Longitudinal Pathways From Marital Hostility to Child Anger During Toddlerhood Genetic Susceptibility and Indirect Effects via Harsh Parenting

• Published in: Journal of family psychology Vol. 25; no. 2; pp. 282 - 291
• Main Authors: Rhoades, Kimberly A, Leve, Leslie D, Harold, Gordon T, Neiderhiser, Jenae M, Shaw, Daniel S, Reiss, David
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Washington, DC American Psychological Association 01-04-2011
• Subjects: Adopted Children; Adoption - psychology; Adoptive Parents; Adult; Anger; Biological and medical sciences; Biological Family; Child Behavior Disorders - genetics; Child Behavior Disorders - psychology; Child development; Childbirth; Childhood Development; Children; Couple and family; Domestic violence; Family Conflict - psychology; Family environment. Family history; Female; Frustration; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Genetic Predisposition to Disease - genetics; Genetic Predisposition to Disease - psychology; Genetics; Hostility; Human; Humans; Infant; Infant Behavior - psychology; Longitudinal Studies; Male; Marital Conflict; Marriage - psychology; Medical sciences; Mothers; Parent-Child Relations; Parenting - psychology; Parenting Style; Parents; Parents & parenting; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Psychopathology. Psychiatry; Social psychiatry. Ethnopsychiatry; Social psychology; Symptoms; Young Adult; marital hostility; parental depression; parenting; temperament; gene-environment interaction; Human; Mood disorder; Anger; Marital relation; Affect affectivity; Parental behavior; Parent pathology; Depression; Environmental factor; Personality; Emotion emotionality; Temperament; Parent child relation; Genotype environment interaction; Social interaction; Risk factor; Family environment; Hostility; Child
• ISSN: 0893-3200; 1939-1293
• DOI: 10.1037/a0022886

We examined direct and indirect pathways from marital hostility to toddler anger/frustration via harsh parenting and parental depressive symptoms, with an additional focus on the moderating role of genetic influences as inferred from birth parent anger/frustration. Participants were 361 linked triads of birth mothers, adoptive parents, and adopted children who were 9 (T1) and 18 (T2) months old across the study period. Results indicated an indirect effect from T1 marital hostility to T2 toddler anger/frustration via T2 parental harsh discipline. Results also indicated that the association between marital hostility and toddler anger was moderated by birth mother anger/frustration. For children whose birth mothers reported high levels of anger/frustration, adoptive parents' marital hostility at T1 predicted toddler anger/frustration at T2. This relation did not hold for children whose birth mothers reported low levels of anger/frustration. The results suggest that children whose birth mothers report elevated frustration might inherit an emotional lability that makes them more sensitive to the effects of marital hostility.