Family systems theory suggests that there are interrelationships among subsystems in the family over time, including the parenting subsystem. As such, parenting may be characterized in terms of the stability of a parent’s behavior over time such that a parent’s behavior influences his/her subsequent behavior, known as a spillover process. Likewise, the effects of one parent’s behavior on the other parent are salient and reflect crossover processes. Methodological approaches testing systemic effects in family research, specifically the Actor-Partner Interdependence model (APIM), term spillover as “actor” effects and crossover as “partner” effects. Based on family systems theory and utilizing APIM, this dissertation examined mothers’ and fathers’ parenting behaviors and perceptions of child behaviors. Specifically, the purposes of this dissertation were to (1) examine actor and partner effects in the stability of maternal and paternal parenting from 24 months to 36 months (Study 1; N = 151 mother-father dyads); (2) examine actor and partner effects in the relationship between maternal/paternal parenting behaviors (positive/negative) at 36 months and maternal/paternal perceptions of child aggression at 5 years (Study 2; N = 114 mother-father dyads). Data were drawn from the Early Head Start Research and Evaluation Project (EHSREP) and the Father and Child Interaction during Toddlerhood Sub-study (FACITS; a substudy of the EHSREP). Mothers and fathers included in the two studies resided with the child and were in a relationship together. Two actor-partner interdependence models (i.e., positive parenting model, negative parenting model) were analyzed by using Bayesian Structural Equation Modeling (BSEM) for each study. In the positive parenting model of Study 1, actor effects were found for both mothers and fathers. In terms of partner effects, fathers’ positive parenting behaviors at 24 months positively predicted mothers’ positive parenting behaviors at 36 months. In the negative parenting model of Study 1, only mothers had significant actor effects and mothers’ negative parenting behaviors at 24 months positively predicted fathers’ negative parenting behaviors at 36 months. In Study 2, mothers’ positive parenting behaviors at 36 months marginally predicted fathers’ perceptions of child aggression at 5 years. Crossover effects between mothers and fathers were not found in both studies, indicating that systems in families are more complex and there might be some other influences in family dynamics which I could not explain in the current studies.
Read
