Hostility and perceived parental rearing behaviour

Older Parents' Cynical Hostility and Their Relationships with Their Adult Children: A Longitudinal Dyadic Study of North American Couples

Older adults' relationships with their children are often a source of reciprocal emotional and instrumental support, but also of strain. Cynical hostility is a cognitive schema, according to which people cannot be trusted. Previous studies showed that cynical hostility has adverse implications for social relationships. Little is known about the possible outcomes of parental cynical hostility on older adults' relationships with their children. Two waves of the Health and Retirement Study and Actor-Partner Interdependence Models were used to examine the way spouses' cynical hostility at Time 1 is associated with their own and their spouse's relationship with the children at Time 2. Both partners' cynical hostility predicts his or her own strain in the relationship with the children, and for husbands, their spouse's cynical hostility also predicts strain. For husbands only, their own cynical hostility is associated with reduced perceived support from their children. Finally, a husband's cynical hostility is associated with both partners' reduced contact with their children. These findings illuminate the social and familial costs of cynical hostility in old age, suggesting that older adults with higher levels of cynical hostility may be more susceptible to strained relationships with their children.

Trait anger and negative interpretation bias in neutral face perception

Introduction

Anger is a basic emotion helping people to achieve goals by preparing the body for action and prompting others to change their behavior but is also associated with health issues and risks. Trait anger, the disposition to experience angry feelings, goes along with an attribution of hostile traits to others. Negative distortions in the interpretation of social information have also been observed in anxiety and depression. The present study examined the associations between components of anger and negative interpretation tendencies in the perception of ambiguous and neutral schematic faces controlling for anxiety, depressed mood, and other variables.

Methods

A sample of 150 young adults performed a computer-based perception of facial expressions task and completed the State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory (STAXI-2) along with other self-report measures and tests.

Results

Trait anger and anger expression correlated with the perception of negative affects in neutral but not in ambiguous faces. More specifically, trait anger was linked to the attribution of anger, sadness, and anxiety to neutral faces. Trait anger predicted perceived negative affects in neutral faces when adjusting for anxiety, depression, and state anger.

Discussion

For neutral schematic faces, the present data support an association between trait anger and negatively biased interpretation of facial expression, which is independent of anxiety and depressed mood. The negative interpretation of neutral schematic faces in trait angry individuals seems not only to comprise the attribution of anger but also of negative emotions signaling weakness. Neutral schematic facial expressions might be useful stimuli in the future study of anger-related interpretation biases.

Parental rejection in early adolescence predicts a persistent ADHD symptom trajectory across adolescence

Despite a general decrease of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms during adolescence, these may persist in some individuals but not in others. Prior cross-sectional studies have shown that parenting style and their interaction with candidate genes are associated with ADHD symptoms. However, there is a lack of longitudinal research examining the independent and interactive effects of parenting and plasticity genes in predicting the course of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms across adolescence. Here, we investigated how children perceived their parents' parenting style (i.e., rejection, overprotection, and emotional warmth) at the age of 11, and their interaction with DRD4, MAOA, and 5-HTTLPR genotypes on parent-reported ADHD symptoms at three time points (mean ages 11.1, 13.4, and 16.2 years) in 1730 adolescents from the TRacking Adolescents' Individual Lives Survey (TRAILS). Growth Mixture Modeling in Mplus identified four ADHD symptom trajectories: low, moderate stable, high decreasing, and high persistent. Perceived parental rejection predicted class membership in the high persistent trajectory compared to the other classes (p < 0.001, odds ratios between 2.14 and 3.74). Gene-environment interactions were not significantly related to class membership. Our results indicate a role of perceived parental rejection in the persistence of ADHD symptoms. Perceived parental rejection should, therefore, be taken into consideration during prevention and treatment of ADHD in young adolescents.

Attachment, Social Value Orientation, Sensation Seeking, and Bullying in Early Adolescence

In this study, bullying is examined in light of the "prosocial security hypothesis"- i.e., the hypothesis that insecure attachment, with temperamental dispositions such as sensation seeking, may foster individualistic, competitive value orientations and problem behaviors. A group of 375 Italian students (53% female; Mean age = 12.58, SD = 1.08) completed anonymous questionnaires regarding attachment security, social values, sensation seeking, and bullying behaviors. Path analysis showed that attachment to mother was negatively associated with bullying of others, both directly and through the mediating role of conservative socially oriented values, while attachment to father was directly associated with victimization. Sensation seeking predicted bullying of others and victimization both directly and through the mediating role of conservative socially oriented values. Adolescents' gender affected how attachment moderated the relationship between sensation seeking and problem behavior.

Mediators of the Association Between Childhood Emotional Maltreatment and Young Adult Men's Life Satisfaction

Childhood emotional maltreatment has been linked to a wide range of deleterious physical and psychological adult health outcomes. The present study extends past research by examining the effects of childhood emotional maltreatment on young adult men's life satisfaction through its effects on hostility and perceptions of social relationships. Participants were 423 single men who completed two interviews 1 year apart. As hypothesized, the association between self-reported childhood emotional maltreatment and adult life satisfaction was mediated through general hostility, rejection sensitivity in romantic relationships, and perceptions of male friends' social support. These findings suggest that interventions which address distorted perceptions of romantic partners and friends might reduce the negative impact of childhood emotional maltreatment.

Education as an Antidote to Cynicism: A Longitudinal Investigation

Although cynical beliefs about human nature yield numerous adverse consequences for individuals' life outcomes and well-being, very little is known about factors that counteract the development of cynical beliefs. Drawing from the literature on the "education effect" describing the importance of education in overcoming close-mindedness and negative views of others, we propose that education can represent an antidote to cynicism. The results of two large-scale longitudinal studies showed that education was associated with lower levels of cynicism over time spans of 4 and 9 years. Longitudinal mediation analyses underscored the role of individual differences in perceived constraints, a facet of personal control, as the psychological mechanism underlying the education effect: Higher education is associated with a reduced perception of constraints, which is in turn related to less endorsement of cynical beliefs.

Parental rearing behavior prospectively predicts adolescents' risky decision-making and feedback-related electrical brain activity

The present study examined the role of parental rearing behavior in adolescents' risky decision-making and the brain's feedback processing mechanisms. Healthy adolescent participants (n = 110) completed the EMBU-C, a self-report questionnaire on perceived parental rearing behaviors between 2006 and 2008 (T1). Subsequently, after an average of 3.5 years, we assessed (a) risky decision-making during performance of the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART); (b) event-related brain potentials (ERPs) elicited by positive (gain) and negative feedback (loss) during the BART; and (c) self-reported substance use behavior (T2). Age-corrected regression analyses showed that parental rejection at T1 accounted for a unique and significant proportion of the variance in risk-taking during the BART; the more adolescents perceived their parents as rejecting, the more risky decisions were made. Higher levels of perceived emotional warmth predicted increased P300 amplitudes in response to positive feedback at T2. Moreover, these larger P300 amplitudes (gain) significantly predicted risky decision-making during the BART. Parental rearing behaviors during childhood thus seem to be significant predictors of both behavioral and electrophysiological indices of risky decision-making in adolescence several years later. This is in keeping with the notion that environmental factors such as parental rearing are important in explaining adolescents' risk-taking propensities.

Externalizing behaviors in preadolescents: familial risk to externalizing behaviors and perceived parenting styles

The aim was to investigate the contribution of familial risk to externalizing behaviors (FR-EXT), perceived parenting styles, and their interactions to the prediction of externalizing behaviors in preadolescents. Participants were preadolescents aged 10-12 years who participated in TRAILS, a large prospective population-based cohort study in the Netherlands (N = 2,230). Regression analyses were used to determine the relative contribution of FR-EXT and perceived parenting styles to parent and teacher ratings of externalizing behaviors. FR-EXT was based on lifetime parental externalizing psychopathology and the different parenting styles (emotional warmth, rejection, and overprotection) were based on the child's perspective. We also investigated whether different dimensions of perceived parenting styles had different effects on subdomains of externalizing behavior. We found main effects for FR-EXT (vs. no FR-EXT), emotional warmth, rejection, and overprotection that were fairly consistent across rater and outcome measures. More specific, emotional warmth was the most consistent predictor of all outcome measures, and rejection was a stronger predictor of aggression and delinquency than of inattention. Interaction effects were found for FR-EXT and perceived parental rejection and overprotection; other interactions between FR-EXT and parenting styles were not significant. Correlations between FR-EXT and perceived parenting styles were absent or very low and were without clinical significance. Predominantly main effects of FR-EXT and perceived parenting styles independently contribute to externalizing behaviors in preadolescents, suggesting FR-EXT and parenting styles to be two separate areas of causality. The relative lack of gene-environment interactions may be due to the epidemiological nature of the study, the preadolescent age of the subjects, the measurement level of parenting and the measurement level of FR-EXT, which might be a consequence of both genetic and environmental factors.

Family stability during childhood and the risk to develop hypertensive diseases in pregnancy

BACKGROUND

Parental care giving, divorce and death are associated with physical health as an adult.

AIM

To investigate whether the structure of the nuclear family during childhood shows any correlation with the development of hypertensive diseases in pregnancy as an adult.

STUDY DESIGN

Self-administered questionnaires were sent to 2600 women with hypertensive diseases in pregnancy and to 1484 controls.

SUBJECTS

After confirmation of the diagnosis data from 842 patients and 623 control women were evaluated.

OUTCOME MEASURES

Type, number and involvement of different caregivers, parental separation, parental death.

RESULTS

In both groups parental separation and parental death were found equally often. In all age groups during childhood fathers were involved significantly less often in care giving when women with hypertensive disorders in pregnancy were compared to control women (1st-3rd year 23.4%/17%, <0.0001; 4th-10th year 25.7%/19.3%, <0.0001; 11th-18th year 30.1%/23.9%, <0.0001). The total number of caregivers involved was significantly higher in patients.

CONCLUSIONS

The quality of parental care giving, i.e. the involvement of fathers and the total number of caregivers correlate with the risk to develop HDP. Further research is needed to specify underlying mechanisms and the relevant factors of the parent-child relationship.

Anger and hostility in adolescents: relationships with self-reported attachment style and perceived parental rearing styles

OBJECTIVE

To examine relationships between self-reported attachment style and parental rearing behaviors, on the one hand, and anger/hostility, on the other hand, in a sample of nonclinical adolescents (N=441).

METHOD

Participants completed (a) a single-item measure of attachment style; (b) a questionnaire measuring perceptions of parental rearing behaviors; and (c) two scales assessing anger and hostility.

RESULTS

Self-reported attachment style was related to anger/hostility. That is, adolescents who defined themselves as avoidantly or ambivalently attached displayed higher levels of anger/hostility than adolescents who classified themselves as securely attached. Furthermore, perceived parental rearing was also related to anger/hostility. More specifically, low levels of emotional warmth and high levels of rejection, control, and inconsistency were accompanied by high levels of anger/hostility. Finally, regression analyses showed that both attachment status and parental rearing behaviors accounted for a unique and significant proportion of the variance in anger/hostility.

CONCLUSION

These findings are in keeping with the notion that family environment factors such as attachment style and parental rearing are involved in the development of anger/hostility in youths.

Feindseligkeit als koronarer Risikofaktor

Zusammenfassung. Das Persönlichkeitsmerkmal “Feindseligkeit” ist in den letzten Jahren insbesondere in US-Forschungsarbeiten zu den Risikofaktoren der koronaren Herzerkrankung stark beachtet worden. Dabei wurde zumeist die Cook-Medley Hostility Scale (Ho-Skala) zur Messung von Feindseligkeit verwandt, die im wesentlichen Zynismus erfaßt. Vorliegende empirische Studien legen nahe, daß Feindseligkeit mit einer erhöhten koronaren Morbidität bzw. Mortalität sowie der Schwere der Erkrankung verbunden ist. Hinsichtlich der zugrundeliegenden Mechanismen liegen Befunde zur kardiovaskulären Reaktivität sowie zum Zusammenhang zwischen Hostilität und dem gesundheitsbezogenen Lebensstil bzw. dem Risikofaktorenprofil (z.B. fehlende soziale Unterstützung) vor. Die Konsequenzen für weitere Forschung werden diskutiert.