THE RELATIONSHIP OF DEPRESSED MOOD AND LIFE STRESS TO MATERNAL PERCEPTIONS OF CHILD-BEHAVIOR

Used an analog design to explore the role played by depressed mood and by two levels of contextual stress-major life events and minor daily stressors-to determine maternal perceptions of and anticipated affective and behavioral responses to child behavior. Sixty-six single mothers responded to 12 descriptions of child behavior, each embedded in one of three stress contexts (i.e., major life events, minor daily stressors, or no stress). Scores on a measure of depressed mood were used to divide the sample into depressed and nondepressed mood groups. Analyses revealed that mothers were more affectively aroused, indicated a more intense anticipated behavioral reaction, and perceived the child behavior to be more deviant in the minor daily stressors condition compared to the other stress conditions. Only affective responses to child behavior were significantly different between the mood groups. Implications for understanding intraparent and contextual contributors to parent-child interaction difficulties are discussed