Depressed mothers have negatively distorted views of the personalities and behaviors of their children. This is potentially problematic as parental reports of child behavior are a popular method of collecting data on children. The current study sought to extend the existing literature by investigating the degree to which internalizing symptomology and personality traits influence both mothers’ and fathers’ reports of their child’s temperament. This was done by applying the tri-factor model (Bauer et al., 2013) to data collected from the parents of 222 children (ages 3-5 years). Personality and psychopathological symptoms were related to both mothers’ and fathers’ perspectives of their children. However, the effects varied somewhat across dimensions of child temperament, and mothers and fathers. These results support concerns that psychological characteristics influence parental perceptions of their children. This work provides guidance regarding the contexts in which parents’ may be biased informants of child temperament.
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