Parent’s representations, or cognitive schemas of self and other, are activated during pregnancy as the they develop an image of their unborn child. Prenatal representations of the child are associated with later parenting behaviors. Indifferent and emotionally distorted (unbalanced) prenatal representations predict more negative postnatal parenting while coherent, realistic (balanced) representations predict more sensitive parenting. Sensitive parenting in turn predicts key developmental outcomes including child externalizing behavior. Despite the association between prenatal representations and developmental correlates such parenting, the relationship between representations and child outcomes remains underexplored. The present study aimed to address this gap in the literature by investigating maternal sensitivity as a mechanism through which maternal prenatal representations impact preschool children’s externalizing symptoms. I hypothesized that non-balanced representations would predict greater child externalizing behavior through lower maternal sensitivity and that child temperament would moderate this indirect effect. Participants (N=206) were enrolled in a larger longitudinal study investigating the impact of Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) on mothers and their children. Assessments occurred during pregnancy and annually between child ages one and four. IPV was covaried in all analyses. The hypotheses were not supported; the indirect effect of representations on child externalizing via maternal sensitivity was not significant nor was it conditional upon child temperament. Potential explanations for null findings and future directions are discussed.
Read
