Journal of Family Psychology最新文献

Over the past decades, an increasing number of adults in the United States have begun identifying as nonreligious, despite many being raised in religious homes. Research has demonstrated that religious disaffiliation and religious differences can create relational distance and challenges in families. However, little research has explored these impacts on intergenerational relationships. With parents' perspectives as a focal point, given their role as gatekeepers between their children and their children's grandparents, we employed a grounded theory approach to the analysis of in-depth interviews with 29 nonreligious different-gender married couples (N = 58 parents), through which we identified four broad themes related to religious differences in intergenerational relationships: (a) engaging in familial religious traditions, (b) religious boundaries with family of origin, (c) children's upbringing as a point of conflict, and (d) children as a relational bridge. Based on connections between these themes, we developed the first (to our knowledge) conceptual model of how nonreligious parents navigate religious differences and intergenerational relationships, titled the Structure of the Influence of Religious Differences on Intergenerational Relationships model. Implications focused on helping families navigate religious differences both through and independent of therapeutic contexts are offered in light of this model. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Community violence is one of the biggest social safety issues in the United States. In the past year, over 1.4 million people were assaulted by various types of community violence (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2023). Understanding how perceived community violence affects maternal parenting stress, independent of other community characteristics, is critical for developing targeted interventions that support families in disadvantaged neighborhoods. Using data from the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N = 4,898 families across 20 U.S. cities), we estimated linear growth models with repeated measures at child ages 3, 5, 9, and 15. The sample overrepresented low-income families and minority populations. The results showed a correlation between higher initial levels of parenting stress and increased initial levels of perceived community violence, with both parenting stress and perceived community violence demonstrating concurrent decreasing trends over time. However, the rate of change in parenting stress was not significantly associated with the rate of change in perceived community violence. Results revealed that maternal parenting stress and perceived community violence are interconnected over time, with mothers experiencing higher stress also reporting higher community violence at baseline, and both declining concurrently as children aged. Such findings emphasized the importance of implementing interventions aimed at alleviating the negative impacts of community violence on family well-being. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Although many studies report a positive association between parental psychological control and relational aggression, others have found nonsignificant results. This three-level meta-analysis aimed to explore the relation between parental psychological control and relational aggression across developmental stages from preschool to college and test potential moderating factors. China National Knowledge Infrastructure, APA PsycInfo, Web of Science, Elsevier, ProQuest, and Google Scholar were systematically searched until April 2023. A three-level meta-analysis was conducted on included studies. Fifty-seven studies comprising 20,719 participants and 448 effect sizes were included. Findings revealed a significant positive association between parental psychological control and relational aggression. This relation was significantly moderated by the developmental period and by the informants of parental psychological control and relational aggression. This review helps clarify the association between parental psychological control and relational aggression and highlights key moderators of this relation. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Frontoparietal connectivity from electroencephalograms (EEG) and executive function (EF) behavioral task performance can elucidate one's capacity for cognitive self-regulation. Knowledge of mother-child similarity of EEG and EF behavioral performance provides insight into the developmental patterns of the organization and stabilization of these physiological and behavioral processes. The present study addresses a key question: does the similarity in EEG and EF task performance between children and their mothers exhibit a developmental increase from early to middle childhood? EEG frontoparietal coherence and behavioral performance during the completion of age-appropriate EF tasks were examined in children and their mothers. A socioeconomically diverse longitudinal sample of 175 mothers with their children at ages 3, 6, and 9 years completed laboratory visits. Results indicated that by child age 6 years, child-mother similarity had begun to emerge in EEG frontoparietal coherence. Moreover, and consistent with the study hypotheses, there was evidence of a pattern of increasing similarity in EEG frontoparietal coherence with increasing child age. There was also evidence of mother-child similarity in EF performance by age 9. These findings suggest that interventions targeting EF development may be more effective when engaging both mothers and children. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Emotional support from a caregiver is theorized to benefit adolescents after sexual abuse, yet the empirical evidence for this is inconsistent. The present study examines the cross-sectional relation between caregiver emotional support and youth mental health symptoms after sexual abuse, addressing several methodological factors that may explain why previous studies failed to find the relation (sample size, approach to measurement). Participants were 460 youth between 11 and 17 (M_age = 13.78, SD = 1.77; 92.4% female; 56.3% Hispanic/Latino/a) who presented at a child advocacy center after disclosing sexual abuse, along with their nonoffending caregiver (M_age = 39.65, SD = 8.52). Youth and caregivers completed measures of caregiver emotional support and youth mental health. Results of multivariate multilevel modeling indicated that youth reports of caregiver emotional support were associated with youth mental health symptoms regardless of the informant of the symptoms (caregiver reports of youth mental health symptoms: B = -0.11, p = .006, d = .25; youth reports of mental health symptoms: B = -0.21, p < .001, d = .50). Caregiver reports of their emotional support were not associated with youth mental health symptoms. These findings highlight the importance of obtaining youth reports of caregiver emotional support in attempts to understand and address youth mental health symptoms following sexual abuse. The sample size and approach to measurement in this study bolster confidence in the findings. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Individual differences in environmental sensitivity (ES) moderate the effect of family environment on children's adjustment. Research on ES in early childhood is limited and mostly relies on mother reports. This preregistered study investigated the association between mothers' and fathers' perceptions of their child's ES and its moderating role in the relation between parenting and child behavioral problems among 271 mother-father dyads with a preschooler. Results showed a strong correlation (r = .75) between fathers' and mothers' reports of child ES. Alongside satisfactory parameters from the multigroup confirmatory factor analysis, these findings suggest that the scale effectively captures individual differences in child ES across informants, providing the first empirical evidence for its use with fathers. A single-parent perspective might also be reliable, depending on research needs and available resources. Pertaining the moderating role of combined child ES, findings suggest that the child ES significantly interacted with maternal acceptance on internalizing symptoms reported by both parents, with highly sensitive children exhibiting more internalizing symptoms under low maternal (but not paternal) warm and loving behaviors. When combining fathers and mothers' acceptance, a similar trend was found. Finding suggests that while the inclusion of fathers parenting-related variables did not provide significant information beyond the mothers' report, integrating mothers and fathers' perspectives on child's characteristics may offer a more comprehensive understanding than relying on informant-specific variables. Potential challenges in combining reports, due to differences in missing responses between mothers and fathers, are also discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Reports an error in "Parental burnout and child well-being: A dyadic analysis among mothers and fathers" by Maëlle Grandjean, Giulia Spagnulo, Laura M. Vowels and Joëlle Darwiche (Journal of Family Psychology, 2025[Sep], Vol 39[6], 767-777; see record 2026-36175-001). In the original article, the following funding information should have been included in the author note: "This research was supported by the University of Lausanne and by Swiss National Science Foundation Grant Number SNF CRSII5_213601." (The following abstract of the original article appeared in record 2026-36175-001). This study investigates the impact of parental burnout on children's daily well-being, a topic that currently remains underexplored in research. Using a daily diary methodology, we assessed the mean levels of child well-being as reported by parents across days and examined their relationship with both maternal and paternal burnout. Data were collected from 85 couples (85 mothers and 85 fathers) over an 8-day period, with parental burnout measured at baseline and child well-being assessed both at baseline and via daily reports. The findings indicate a significant association between maternal burnout and both mothers' and fathers' perceptions of their children's well-being, whereas the link with paternal burnout was weaker and more variable, making its interpretation more complex. While the study contributes to our understanding of the association between parental burnout and child well-being, future research should focus on incorporating children's self-reported perspectives, examining how the impact of burnout varies across ages, and considering diverse family structures. Addressing parental burnout will require interventions at both familial and societal levels to mitigate chronic stress and promote healthier family environments. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Activation parenting (AP) emphasizes encouraging children to face challenging and potentially novel situations in ways that may promote self-regulation (SR) and engagement (i.e., curiosity and persistence). Although AP was initially theorized to be unique to fathers, new research and updated conceptualizations include mothers. Conscious use of AP in response to child distress also remains untested. This study adapted the Coping with Children's Negative Emotions Scale to assess maternal and paternal AP and their concurrent relations with child SR and engagement. The sample included 678 caregivers of 2- to 5-year-old children (n = 66 fathers and n = 612 mothers). Four items from the Coping with Children's Negative Emotions Scale were selected a priori based on alignment with AP to create a composite score. Path analysis was used to assess concurrent relations between AP strategies and caregiver-reported child SR and engagement. Supportive parenting strategies that encourage coping through external support (e.g., soothing) or in situations that do not include parental challenges to the child (e.g., an accident) were included as covariates. Additional covariates included child sex, child age, and caregiver employment. AP strategies were positively associated with child SR and engagement. Strengths of relations between parenting strategies and child behavior did not significantly differ for AP and other supportive parenting responses. Caregiver gender did not moderate relations. Though limited by a reliance on cross-sectional, parent-report data, this study adds to a growing body of literature on the importance of AP as a general parenting construct that may be leveraged to support SR development. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

An increasing number of children grow up in joint physical custody (JPC), prompting interest in how this arrangement affects their development. Particularly, questions about the impact of JPC on early attachment development have placed young children at the forefront of scholarly attention. Yet, no systematic synthesis of research has examined attachment development in young children living in JPC, nor is there a comprehensive examination of how this research has been conducted. Thus, the present scoping review identifies and systematically compiles all available research on attachment of young children in JPC. Despite frequent references to attachment theory in the literature on JPC, only 10 studies explicitly grounded in attachment theory were found, revealing a much thinner evidence base than often assumed. These studies vary widely in forms of JPC, sample characteristics, and methodologies, and their findings are inconsistent. This heterogeneity likely reflects both societal changes over the past 3 decades, of relevance for JPC, and a diversity in how attachment theory is interpreted and applied. Theoretical differences have in turn shaped study designs, methodologies, and conclusions, ultimately influencing how attachment in young children in JPC is conceptualized and assessed. Furthermore, most research emphasizes behavioral outcomes rather than children's inner experiences, limiting our understanding of attachment processes. The review highlights these challenges and proposes directions for more coherent and theory-informed future research. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Within a relationship, stress might be shared and co-regulated between the partners at the physiological level, through cortisol linkage. Cortisol is sensitive to social inputs, and cortisol linkage may reflect stress-related dynamics in a couple or positive relational processes, such as marital distress or shared moments. For many couples, the transition to parenthood is accompanied by acute or chronic stressors that can impact the relationship. Concurrently, having a supportive and responsive partner becomes an important resource to adapt to the manifold changes. These relational processes may also play a role with respect to cortisol linkage. The current article reports a study that examined changes of cortisol linkage across the transition to parenthood, and whether high levels of psychological stress and perceived partner responsiveness were associated with stronger cortisol linkage. We used data from a longitudinal study of 120 couples (N = 240) who transitioned to parenthood. Participants collected saliva samples and completed an ecological momentary assessment over three consecutive days, during pregnancy, at 6 months and at 18 months postpartum. Cortisol linkage among partners was significant and positive, increased in strength from pregnancy to 6 months postpartum, and remained stable from 6 months to 18 months postpartum. Within-couples, higher levels of psychological stress were associated with a stronger linkage between partners, while higher perceived partner responsiveness was associated with a weaker cortisol linkage. These findings provide further evidence of cortisol linkage during the transition to parenthood, and its associations with positive and negative relational processes. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).