Parental Hostility
Parental Warmth and Hostility in Parent-Child Interactions
in Families of Depressed Parents
Elissa Gerfen
Vanderbilt University
1
Parental Hostility
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Abstract
The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of parental hostility and
warmth on the children of depressed parents. The study includes parents with a history of
Major Depressive Disorder and their children as participants. Parents and their children
were filmed responding to pre-determined questions about positive and negative events in
their families during two 15-minute interactions. The focus of the study is on levels of
aggression and externalizing behaviors of the children in relation to the levels of parental
hostility and warmth. The results demonstrated a positive correlation between parental
hostility and child aggression and externalizing. Conversely, the results demonstrated a
negative correlation between parental warmth and child aggression and externalizing
behavior problems. Further, the regression analyses demonstrated a stronger association
between parental hostility than parental warmth with children’s behavior problems.
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Hostility in Parent/ Child Interactions in Families with Depressed Parents
Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) is among the most common psychological
disorders. Further, rates of depression are highest among individuals from families with
a history of depression. While the pathway of development of depression is not clear,
environmental pressures such as living with a parent suffering from depression can
increase the chance of the children developing depression themselves. Studies have found
that stressful relationships are both the cause and the result of depression (Hammen,
2003) and therefore interpersonal relationships between depressed parents and their
children are an important focus of research in regard to the transmission of depression.
Research has suggested that as many as 45% of children of depressed parents will
develop major depression by adolescence (Jacob & Johnson, 2001). A follow-up study
found that the peak age of onset of MDD is from 15-20 years and children of depressed
parents have a five times higher rate of developing MDD than children of non-depressed
parents (Weissman et al., 1997). These high rates of the development of depression in
children of depressed parents demonstrate the importance of studying the interpersonal
relationships that occur within interactions of the child and parent.
There have been numerous studies conducted on the different aspects of parenting
in depressed parents that lead to child depression. For example, Radke-Yarrow et al.
(1994) noted that the prototypic depressed mother can have symptoms including anxious
and depressive affect, irritability, helplessness, emotional unavailability, and absorption
in self. Parental impairments include high rates of dysphoric mood, low rates of positive
affect, negative views of the child, high rates of criticism, and low involvement or
conversely over involvement with the child (e.g., Jaser et al., 2005; Lovejoy et al., 2000,
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Radke-Yarrow et al., 1994). While some studies have suggested a “prototypic depressed
mother” there are no set patterns for the specific combination of impairments or
characteristics that a parent will display; each parent has a unique pattern and range of
numbers of these.
A meta-analysis by Lovejoy et al. (2002) examines previously conducted studies
on maternal depression and parenting behavior. These studies were broken down into
negative coercive behaviors, positive behaviors, and disengagement. Mothers
demonstrate a wide range of parenting behavior difficulties when in an episode of
depression according to qualitative review of research (Lovejoy et al., 2000). These
impairments disrupt the parent’s abilities to successfully parent and it has been found that
these impairments persist beyond episodes of depression. For a parent to be considered
currently depressed they must either be currently experiencing an episode of depression
or have had an episode within the last 12 months (Lovejoy et al., 2000). Parents who
have a history of depression must have had at least one episode of depression that
fulfilled the DSM-IV diagnosis. Although the effects of depression endure, larger effect
sizes appear for negative and coercive behavior in parents who are in episodes of
depression than in parents who have a history of depression but who are not currently
depressed. The same holds true for demonstrations of sadness, disengagement, and
antisocial behavior during both positive and negative interactions (Jaser et al., 2008).
All of these parental impairments lead to risks for children of depressed parents
and ultimately an increased chance of children developing depression and other mental
health problems. Parental depression and the resulting impairments in parenting ability
can interfere with their children’s emotional development. Children of depressed parents
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may receive relatively little help from their parents in understanding as well as regulating
their own feelings and emotions. They also have mixed expectations regarding care
giving. These “maladaptive representations of social relationships” lead to emotional
insecurities and may provide examples for increased risk of psychopathology
development in children of depressed parents (Cummings, 1995).
Two of the ways that parental depression manifests itself in relation to the child is
through lack of involvement (withdrawal) or over involvement (intrusiveness) (Jaser et
al., 2005). Parental intrusiveness can take a hostile tone with the child. Past research has
demonstrated the importance for examining the effects of parents who display both
hostility and depression. Alpert et al. (2003) demonstrated that parents who are
depressed and express “anger attacks” relates to children who have externalizing problem
(e.g., attention problems, delinquency, and aggression). This study also hints at an
increase in the recurrence of MDD episodes associated with the presence of hostility.
Alpert et al. (2003) unfortunately had a relatively small sample size and included children
who were experiencing subclinical symptoms. Many of the parents were also currently
experiencing an episode of depression, which may have worsened the effects of the
hostility. As discussed before, the effects of MDD continue to affect the lives of those
involved even when a parent is not experiencing an episode. Therefore it is important to
examine whether a parent who is not experiencing an episode of MDD will still have the
same effects when hostility is involved.
Similar rates of externalizing symptoms in children have been found even when
parental anger and hostility is directed at someone other than the child. For instance,
internalizing (e.g., anxiety and depression) and externalizing problems are related to
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exposure to interparental or marital conflict (Papp, Cummings, & Goeke-Morey, 2002).
A longitudinal study demonstrated marital hostility related to increases in the
internalizing of children and conversely, husband’s marital withdrawal related to
increases in the internalizing symptoms in those same children (Katz & Gottman, 1993).
Sturge-Apple, Davies, and Cummings (2006) expanded on this research and found that
while interparental hostility did not directly affect child adjustment, families were not
immune to the effects of hostility. Rather they interpret their findings on the basis of the
“spillover hypothesis” with interparental hostility affecting parental withdrawal, which in
turn affects child adjustment. Expanding on the research that multiple risk factors lead to
harmful effects on child development (e.g., Appleyard et al., 2005; Forehand et al., 1998)
recent research that the existence of both marital conflict and parental depression in the
household will increase a child’s risk for emotional insecurity (Kouros, Merrilees, &
Cummings, 2008). This suggests that if children who are affected by parental depression
and marital hostility suffer from emotional difficulties, children who encounter direct
hostility would suffer as well. For instance, in a study of over reactive mothers, Kouros,
et al. (2008) found a correlation with externalizing behaviors in infants (2-3 year-olds).
Cummings and colleagues found that those children who have past experiences
with marital conflict in the home are more apt to pick up on when their parent use
constructive ideas in conflict resolution in their conversations (Cummings et al., 2007).
This relates to the studies that propose that when parental warmth is present, it negates
the effects of parental hostility, on children’s externalizing behaviors (Shaw, et al., 1998).
This study also notes the importance of the inverse relationship, that when a parent
exhibits a lack of warmth, it can cause an increase in children’s externalizing behaviors,
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which may be due to children’s inability to recognize consequences for their behavior
(O’Leary et al., 1999). However, little research has been done with regards to parental
hostility in depressed parents.
Ongoing research at Vanderbilt University and the University of Vermont provide
the current data of direct observation of parent-child interactions. Direct observation of
parent-child interactions in this study may provide information about the parent’s role in
the functioning of their offspring. In particular, the role of parental hostility and parental
warmth are important to this for understanding the influence of parental hostility on
children’s behavior.
Since both parental depression and parental hostility directly contribute to stress
for children. I hypothesize that parents who demonstrate hostility will have children who
demonstrate more externalizing behaviors such as oppositional defiance and aggression.
Second, I also hypothesize that those parents who demonstrate high levels of warmth will
have children with inversely related externalizing scores. Thirdly, I will examine the
interaction of the levels of warmth and hostility in the parent and the effects on the child.
Method
Participants
The study included 103 parents (91 mothers and 12 fathers) and 137 children (66
girls and 71 boys) of these parents as participants. Each parent must have experienced at
least one episode of Major Depressive Disorder in their lifetime, but may not currently
meet the DSM-IV criteria Major Depressive Disorder, Psychotic Disorder, nor bipolar
disorder. The children must be between the ages of 9 and 15-years-old (M=11.45) and
may not have a current substance abuse problem or any history of conduct disorder. This
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age range paralleled previous studies on the children of depressed parents (e.g., Anderson
& Hammen, 1993; Rudolph & Hammen, 2000). In addition, the children may not be
experiencing a current episode of depression. The participants were all part of a larger
multi-site longitudinal study, which evaluates an intervention technique (Compas et al.,
2002).
Measures
Parents and children both completed assessments of children’s behavior problems.
The parents completed the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL), which is a 118-item
checklist assessing the child’s behaviors (Abenbach & Rescorla, 2001). The children
completed the Youth Self Report (YSR), the adolescent counterpart to the CBCL
(Abenbach & Rescorla, 2001). The YSR is a self-report designed for 10 to 16-year-olds,
designed for them to rate their own functioning over the past 6-months for 112 items. In
particular, this study used the Aggressive Behavior and Externalizing scales to address
the question of behavior changes in the child. Data are reported as normalized T scores,
based on separate norms for age and sex, but raw scores were used in all analyses to
allow for maximum variance.
Parents completed the Structured Clinical Diagnostic Interview (SCID). This
interview assesses both the current and past psychiatric diagnosis. The Beck Depression
Inventory (BDI-II) was used to assess the levels of depression in the parent. This
measure may demonstrate data that differs from the SCID.
The interactions were coded using the Iowa Family Interaction Rating Scales
(IFIRS). This rating scale is meant to code the observational data. Coders must reach a
level of reliability before they can begin to code these taped interactions. Two trained
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coders code each video. This inter-rater reliability helps to reestablish the reliability of
the IFIRS system. The consensus of the two coders also helps to resolve differences in
the coding. Each parent is coded for 23 different codes and each child is coded for 14
codes, each on a 9-point scale. This study focused on the codes for hostility and warmth
in the parents. The IFIRS code for hostility measures the degree to which the parent
displays hostile, angry, critical, disapproving and/or rejecting behavior toward their child
during the interaction. The code for warmth measures the degree to which the parent
displays or expresses appreciation, care, concern, liking, or support for their child during
the interaction.
Procedure.
Following the collection of parent and child reports, the parent and child will
complete a direct observation task. The task includes two 15-minute filmed interactions
between the parent and the child. The parent and child were given a set of questions for
each fifteen-minute interaction. Task 1 focused on a positive activity that the parent and
child had shared and the Task 2 focused on a recent time of depression or stress for the
parent that caused stress to the child. Both topics came from questionnaires that the
parent and child filled out at the beginning of the experiment. Two trained coders code
each fifteen-minute interaction separately before reaching consensus. Each coder views
the video for a total of five times, once for a preliminary viewing and twice for both the
parent and the child. Following coding, consensus is reached with several trained coders
to ensure reliability.
Results
Descriptive Statistics
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Means and standard deviations for aggressive children’s aggressive symptoms
and externalizing behaviors are presented for children’s self-reports and parents’ reports,
as well as the consensus codes for parents’ hostility and warmth, in Table 1. All scores
presented are either the raw sum scores or the consensus scores for the direct
observations.
Correlations
Pearson correlations were used to test the hypotheses regarding the relations
between children’s aggressive symptoms and externalizing behaviors against parental
hostility and warmth. The correlations for the independent variables of parent’s hostility
and warmth and the dependent variables of aggressive and externalizing behaviors are
presented in Table 2. Parents and children (on the CBCL and YSR, respectively)
reported positively correlating scores for aggressive and externalizing behaviors.
Aggressive behavior had a correlation of .474, p < .001 and externalizing behavior had a
correlation of .480, p < .001. This demonstrates an inter-rater reliability between the
parent and the child for scoring the child. Since both the CBCL and YSR scores for
externalizing behaviors include their respective scores for aggressive symptoms, the two
scores predictably have a positive correlation.
The correlations between the dependent variables and Parental Hostility scores are
consistent with the first hypothesis that parents who demonstrate hostility will have
children with increased levels of aggressive symptoms and externalizing behaviors. Both
scores of the CBCL aggression (r = .42 and .31) externalizing problems (r = -.42 and .35)
and the YSR aggression (r = .26 and .28) and externalizing problems (r = .28 and .27) had
Parental Hostility
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a significant positive correlation with Parent Hostility in both Task 1 and Task 2 (p <
.002).
Similarly, the correlations between the dependent variables and the Parental
Warmth scores are consistent with the second hypothesis that parents who demonstrate
warmth will have an inverse relationship with the levels of aggression and externalizing
behaviors in their children. In concordance with the second hypothesis, all correlations
had a significantly inverse relationship (r’s ranged from -.19 to -.31, all p < .05), except
for the correlation between Parental Warmth, Task 1, consensus code and the YSR score
for Aggressive Behavior (r = -.15, p = .07).
Multiple Linear Regressions of the Effects of Parental Hostility and Warmth
A multiple linear regression analysis was used to examine the interaction effects
that Parental Hostility and Warmth have on the aggressive and externalizing behaviors.
The results from this multivariate analysis indicated that in most cases Parental Hostility
remained significant, even when taking into account for Parental Warmth (Table 3). In
two instances Parental Warmth remained significant. These instances included in
predicting for CBCL Aggressive and CBCL Externalizing, Parental Warmth, Task 1
achieved a significant value (t = -2.14, p = .04; t = -2.67, p < 01). Thus, both parental
warmth and hostility were significant predictors of children’s aggressive and
externalizing problems, and there is some evidence that hostility is a stronger predictor
than warmth.
Discussion
The first hypothesis was that parents who demonstrate higher levels of hostility
would have children who have correlating high levels of aggression and externalizing. In
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accordance with previous research done by Papp et al. (2002) with regards to the
relationship between interparental hostility and increases in externalizing behavior
problems in their children, all of the correlations between observed parental hostility on
both a positive and a stressful task and the parent and child reports of children’s
aggression and externalizing were significantly and positively correlated.
The second hypothesis was that parents who demonstrate higher levels of warmth
would have children with lower levels of aggression and externalizing problems. All but
one of the correlations (parental warmth on the positive task and children’s self-reports of
aggression) demonstrated this inversely significant relationship (p < .05).
These results suggest that both parental hostility and parental warmth have a
direct relationship with their children’s levels of aggression and externalizing problems.
Therefore, I examined the relationship between parental hostility and warmth and the
effects of this relationship on the aggression and externalizing of the children. Warmth
remained significant after taking into account parental hostility in only two instances---on
the positive task with parent reports of children’s aggressive and externalizing behavior
problems. This implies a possible effect resulting from the difference in task. Contrary
to Franck and Buehler’s (2007) findings that warmth was not a buffer from the negative
effects of marital conflict, this study suggests that warmth may actually be able to
provide some sort of buffer. Further research will need to examine the effects of warmth
in a longitudinal study. The fact that hostility continued to be significant over warmth in
five of the other six regressions, demonstrates the importance of studying parental
hostility in parents with a history of depression
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This study had several limitations that will need to be addressed as the study
proceeds beyond the baseline data collection. This particular analysis was only a crosssectional examination of this population and therefore the causal direction is not clear due
to this research design. That the parents’ hostility is the cause for these aggressive and
externalizing behaviors is more of an inference. It is plausible that the parental hostility
is in reaction to the aggressive and externalizing behaviors that the children exhibit. A
longitudinal examination of the participants will provide more evidence toward causality.
Fortunately, the study will continue beyond the cross-sectional level and is currently
scheduled to follow these families for two years. Another aspect that limited the
experiments was the fact that the parents were heterogeneous regarding whether they
were in an episode of depression or not. The fact that some parents may have been in an
episode of depression at the time of the baseline interactions may have skewed their
levels of hostility. However, as demonstrated maladaptive parenting behaviors persist
beyond an episode of depression but should still be addressed in future studies (Lovejoy
et al., 2000).
This experiment also had several strengths. One of the main strengths is the
sample size. This large sample size was comparable to or larger than many of the studies
previously conducted on the subject of marital hostility and was able to add to the
statistical power of the analyses. Another strength was the multiple methodologies used
in evaluating the variables. Both the parents and the children reported on the offspring’s
Aggressive Behavior and Externalizing. This use of multiple methodologies helped to
eliminate reporter bias. In addition, the direct observation component brought with it a
different aspect of the parents actually interacting with their children. The strength of the
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inclusion of the direct observation could be seen in the correlations between the
interactions and the dependent variables across the two separate tasks. A third strength is
the fact that we identified an at risk group of children. These children, as demonstrated
by their T scores, have higher levels of aggression and externalizing behavior problems
than the normal population.
In conclusion, this study provides a basis for demonstrating the need of further
research into the role parental hostility plays in the aggressive and externalizing
behaviors of the offspring of depressed parents. The data demonstrated a significant
correlation between hostility and children’s behaviors, which lends itself to a possible
area of interest when conducting interventions for at risk children. This study
demonstrated another example of the importance of warmth in affecting a decrease in
aggressive and externalizing behaviors.
Parental Hostility
Table 1. Descriptive Variables.
Variables
CBCL Aggressive Behavior T score
CBCL Externalizing T score
YSR Aggressive Behavior T score
YSR Externalizing T score
Parent WM, Task 1, Consensus Code
Parent WM, Task 2, Consensus Code
Parent HS, Task 1, Consensus Code
Parent HS, Task 2, Consensus Code
Mean
56.89
53.95
55.76
50.29
4.90
4.70
3.48
3.82
Std. Deviation
7.67
10.95
7.51
10.78
1.53
1.87
1.79
2.03
N
132
132
134
134
135
131
135
131
15
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Table 2. Correlations of Parent’s Child Reports and Children’s Self Reports of
Aggressive Symptoms and Externalizing Behaviors and Consensus Codes on Parents
Hostility and Warmth.
Variable
1. CBCL Aggressive Behavior
2. CBCL Externalizing
3. YSR Aggressive Behavior
4. YSR Externalizing
5. Parent WM, Task 2
6. Parent WM, Task 1
7. Parent HS, Task 2
8. Parent HS, Task 1
*p<.05. **p<.01
1
--.98**
.47**
.48**
-.28**
-.26**
.42**
.31**
2
--.46**
.48**
-.29**
-.31**
.42**
.35**
3
--.96**
-.28**
-.15
.26**
.25**
4
---.29**
-.19*
.28**
.27**
5
--.44**
-.48**
-.28**
6
---.36**
-.31**
7
--.43**
8
---
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Table 3. Multiple Linear Regression of the Effects of Parental Hostility and Warmth on
the Aggressive and Externalizing Behaviors of their Children.
Step
R2
β at Entry
t
Predicting CBCL Aggressive
1. Parent HS, Task 1
.09
.31
3.82**
2. Parent HS, Task 1
.25
2.94**
Parent WM, Task 1
.12
-.18
-2.14**
1. Parent HS, Task 2
2. Parent HS, Task 2
Parent WM, Task 2
Predicting CBCL Externalizing
1. Parent HS, Task 1
2. Parent HS, Task 1
Parent WM, Task 1
1. Parent HS, Task 2
2. Parent HS, Task 2
Parent WM, Task 2
Predicting YSR Aggressive
1. Parent HS, Task 1
2. Parent HS, Task 1
Parent WM, Task 1
1. Parent HS, Task 2
2. Parent HS, Task 2
Parent WM, Task 2
Predicting YSR Externalizing
1. Parent HS, Task 1
2. Parent HS, Task 1
Parent WM, Task 1
1. Parent HS, Task 2
2. Parent HS, Task 2
Parent WM, Task 2
*p<.05. **p<.01
.18
.18
.12
.16
.18
.19
.06
.07
.07
.08
.07
.08
.08
.11
.42
.37
-.10
5.37**
4.14**
-1.11ns
.35
.27
-.22
4.36**
3.31**
-2.67**
.42
.37
-.11
5.39**
4.09**
-1.28ns
.25
.23
-.08
4.76**
2.64**
-.91ns
.26
.16
-.20
3.12**
1.73ns
-2.13ns
.27
.23
-.11
3.32**
2.72**
-1.30ns
.28
.18
-.21
3.34**
1.89ns
-2.20ns
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