Partner Violence, Maternal Personality, and Child Behavior Problems Robin P' Weatherill1, Johanna C'

1
Partner Violence, Maternal Personality, and Child
Behavior ProblemsRobin P. Weatherill1, Johanna
C. Malone2, and Alytia A. Levendosky2 1National
Center for PTSD VA Boston Healthcare System and
2Michigan State University
RESULTS
INTRODUCTION
METHOD

• Participants
• 170 mother-child pairs, drawn from a larger
  longitudinal study (N 206) on the effects of
  domestic violence on maternal and child outcomes
  (PIs Levendosky, Bogat, Davidson, von Eye).
  This study included those mothers who completed
  the age 3 interview with child data.
• Demographic Characteristics of Sample
• Mothers
• 61 Caucasian, 26 AfricanAmerican, 6 Latina,
  and 8 Asian, Native American, or biracial.
• 49 single/never married, 42 married, and 9
  divorced, separated, or widowed.
• Mean age at T1 25 (SD 5 years)
• Median monthly income at T1 1,500 (SD 1,500)
• 63 receiving public assistance at T1
• Children
• 47 Caucasian, 27 AfricanAmerican, 22
  multi-racial, and 4 Asian, Latino, or Native
  American.
• 51 female
• Procedures

• Children exposed to intimate partner violence
  (IPV) are at risk for a number of negative
  developmental outcomes, including internalizing
  and externalizing behavior problems. However, not
  all children show these negative effects, making
  it important to identify possible mediating
  factors.
• Maternal personality may be one aspect of
  maternal psychological functioning that mediates
  the effects of IPV. We chose to look at
  personality traits associated with the
  characteristic expression of emotion, neuroticism
  and extraversion.
• McCrae and Costa (1987) describe neuroticism as
  the tendency to experience negative emotion such
  as depression and anxiety, and extraversion as
  the tendency toward sociability and the
  experience of positive emotions such as joy.
• Parental emotion expression and emotional
  well-being are well-documented predictors of
  child social and behavioral outcomes The negative
  and positive affect tone of parents interactions
  with their children not only provides a model for
  childrens expression of emotion, but also
  influences the development of child emotion
  regulation or dysregulation, such as that
  manifested in behavior problems (e.g., Denham et
  al., 1994 Dix, 1991).
• Much of the research on parent affect and child
  behavior has focused on parental depression, but
  even among non-depressed parents, negative moods
  have been found to be related to irritable
  interactions with children (Crnic Greenberg,
  1990), whereas the expression of joy and warmth
  is an important component of sensitive parenting
  (Izard, Haynes, Chisholm, Baak, 1991).
• In previous studies, Kochanska et al. (1997)
  found mothers high in neuroticism showed more
  negative affect and had children who were more
  defiant and angry. Belsky et al., (1991) found
  extraversion to be related to warmth and
  sensitive parenting.
• Research Aims
• To examine the effects of maternal neuroticism
  and extraversion on behavior problems in children
  exposed to IPV prior to age 3.

• Mediation Analysis
• Baron Kennys (1986) test of mediation was used
  to assess the relationship between IPV,
  personality, and externalizing behavior.
• IPV and personality variables
• IPV accounted for a significant portion of the
  variance in maternal neuroticism (ß .31, plt.005)
  and extraversion (ß -0.20, plt.01).
• IPV and child behavior (see Table 1).
• IPV was a significant predictor of child
  externalizing behavior.
• IPV predicted internalizing behavior only at the
  level of a trend. Therefore, mediation was not
  tested for internalizing behavior.
• Personality and child behavior
• Regressions were run separately for the two
  factors. Both neuroticism and extraversion
  predicted child externalizing behavior beyond the
  effects of IPV, and improved model fit (see
  Tables 1 2).
• Once neuroticism was added to the model, IPV was
  no longer a significant predictor of
  externalizing behavior, suggesting that
  neuroticism acted as a mediator for the effects
  of IPV (Table 1).
• In the regression with extraversion, IPV
  continued to be a significant predictor of
  externalizing behavior (Table 2).

DISCUSSION
Maternal extraversion did not act as a mediator
of IPV. Thus IPV and extraversion appear to have
independent effects on child behavior. It may
be that the effects of IPV on externalizing
behavior are due more to an increase in negative
interactions between parent and child than a
decrease in positive interactions. This study
suggests that parental emotional style should be
considered as a possible mediator of the effects
of IPV on children. In the context of IPV,
maternal negative affect may reflect a response
to trauma, and reducing negative affect may help
reduce acting out behavior in children who have
shared the mothers experience of IPV.
Overall, these results provide partial support
for maternal personality as a mediator of the
relationship between IPV and child behavior
problems. Results suggest that neuroticism acts
as a mediator of the effect of IPV on child
externalizing behavior. One of the ways IPV may
affect child behavior is by increasing maternal
negative affect. The mothers negative affect may
result in more irritable or hostile interactions
with her child, leading to more externalizing
behavior problems.