Abstract

The present study was designed to investigate maternal emotional expressiveness and parenting behaviors in a high-risk population where mothers had childhood histories of aggression and/or social withdrawal. Two main objectives were addressed: (1) to examine the predictive relationship between maternal childhood levels of aggression and social withdrawal, child age, maternal education and maternal emotional expressiveness, and (2) to investigate the predictive relationship among maternal childhood levels of aggression and social withdrawal, child age and maternal education and parenting practices. Participants were recruited from the Concordia Longitudinal Risk Project, which began in 1977 by classifying children from disadvantaged neighbourhoods along the dimensions of aggression and withdrawal. One hundred and seven mothers who were original participants of the Concordia Study were videotaped in their homes while they interacted with their children (aged 1 to 6 years) during a puzzle task. Verbal and nonverbal expressions of maternal emotions (i.e., positive and negative) and parenting behaviors (i.e., teaching, attitude towards error, and limit setting) were coded from the videorecords.