The Emotional Relationship Between Mothers and Their Aggressive Young Children PDF
Preview The Emotional Relationship Between Mothers and Their Aggressive Young Children
The Emotional Relationship Between Mothers and Their Aggressive Young Children: An Observation of Mother-Child Interaction Karen Elizabeth Tsuk Dissertation subrnitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Programme in Psychology York University Toronto, Ontario June, 1997 B * I National tibrary Bibliothèque nationale of Canada du Canada Acquisitions and Acquisitions et Bibliographic Sewices services bibliographiques 395 Wellington Street 395. rue Wellington OttawaON K1A ON4 OttawaON K1AON4 Canada Canada The author has granted a non- L'auteur a accordé une licence non exclusive licence dowing the exclusive permettant à la National Library of Canada to Bibliothèque nationale du Canada de reproduce, loan, distribute or sell reproduire, prêter, distribuer ou copies of this thesis in microform, vendre des copies de cette thèse sous microfiche/^ paper or elecbonic formats. la forme de de reproduction sur papier ou sur format électronique. The author retains ownership of the L'auteur conserve la propriété du copyright in this thesis. Neither the droit d'auteur qui protège cette thèse. thesis nor substantial extracts fiom it Ni la thèse ni des extraits substantiels may be printed or otheMrise de celle-ci ne doivent être imprimés reproduced without the author's ou autrement reproduits sans son permission. autorisation. THE EMOTIONAL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MOTHERS AND THEIR AGGRESSLVE YOUNG CBILDREN: AN OBSERVATION OF MOLHER-CHILD INTERACTION by KAREN ELIZABETH TSUK a dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies of York University cn partial fulfillrnent of the requirernents for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOQHY @ 1997 Permission has been granted to the LIBRARY OF YORK UNIVERSITY to lend or sel1 copies of this dissertation, to trie NATIONAL Ll8RARY OF CANADA to microfilm this dissertation and to iend or seIl coptes of the film, and to UNIVERSITY MICROFILMS to publish an abstract of this dissertation. The author reserves other publication rights. and neither the drssertalion nor extensive extracts from it may be printed or otherwise reproduced without the author's written permission. Abstract The purpose of this study was to explore the affective quality of the relationship between mothers and their aggressive three- to six-year-old children. The interactions of thirty mothers and their aggressive children (Aggressive group) were cornpared to those of thirty mothers and their non- aggressive children (Non-Aggressive group) during a free play session and a separation and reunion sequence. The free play was rated with the Parent-Child Early Relational Assessrnent (ERA; Clark, 1985),a nd the separation-reunion was rated with the Crowell (1986) system. The mothers of aggressive children were rated as showing less positive affective involvement, less sensitivity, less responsiveness, and more negative affect while engaged in free play with their children than the mothers of non-aggressive children. The mothers of aggressive children involved their children in less mutual planning when preparing to separate from them, and showed less verbal communication relating to feelings when reunited with them than the mothers of non-aggressive children. The aggressive children demonstrated less positive affect and less positive behaviour, and more dysregulation and irritability in the free play than the non- aggressive children. The mother-child dyads with an aggressive child were rated as exhibiting more tension, and less mutuality and reciprocity in free play than those with a non-aggressive child. Çinally, group differences were found in the pattern of correlations between the matemal and child ERA scales. Although there was a predictable pattern of association between matemal and child affect in the Non-Aggressive group, there was no association at al1 between matemal and child affect in the Aggressive group. The findings are discussed in light of their theoretical and clinical implications. Acknowledgements I am grateful to the mothers and children who volunteered their time and energy to participate in this research. This study would not have been possible without their cooperation. My dissertation cornmittee provided me with inspiration. encouragement and expertise. I would like to thank my supervisor, Jennifer Connolly, for guiding me with exceptional insight and honesty through my years in graduate school. I would like to thank my cornmittee members, Sarah Landy and Debra Pepler, for their support and invaluable suggestions. I also appreciate the many hours Sarah Landy spent coding interaction tapes. I would like to thank my friends and colleagues, Mirek Lojkasek and Anne- Siri Oyen, for their emotional and intellectual support and encouragement. The opportunity to share thoughts and ideas with them was very important to me, and meant that I never felt alone throughout this long project. It gives me great pleasure to follow in their footsteps. I want to thank our research coordinator, Noma Sockett-DiMarco, for her calm and sensitive ability to manage the chaos of data collection with aggressive children. I would also like to thank her successor, Emanuel Alkalay. 60th of them were extremely helpful in facilitating my piece of the research. I am very grateful to the many volunteers who helped with data collection. I would particularly like to thank Arlette Garreton and Joanne Doucet for their outstanding dedication and perseverance. I want to thank Erica Anderson for training Our team to score the Parent- Child Early Relational Assessment, and for coding a number of interaction tapes. vii I would like to thank Anne-Sin Oyen and Glen Farley for their invaluable technical support of this project. Their laser printer, laptop cornputer, fax machine, and email address allowed my work to proceed with efficiency and speed. I want to thank my parents, Elizabeth and Peter Tsuk, my grandmother, Lilly Tsuk, and my brother, Nicholas Tsuk, for their unconditional love and support throughout my life. I appreciate al1 the time my mother spent with us caring for Noah so that I could write. She provided Noah with an emotional relationship that allowed me to concentrate on my dissertation without having to worv about his happiness. I am grateful to my father for always believing in the value of higher education and for encouraging me to pursue ambitious goals. I would like to thank my son, Noah, for keeping me in the here-and-now and filling me with so much love and wonder that there was no room for anxiety or discouragement in the final stages of this dissertation. Noah has introduced me to depths of emotion that I did not know existed within me. Finally, and most importantly, Basil's support, understanding and patience throughout my long and arduous joumey through graduate school went beyond what can be expected from any partner in life. When he vowed on Our wedding day to support me in al1 of rny endeavours I cannot imagine that he realized the enormity of the job! I could not have achieved this without his endless help and his affirming presence. And I would never have accomplished the final stages of this dissertation without Basil's parental leave, which allowed us to spend weeks at a time in Vermont, where I wrote with an inspirational view of snow-covered mountains, while Basil introduced Noah to the joys of winter. viii Table of Contents .......................................... .,. ............................................................ Abstract iv ....................................................................................... Acknowledgements vi .................................................................................................. List of Tables x ................................................................................................ List of Figures xi ................................................................................................... Introduction 1 .............. The Social Learning Perspective on Childhood Aggression 9 ................................ Emotion Regulation and Childhood Aggression 13 ............................................. Attachment and Childhood Aggression 17 Matemal Responsiveness and Emotional Expressiveness and ............................................................................... C hild Adjustment 26 Observations of Mother-Child Interaction with Aggressive ..................................................................................... Preschoolers 31 .................................................................... The Research Objective 35 Hypoth eses ......................................................................................- 35 ......................................................................................................... Method 36 Participants .....................................................................................-. 36 .......................................................................................... Measures 42 ........................................................ Child Behavior Checklist 42 ............................. Parent-Child Early Relational Assessrnent 43 ................................................ Separation-Reunion Scoring ..47 .......................................................................................... Procedur e 49 ......................................................................................................... Results 53 .......................... Group Differences in Sociodernographic Variables 53 .............................................. Factor Replicability of the ERA Scales 53 Associations Between the Sociodemographic Variables ............................................................ and the Dependent Variables 58 Group Differences in ERA Scales and Separation-Reunion Scores.60 Post Hoc Examination of Matemal Scales with Child Behaviour ................................................................................... as a Covariate 65 Post Hoc Examination of the Relationship Between Maternal ........................................................ and Child Interaction Variables -66 Post Hoc Examination of the Contribution of Specific ERA Scale ............................................................... Items to Group Differences 72 Further Consideration of the Influence of Sociodemographic Variables on Group Differences ........................................................7 5 .................................................................................................... Discussion 79 ............................................ Theoretical Implications of the Findings 80 Maternal Positive Affective Involvement and Maternal ................................................................................. Negative Affect -84 ...................................................... Dyadic Aspects of the Interaction 93 Maternal Communication Regarding Emotions and Mutual ......................................... Planning During Separation and Reunion 94 ............................................... The Importance of the Social Context 97 ........................................................................... Clinical implications 99 ......................... Limitations and Suggestions for Future Research 102 ...................................................................................... Conclusion 106 ................................................................................................ References 108 .............................. Appendix A: Information Letters and Consent Fo mis 120 ................................... Appendix B: Mother-Child Interaction Instructions 126 List of Tables Table 1 Parent-Child Early Relational Assessrnent Scales .................4 5 Table 2a Sociodemographic Character istics of the Aggressive and ........................................................ Non-Aggressive Groups S4 Table 2b Distribution of Parents' Education in the Aggressive and ......................................................... Non-Aggressive Groups 55 Table 3 Correlations of Sociodemographic Variables and Dependent ................................................................................ Variables 59 ............... Table 4 Inter-Correlations of Sociodernographic Variables ..61 Table 5 Means and Standard Deviations for Aggressive and Non-Aggressive Groups on al1 Dependent Variables ............ .63 Table 6 Inter-Correlations of ERA Scales and Separation-Reunion Scores for the Total Sample and for the Aggressive and Non-Aggressive Groups ........................................................- 67 Table 7 Mean Scores on Individual Variables of ERA Scales for the .............................. Aggressive and Non-Aggressive Groups .73
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