigrants,
low-income families? 3. Is maternal
quality of care a potential mediator of the
association between marital adjustment and child
attachment security in Mexican-American
first generation immigrants, low-income
families?