Journal of Family Psychology最新文献

The family stress model has illuminated pathways from economic hardship to parents' psychological distress to impaired caregiving. However, there is less family stress model research examining other risk processes that link parental stressors to parenting or resilience processes that counteract these pathways. This study examined parents' developmentally appropriate attributions (DAAs) of young children's behavior as a link between multiple dimensions of parental adversity and stress, and multiple parenting indicators. Parental DAAs were hypothesized to (a) stem from childhood, cumulative, and contemporaneous adversity and stress and (b) relate to parenting quality. Participants were 95 mothers (M = 30.26 years, SD = 5.74, range = 20.01-45.66 years; 67.4% Black, 11.6% White, 7.4% bi-/multiracial, and 13.6% other) and their 4- to 6-year-old children residing in emergency shelters in a Midwestern metro area. Mothers completed validated measures on their own childhood abuse and neglect, DAAs, cumulative sociodemographic risk, current perceived stress and psychological distress, and the 5-min speech sample, later coded for expressed emotion (EE). Mother-child dyads then completed a 20-min structured interaction subsequently coded for observed effective parenting. Mothers' higher levels of childhood neglect and perceived stress were associated with their lower DAAs. In turn, higher DAAs were related to lower EE negativity, higher EE warmth, and more effective observed parenting. Parental DAAs may be a malleable target for interventions guided by the family stress model and resilience frameworks that could help parents reframe interpretations of ambiguous child behaviors in more benign, empathic, and developmentally sensitive ways to promote more positive parenting behaviors and relationships. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

The special issue brings together studies that offer new knowledge and insights about individual and family factors, and multilevel combinations of factors that compensate for or counteract the processes outlined in the family stress model. Studies demonstrate the applicability of the family stress model to processes operating during markedly different developmental periods (e.g., infancy, later adulthood) and to environmental stressors whose origins are essentially noneconomic in nature (e.g., earthquake). Studies also continue the vital work of expanding and strengthening the family stress model by incorporating culturally relevant risks and protective processes at the individual, family, and structural levels. Some of the critical tasks that lie ahead include giving attention to measurement issues, the robustness and replicability of findings, and families (e.g., African American) and family subsystems (e.g., father-child dyad, siblings, marital or conjugal subsystem, extended family subsystem) that are underrepresented in the research literature. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

The U.S. HIV epidemic disproportionately impacts Black/African American and Latina women. Many women living with HIV are primary caregivers for children, often navigating the unique stressors of parenting while managing their chronic illness. Though much research focuses on challenges facing this population, a strengths-based approach may highlight important avenues for prevention and intervention. Guided by the family stress model and multilevel resilience frameworks, this qualitative study explored factors promoting well-being and parent-child relationship-based resilience at the individual, family, and community levels. The sample included 14 mothers or other female caregivers living with HIV (MLH) and 13 children aged 9-16 (n = 27; 50% Latine, 42.9% Black/African American, 7.1% multiracial). Individual interviews were conducted with mothers and children following participation in a larger randomized controlled trial focused on HIV disclosure. Four broad themes and several subthemes emerged, including individual resilience of each child and parent, shared resilience within the dyad, and community resources and sources of resilience. Examples of resilience factors included children's internal assets (e.g., optimism), mothers' ability to cope with their illness, parent-child closeness, positive adaptation to HIV disclosure, and access to community supports. Notably, factors that contributed to shared resilience were identified as particularly unique and impactful in this population. Further, parents and children highlighted children's emotional and behavioral stability following disclosure as an important indicator of resilience. Overall, MLH and their children offered insight into the cultivation of both individual and shared resilience experiences, highlighting potential targets for strengths-based family interventions that further bolster these resilience processes. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

According to the family stress model (FSM), economic stressors undermine optimal child development through negative impacts on parent psychological well-being and family relationships, which in turn disrupt positive parenting. However, few studies have examined the role of interparental conflict among these pathways and the resilience factors that buffer the FSM processes. Understanding risk and resilience is especially relevant for families in Flint, MI, for whom poverty resulting from structural racism and chronic disinvestment has coincided with public health crises. Using 199 families from low socioeconomic backgrounds in an ongoing parenting intervention in Flint, this study examined whether parent psychological distress and interparental conflict mediated the association between economic pressure at baseline (around birth) and cognitive stimulation at 9 months, and whether parenting self-efficacy and social support moderated the sequential mediation. Data were collected through parent interviews at both time points. We found that the negative association between economic pressure at baseline and cognitive stimulation at 9 months was sequentially mediated by parent psychological distress and interparental conflict. Furthermore, this negative sequential mediation was reduced and became nonsignificant when parents reported higher levels of parenting self-efficacy and social support. These findings suggest that improving interparental relationships in addition to parent mental health may promote positive parenting in at-risk two-parent families and that strength-based interventions are needed to reinforce parenting self-efficacy and facilitate parents' social networks and connections with the community to foster positive parenting. Programs should address these issues during infancy to build a strong foundation for long-term healthy development. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

This commentary for the special issue on resilience processes related to the family stress model of economic hardship (FSM; Conger & Elder, 1994) reviews the early origins of the FSM during the 1980s and how it developed into a model that has proven useful in family stress research. In the following comments, Conger describes the development of the model as a theoretical guide for a long-term study of family response to severe economic difficulties. First, he considers the setting for the planned study of rural families negotiating the financial collapse of the agricultural economy in Iowa during the 1980s. Second, he examines empirical findings from earlier research on family and individual response to economic hardship and gaps in that research that needed to be addressed in the original FSM study. He also considers evidence from adverse life circumstances that helped generate theoretical hypotheses in framing the model. Finally, these comments considered findings from a qualitative analysis of the experiences of three rural families that provided an early empirical test of the FSM's theoretical ideas. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Reports an error in "The perceived quality of maternal care during childhood shapes attentional bias to infant faces in parents and nonparents" by Micol Gemignani, Michele Giannotti and Simona de Falco (Journal of Family Psychology, 2024[Aug], Vol 38[5], 797-807; see record 2024-65646-001). In the article, in the Main Analysis subsection of the Results section, the values reported as betas (β) should be unstandardized coefficients (b). (The following abstract of the original article appeared in record 2024-65646-001). While research has shown that the attentional bias to infant faces predicts the quality of infant care, the antecedents of this cognitive process have been less established. In particular, it remains unknown whether the attentional bias to infant faces might be affected by the interplay between different factors, including memories of past experiences of care, adults' sex, and the experience of parenthood. To extend previous results, we examined the attentional bias to infant faces in a mixed sample of parents (n = 99) and nonparents (n = 102), and whether it varied in relation to parental status, sex, the quality of past experiences of care, and the interactions between these factors. A modified go/no-go task was used to compare the effect of adult and infant faces in retaining adults' attention. Memories of past experiences of paternal and maternal care were collected using the short form of the Italian version of the Parental Acceptance-Rejection scale. Results confirmed that infant faces induced greater attentional interference compared to adult faces. A heightened attention to all types of faces was found in parents versus nonparent. Women, as compared to men, were slower in the task performance, and allocated more attention to infant versus adult faces. Consistent with previous evidence, the attentional prioritization of infant faces varied in relation to previous experiences of care with one's own mother; individuals who remembered a more accepting maternal care allocated more attention to infant versus adult faces. Parental status did not modulate this effect, but sex of participants did. Grounded in the interpersonal acceptance-rejection theory (IPARTheory), this study provides new insights for discerning processes that might regulate global adult caregiving. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

The present study investigated economic hardship and feelings of loneliness in line with the Family Stress Model (FSM) for husbands and wives in enduring marriages, as well as the importance of self-mastery as a resilience factor that may disrupt its effects. Data came from 226 husbands and wives who participated from middle to later adulthood. Assessments included self-report and observational measures. Economic hardship, economic pressure, emotional distress in the form of hostility, and observed harsh couple interaction were assessed in middle adulthood. Loneliness was assessed in later adulthood. Self-mastery in the later years was examined as a resilience process for loneliness. Using structural equation models with a dyadic approach, consistent with the FSM, results indicated economic hardship related to economic pressure, which was related to husband and wife hostility. Both actor and partner effects were significant for the paths from hostility to harsh couple interaction for husbands and for wives. However, it was only wife to husband harsh couple interaction that predicted both wife and husband loneliness. In terms of the resilience process, self-mastery had a compensatory effect for husband and wife loneliness, and wife mastery buffered the effects of her harsh couple interactions and husband loneliness. Results suggest economic hardship experienced in middle adulthood has long-term effects on loneliness into later adulthood, but self-mastery was revealed as an individual- and partner-level resilience factor that reduced or buffered the negative impact of FSM on loneliness. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

The family stress model provides a theoretical framework for understanding relations among economic hardship, parental distress, family relationships and behavior, and child outcomes. The present study aimed to replicate its paths with predictors and mechanisms studied before and over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, and child problematic coping as the outcome. We also examined how sources of family resilience related directly to or moderated relations among family stress model variables. Participants included 170 families of predominantly non-Hispanic White background with varying socioeconomic circumstances. Assessments occurred across early childhood (age 2-4 years, prepandemic) and at two points during the pandemic (child mean ages = 7.32 and 7.80 years, respectively). Mothers completed laboratory observation (maternal warmth) and surveys prior to (income-to-needs, social support) and during (economic stress, maternal distress, negative parenting, child coping) the pandemic. Unexpectedly, higher prepandemic income-to-needs predicted greater maternal distress early in the pandemic. Prepandemic social support (inversely) and early pandemic maternal distress (positively) are related to early pandemic negative parenting. Prepandemic income-to-needs predicted early pandemic negative parenting indirectly through early pandemic maternal distress. When mothers reported a high number of positive changes during the pandemic, negative parenting predicted child involuntary engagement coping midpandemic. Social support predicted lower child involuntary engagement coping through lower negative parenting. Results replicated the risk path between parental distress and negative parenting, and extended risk to higher income families. Findings suggest that the family stress model provides a theoretical foundation from which to study risk and resilience processes in families during the COVID-19 pandemic. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

The family stress model has been used widely to interpret how economic circumstances affect human development. However, its applicability to Chinese families with adolescents during the COVID-19 pandemic remains unclear. Although resilience processes have been integrated into this model, they have seldom been examined in the Chinese family context. To address these research gaps, we leveraged data collected before (2018; T1) and during the pandemic (2020; T2) from the nationally representative China family panel studies and tested how the change in family economic status foretells Chinese adolescents' development during the pandemic. The sample consisted of 1,148 adolescents (607 boys and 541 girls; M_age = 11.51 ± 1.13 years old at T1) and their mothers. At T1 and T2, objective and subjective family economic status were assessed. Mothers rated their depression and positivity. At T2, adolescents rated nurturant-involved parenting, family conflicts, and their own positivity, depression, and academic self-regulation. The number of COVID-19 cases in each province was extracted to index regional pandemic risk. Results showed that the associations of the T1-to-T2 changes in family income (mainly in regions with higher pandemic risk) and subjective family economic status with T2 family conflicts and T2 nurturant-involved parenting were linked by the T1-to-T2 change in maternal positivity. In turn, the associations of T2 family conflicts and T2 nurturant-involved parenting with adolescents' depression and academic self-regulation at T2 were linked by T2 adolescent positivity. These findings suggest that nurturing personal positivity is a promising approach to mitigating the negative impacts of family economic stress. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

The 2007-2009 economic recession was among the largest in U.S. history, which had reverberating impacts on families within the United States and globally. Latine families were among those most adversely affected economically, yet did not show increased negative outcomes in their psychosocial and physical health. Informed by the Family Stress Model and using a mixed methods approach, this study examined the qualitative experiences of 111 Mexican-origin families during this recession and its impact on their family relationships and adjustment. Ninety mothers (M_age = 44.07 years), 67 fathers (M_age = 47.03 years), 47 younger siblings (57% women; M_age = 17.74 years), and 50 older siblings (58% women; M_age = 21.06 years) specifically noted that the recession impacted their family via three broad themes: changes to family dynamics, strategies for managing financial hardship, and impacts on well-being. Additionally, we quantitatively assessed how early-recession sociodemographic, familial, and cultural characteristics related to participants' experiences. Parents who reported more positive adjustment strategies and well-being in their narratives reported having warmer parent-child relationships and more egalitarian gender role attitudes when the recession began. In addition, youths' higher religiosity was linked to more recession-related family conflict. Our findings highlight how family members work together to buffer the effects of economic hardship via reorganizing resources, fostering interdependence, placing family needs above one's own, and having flexibility in one's roles. As such, these findings have the potential to inform expansions of the Family Stress Model to capture resilience and strength in Mexican-origin families and inform culturally responsive programming in the future. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).