Abstract
Research has shown that family alliance (FA), operationalized as the quality of mother–father-child triadic interactions, is important for child socioemotional development. However, few studies have investigated the predictors of FA, and there are few longitudinal studies available. Accordingly, this study first examined whether mothers’ and fathers’ marital satisfaction and parenting stress during infancy predicted FA five years later, when their children entered kindergarten. Second, the moderating role of both parents’ perspective-taking capacity as a moderator of these longitudinal associations was examined. The study was conducted with 113 intact families (mother–father-child). Marital satisfaction, parenting stress, and perspective taking were reported by both parents and FA was assessed by observation. Contrary to expectations, neither parent’s marital satisfaction or parenting stress was directly related to family alliance. However, significant moderating effects were found for both parents’ perspective taking, such that higher paternal and maternal parenting stress predicted poorer FA only among parents with relatively lower perspective-taking capacities. These findings suggest that some aspects of the quality of family interactions when children enter school can be predicted by mothers’ and fathers’ personal dispositions assessed as early as five years prior.
摘要
研究表明，家庭联盟(FA)对儿童的社会情感发展尤其重要，家庭联盟FA的情况可以反映出母亲-父亲-孩子三方互动的质量。然而，很少有研究调查FA的预测因素，也很少有纵向长期的研究。因此，本研究首先考察了父母在婴儿期阶段的婚姻满意度和育儿压力是否能预测在五年后孩子进入幼儿园时的家庭联盟FA情况。其次，研究了父母双方转换视角看待事物的能力对这些长时间的纵向关联的调节作用。本研究对113个完整的家庭(母亲-父亲-孩子)进行了调查。夫妻双方都报告了婚姻满意度、育儿压力和转换视角思考问题的能力，家庭联盟的状况也通过观察接受评估。与预期相反，父母的婚姻满意度和育儿压力都与家庭联盟没有直接关系。然而，研究发现，父母双方的视角转换能力都有显著的调节作用，例如，较高的家长养育压力只在换位思考能力相对较低的父母中预测较差的FA。这些发现表明，孩子入学时的家庭互动质量的某些方面可以通过提前在五年前就对父母的个人性格进行评估来预测。