Journal of Abnormal Child P.,ychology, Vol. 20, No. 5, 1992

Mothers' Attributions and Expectancies Regarding Their Conduct-Disordered Children Anne Davison Baden 1 and George W. Howe 2,3

As an extension of Patterson's family coercion model, we hypothesized that parental attributions about the causes of child misbehavior and parental expectancies concerning the effectiveness of parenting techniques" are involved in the establishment and maintenance of coercive exchanges. Mothers of 40 conduct-disordered children and 40 matched control children completed questionnaires measuring their attributions regarding the causes of their children's misbehavior and their expectations concerning the general and personal effectiveness o f parenting techniques. Results supported the hypotheses: parents of conduct-disordered children were more likely to regard their children's misbehavior as intentional and to attribute it to stable, global causes beyond the parents' control. They also were less likely to see their own parenting as effective. We speculate that these parents hold cognitive stances of blame and helplessness that contribute to aversive parent behavior as well as to parent withdrawal in the face of escalating child aggressiveness. Patterson's (1976, 1982) family coercion model stands as one of the most promising theories yet advanced for explaining the development and maintenance of child conduct disorders. The model hypothesizes that two family processes contribute to such problems. The first process involves the establishment of cycles of reciprocated aggression. Families with high levels of negative interaction are likely to develop escalating cycles of reciprocated aggression. Parents contribute to such cycles through ignOring posiManuscript received in final form April 23, 1992. This article is based on a doctoral dissertation conducted by Anne Davison Baden while at Peabody College of Vanderbilt University, and was presented in part at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association, New Orleans, August 1989. 1Peabody College of Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee. 2George Washington University, Washington, DC 20037. 3Address all correspondence concerning this article to George W. Howe, Center for Family Research, 613 Ross Hall, George Washington University,2300 Eye Street N.W., Washington, DC 20O37. 467 ~9~--0627/92/10004M67506,50/0 9 It.D2 Plenum Publishing Corporation

468

Baden and l i o w e

tive actions by children, selectively tracking negative behaviors, and by overreacting to such negative actions when they occur. The second process involves reinforcement of child aggressiveness by the parents. As negative cycles of family interaction continue, children are likely to increase the intensity and aversiveness of their actions. If parents apply discipline in an inconsistent fashion or withdraw from the interaction, children are reinforced for escalating their aggressiveness. The consequence of withdrawal or ineffectual "nattering" by the parents is increased belligerence, and more ingrained child aggressiveness. While this model provides a clear picture of how overreaction to negative behavior, escalation, and parental withdrawal might combine and lead to the development of stable conduct problems in children, it does not tell us why some families are much more likely to initiate or maintain such cycles. In particular, it is important to establish why some parents are prone to initiate negative interactions with their children, and why these parents are also likely to withdraw from active attempts at discipline. In line with recent of research reviews on the treatment of child conduct disorder (Atkeson & Forehand, 1988; Griest & Wells, 1983; McMahon, 1987), it is our thesis that cognitive variables concerning parents' perceptions of themselves and their children will prove fruitful in answering these questions. Particular cognitive sets may either predispose parents to initiate coercive exchanges, or may result from and help maintain such exchanges. We hypothesize that two sets of parent beliefs provide fertile ground for the development or maintenance of "coercion cycles" in parent-child interactions. The first set involves parent attributions about the causes of their children's actions. Doherty (1981a) was one of the earliest to suggest that conflict in close relationships is sustained by the assumptions that family members make concerning the causes of family conflict. He identified six loci that people might use in attributing cause: self, the other person, the relationship, external environment, theological causes, and luck or fate. More recently Fincham and Bradbury (1987) have expanded this model to include dimensions of responsibility (such as perceptions of intentfulness) as well as of cause. In this expanded model, conflict among family members is exacerbated when members hold attributions that other family members are to blame for the conflict, or when they believe that negative actions by the others are intentful. Patterson (1982, p. 72) has also speculated that attributions of intent are linked to affective responses of anger by parents. We advance the thesis here that parents' perceptions of the causes and intentionality of their children's behavior will be related to their propensity to initiate and engage in aversive conflict with their child, in particular, parents who frequently initiate negative interactions with their

Mothers' Attributions

469

children are likely to believe that their children's negative actions are due to internal characteristics of the child, are volitional or intentional, and are not affected by external factors. Thus, coercion cycles are more likely to develop or be maintained in families in which parents view their children as singularly responsible for their own misbehavior. Such cycles are less likely to develop or be maintained when parents view the negative actions of their children as unintentional, or as caused by external factors. While there is no direct evidence as yet for this hypothesis, work in the area of child abuse provides tangential support. Larrance and Twentyman (1983) asked parents with a history of abuse and parents with no such history to rate the causes of potential actions by their children. The former were more likely to attribute negative actions to internal qualities of their children and to attribute positive actions to external factors. The control parents were more likely to do the opposite. In another study of mothers with a history of abuse, Golub (1984) found that abusing parents saw child misbehaviors in general as more purposeful. Moreover, parent ratings of perceived intent were related to both the degree of anger experienced by the parent and the severity of parental punishment. Given the co-occurrence of physical abuse and child conduct disorder (Reid, Taplin, & Lorber, 1981), these findings are suggestive~ though by no means confirmatory. The second set of parental beliefs that we hypothesize are implicated in coercion cycles involves parental attributions regarding the stability, globality, and controllability of child misbehaviors and their own expectancies regarding their ability to manage their children. Doherty (1981b) was again one of the first to implicate attributions and expectancies in interpersonal conflict, suggesting that people differ in their expectancies that the family as a whole will be able to engage in effective problem-solving. Using learned helplessness (Abramson, Seligman, & Teasdale, 1978) and self-efficacy (Bandura, 1982) models, Doherty postulated that parental expectancies may be of particular importance in determining the parent's motivation to initiate and persist in carrying out disciplinary activities, and that attributions regarding the stability, globality, and controllability of misbehavior help determine these expectancies. In line with this interpretation, we predict that reduced expectancies for personal effectiveness as a parent will be linked to withdrawal in the face of escalating conflict with a child and will contribute to the second component of the coercion process. Moreover, in line with the |earned helplessness model, we hypothesize that parents who attribute their child's behavior to causes that are global, stable, and not controllable by the parent will be more likely to be caught up in coercion cycles, since such attributions will contribute to reduced expectancies for effectiveness of

470

Baden and llowe

parental discipline. Thus, low expectancies for personal effectiveness as a parent and attributions about the global, stable, and uncontrollable nature of the causes for the child's misconduct form a set of parent cognitions that place parents at risk for withdrawing from negative interactions and failing to apply consistent discipline. Again, there is tangential evidence to support this thesis. Two studies have reported correlations between parent scores on the Child Abuse Potential Inventory and measures of general locus of control (Ellis & Milner, 1981; Stringer & LaGreca, 1985). However, in a study involving the construction of a measure of parental beliefs concerning the general effectiveness of various behavioral parenting techniques, Howe, Baden, Lewis, Ostroff, and Levine (1989) found weak and nonsignificant tendencies for parents of conduct-disordered children to report that most behavioral parenting techniques were generally not effective. This latter finding raises an important question concerning parental expectancies. Locus of control models would predict that general expectancies are important determinants of parental actions, but only in more novel situations (Rotter, Chance, & Phares, 1972). Such models have not been applied as yet in the realm of intimate family relationships. It may well be that in this domain expectancies concerning "what is generally effective for parents" are less important than expectancies concerning "how effective I can be with this particular child." The study reported here was an effort to test three hypotheses, derived from our model linking parental cognition to the coercion cycle. First, we hypothesized that parents of conduct-disordered children will show more blameful attributions when describing their children, as compared to parents of nondisturbed children. By blameful attributions we refer to beliefs that the causes of negative action by the child are internal to the child, are intentful, and are not mitigated by external factors. Second, we hypothesized that parents of conduct-disordered children will be more likely to attribute their child's misbehavior to factors that are global, stable, and uncontrollable, and will have lower expectancies regarding their own ability to modify their children's behavior than will parents of nondisturbed children. Finally, we predicted that parents of conduct-disordered children will not necessarily believe that parents in general are ineffective in influencing child behaviors. This last hypothesis allows for a strong check on the validity of findings. If groups are found to differ on personal expectancies but not on similar measures of expectancies concerning the general effectiveness of similar parenting strategies for parents-in-general, then a number of self-report response sets can be ruled out as influencing the findings.

Mothers' Attributions

471

METHOD

Participants Mothers or female guardians of adolescents between the ages of 1i and 18 were recruited for this study. For the clinic sample, mothers of conduct-disordered adolescents were recruited from outpatient mental health clinics and day treatment programs for status offender and delinquent youths in south central Kentucky. Over the course of a 6-month period, 64 mothers were referred to the study. In order to ensure that all index children fit the criterion of conduct disorder, mothers were administered the Eyberg Child Behavior Inventory (ECBI; Eyberg & Ross, 1978), and in accordance with the cutoff criterion recommended by Eyberg and Robinson (1983), only those mothers who reported that their child exhibited 11 or more behaviors indicative of conduct problems from the possible 36 on the scale were retained for the study. This resulted in a sample of 40 clinic mothers, including 32 biological mothers, 4 step or adoptive parents, and 4 adult female relatives or foster parents acting as guardians. Control mothers were identified concurrently through community solicitation and nomination by other participants. Potential controls were matched using four criteria: race of mother, family socioeconomic status (SES) level, and age and sex of the target child. Participants were also screened using the ECBI, and eight potential participants were eliminated since they rated their index child at or above the criterion level for conduct disorder. This resulted in a sample of 40 control mothers, all biological parents. Demographic characteristics of the sample as a whole are summarized in Table I. The sample was largely Caucasian (85% white, 15% black), predominantly from the lower socioeconomic strata, and less well educated than national norms. Of the index children 82% were male, and all ages from 11 to 18 were represented, although older adolescents were somewhat overrepresented (mean age = 14.7). The clinic and control groups were perfectly equivalent on race of mother, family socioeconomic status (in terms of the five SES levels defined by Hoilingshead, 1975), and on age and sex of index child. Analysis of other demographic data indicated that the groups did differ significantly on parent education, with the control group reporting more years of schooling, and on income, with the control group reporting higher annual income levels. All of the central analyses were repeated with these variables as covariates, with no difference in results, so only nonadjusted analyses are reported here.

472

Baden and llowe

Assessment of Conduct Disorder Three measures were used in the assessment of conduct disorder, although only one, the Eyberg Child Behavior Inventory, was used initially to select clinic and control groups. All potential participants in the study were screened using the ECBI. This inventory requests parents to indicate whether their child engages in each of 36 behavior problems, and to rate the frequency of occurrence of each problem noted. The inventory includes predominantly confrontive, aggressive actions, and has few items concerning nonaggressive rule-breaking acts such as truancy or theft. This seemed a reasonable domain of behavior to sample, given research suggesting that coercive family patterns are more prominent in families with overtly aggressive children than in families with children who engage only in more Table I. Demographic Characteristics of Clinic and Control Group Clinic

Marital status of mother Never married Married Divorced/separated Remarried Widowed Education of mother Less than 7 years Junior high school Some high school High school/GED a Some college College graduate

Annual family income Under $5000 $5000-$9999 $10,000-$14,999 $15,000-$19,999 $20,000-$24,999 $25,000-$34,999 $35,000 and over

Control

n

%

n

%

3 16 13 7 1

8 40 33 18 3

1 25 11 3 0

3 63 28 8 0

3 9 8 12 7 1

8 23 20 30 18 3

2 1 3 23 11 0

5 3 8 58 28 0

14 8 5 4 5 2 1

35 20 13 10 13 5 3

9 3 2 3 2 9 12

23 8 5 8 5 23 30

11 17 7 4 1

28 43 18 10 3

11 17 7 4 1

28 43 18 10 3

Socioeconomic statusb Level Level Level Level Level

1 2 3 4 5

aGED = graduate equivalent dipl0mal . . . . . . bLevel based on Hollingshead's (1975) Four Factor Index of Social Status; level 5 refers to the highest socioeconomic status level,

Mothers' Attributions

473

covert rule-breaking (Loeber & Schmalling, 1985a, 1985b; Patterson, 1982; Simard, 1981; Wahler & Dumas, 1987). The ECB] has been used with adolescent populations (Eyberg & Robinson, 1983), demonstrating good internal consistency (split-half correlations for problem and intensity scores of .92 and .90) and validity in differentiating adolescents referred for conduct disorder, adolescents referred for other mental health problems, and adolescents referred only for physical health problems. As a second measure of conduct disorder, all mothers were contacted at three randomly selected times over a 2-week period. In most cases this involved a telephone interview; in a few cases where families had no telephones they were visited by an interviewer. The number of home visits was balanced across the clinic and control samples. In all cases mothers were asked about child misconduct in the past 24 hours, using the Parent Daily Report (PDR; Patterson, Reid, Jones, & Conger, 1975). The PDR has been found to provide reliable and valid information about child daily behavior; Patterson et al. report that tallies of targeted items correlate .69 with in-home observations, a finding supported by other researchers (Fleischman, 1981; Reid, Hinojosa-Rivero, & Lorber, 1979). Chamberlain and Reid (1987) have reported high temporal stability of P D R scores. In the present study the PDR protocol was modified somewhat by soliciting information regarding the occurrence of the entire 31 behaviors in the list, rather than the few items targeted in the initial assessment. As in earlier research, parents were asked to report how much time they had spent with their child in the past 24 hours, to determine whether exposure to child behavior might differ for the clinic and control groups. Time spent was not found to correlate significantly with PDR scores, and was ruled out as a potential confound in the assessment of conduct disorder. As a third indicator of conduct disorder, parents were interviewed about broader characteristics of behavioral problems. In an interview developed for the project, parents were asked to provide information concerning the child's history of legal involvement, school achievement, school disciplinary record, and history of past mental health treatment. These interview data and the PDR scores were used during the data analysis portion of this study as a validity check on ECBI scores.

Assessment of Parent Attributions and Expectancies Mothers were administered three instruments to assess attributions concerning the causes and intentionality of their children's behavior and their expectancies of parental effectiveness.

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Baden and tiowe

A modified form of Walker's Parent Attribution Questionnaire (PAQ; Walker, 1985; Walker & Masters, 1989) was used to measure parent beliefs concerning the causes and intentionality of child misconduct. Walker reported that her instrument was able to distinguish mothers of chronically ill children who perceived their children as demanding and difficult from those mothers who did not. Following Walker, the PAQ was orally administered, asking parents to rate four instances of child behavior, first by stating their belief about the cause of that behavior, then rating that cause on seven dimensions. These included six questions from the original PAQ, concerning internal locus, external locus, stability, child control, parent control, and globality, as well as an added question concerning child intent. A sample PAQ question which asks the parent to rate the stability of factors underlying child misbehavior is: "Is this cause something that never changes or does it change a great deal?" Parents were asked to respond to this question using a Likert-type 5-point scale with the anchors never changes and changes a lot. As amended for this study, parents were asked to select four behaviors that typified their child from a 12-item menu of typical child misbehaviors, rather than asking parents to recall recent instances of actual behavior. Since this involved a change in procedures, analyses were conducted to assess the psychometric properties of this protocol. Internal consistency ratings for scales were: external locus, .42; internal locus, -.19; stability, .73; child control, .62; parent control, .79; globality, .60; intentionality, .61. The alpha coefficients of most of these scales compare favorably with those of other similar measures such as the Attributional Style Questionnaire (Peterson et al., 1982) or the Marital Attribution Style Questionnaire (Fincham, Beach, & Nelson, 1987), which typically range from .30 to .75. The alpha coefficient for the internal scale was not adequate, and this scale was dropped from further analyses. Correlations between the six remaining attributional scales and demographic variables such as age and sex of child and race, age, income, SES, and education of mother were uniformly low and generally nonsignificant. Those that were significant ranged from .19 to .28, indicating that the attributional variables shared less than 8% of their variance with any demographic characteristic. The Generalized Parental Expectancies Questionnaire (GPEQ; Howe et al., 1989) was used to measure mothers' beliefs concerning the general effectiveness of four parenting actions (verbal or physical punishment, withdrawal of positive reinforcement, contingent reinforcement of alternative behavior, and ignoring child misbehavior) in the context of nine hypothetical misbehaviors. In this measure, for each hypothetical child misbehavior the parent is asked to rate on a 7-point scale the effectiveness of each of

Mothers' Attributions

475

four parenting responses in reducing that behavior in the future. A sample item is: "If, whenever a child clowns around too much, the parent tells the child he can't watch TV that night: In the next few weeks the child will clown a r o u n d . . , a lot more often/the same amount/a lot less often." The measure yields four expectancy scores, one for each of the four types of parental activity. It is important to note that the measure was designed to assess expectancies concerning the effectiveness of parents in general as they deal with misconduct. Howe et al. (1989) had developed this measure on a separate sample of 89 parents of 6- to 12-year-olds. They found that the instrument demonstrates good internal consistency, with Cronbach's alpha coefficients of from .74 to .82 for the four scales. They report evidence of stability, with test-retest coefficients over a 2- to 10-month period ranging from .68 to .95 for the four scales. In that study all scales were uncorrelated with a measure of social desirability and showed logical correlations with subscales on the Parental Attitudes Research Instrument (PARI; Schaeffer & Bell, 1958). For example, contingent reinforcement and withdrawal scales of the GPEQ were significantly related to the rejection of authoritarian parental behaviors on the PARI, while the GPEQ punishment scale positively correlated with the deception scale of the PARI. Since the inventory was originally designed for slightly younger children, several minor wording changes were made in order to enhance content relevance of items for parents of adolescent children. A new measure was devised for the current study to assess parent expectancies concerning their personal effectiveness in dealing with the misconduct of their own children. The Personal Parental Expectancies Interview (PPEI) was devised as a parallel instrument to the GPEQ. This orally administered interview includes 20 items adopted from the GPEQ, equally representing the four areas of parental action (punishment, withdrawal of positive reinforcement, contingent reinforcement of alternative behavior, and ignoring child misconduct). The items were presented in a personalized format. A sample item is: "Does your child swear or curse? (IF YES): Well, then think about the next time he swears or curses in front of you. Imagine responding to your child by telling him that there will be no TV that night. In the next few weeks, would your child curse: a lot more often/the same amount/a lot less often? (IF NO): Well, then imagine that your child started cursing and swearing. Imagine responding to your child by telling him that there will be no TV that night. In the next few w e e k s . . . " Parents were asked to rate their effectiveness on a 7-point scale. Analyses on the combined group of clinic and control parents (N = 80) yielded internal consistency coefficients between .61 and .81 for

476

Baden and llowe

the four scales (punishment, .74; withdrawal, .79; contingent reinforcement, .81; ignore, .61). Correlations between the four scales and demographic variables such as age and sex of child, and race, age, SES, education, and income of the mother were all low and mostly nonsignificant. Those that reached significance were between .19 and .23, indicating that the scales shared less than 6% of their variance with any demographic characteristic.

RESULTS

Validity Checks on Group Selection Procedures A number of analyses were conducted to test whether group selection procedures had been successful. Clinic and control group means were compared on Eyberg scores as well as on several measures of conduct disorder that were not used in initial group selection. Clinic group means significantly differed from control means on both Eyberg problem scores i[t(79) = 14.01, p < .001] and Eyberg intensity scores [t(79) = 10.71, p < .001]. In addition Eyberg problem and intensity scores for this clinic sample closely approximated those found in Eyberg and Robinson's (1983) clinic sample of behaviorally disturbed adolescents. Problem score group means for the current study and the 1983 study were 18.2 and 17.9, respectively; intensity score group means were 140.9 and 143.7. In addition, clinic and control groups significantly differed on a number of other measures or correlates of conduct disorder that had not been used as criteria for group selection. Clinic group members had substantially and significantly higher parent daily report scores [t(79) = 5.96, p < .001], and were significantly more likely to have been arrested or detained by the police in the past [t(79) = 9.00, p < .001], and expelled or suspended from school [t(79) = 6.97, p < .001]. Children in the clinic sample were also more likely to be in special education classes [t(79) = 3.55, p < .001] and to have been retained academically [t(79) = 8.32, p < .001]. Both of these indicators have been linked to conduct disorder. Overall, these findings provided strong evidence that group selection procedures had been successful.

Group Differences on Attribution Measures Our central hypothesis was that parents of conduct-disordered children would hold different cognitive sets, as reflected in consistent differences on a series of related cognitive variables. Therefore, we chose an

Mothers' Attributhms

477

analytic method to test attributional variables first as related groups of cognitions. Thus, a one-way multivariate analysis of variance was performed on the six attribution scales with group status as the independent variable. The multivariate test was significant [F(7, 72) = 14.03, p < .001]. Next, univariate analyses were conducted for each attributional scale. These indicated that the two groups differed significantly on four of the six attribution scales [stability scale: F(1, 72) = 17.49, p < .001; parent contro~ scale: F(1, 72) = 74.30, p < .001; globality scale: F(1, 72) = 31.98, p < .001; intentionality scale: F(1, 72) = 23.31, p < .001]. Group means are reported in Table II. These findings indicated that clinic mothers were more likely to view their child's behavior as intentional, and ascribe the behavior to causes that were global, stable, and beyond the parent's control. Data from child problem ratings were consistent with these findings. As reported in Table III, Eyberg problem number and intensity scores correlated in the expected direction with attribution ratings. Thus, for the total sample of mothers, those who reported that their children had more problems and more intense problems were also more likely to indicate that these problem behaviors were intentional and due to stable, global factors beyond both parent and child control.

Group Differences on Expectancy Measures To test the hypotheses concerning efficacy expectations, two one-way multivariate analyses of variance were performed with group status (clinic vs. control) as the independent variable. The first analysis included the four scales from the GPEQ, reflecting general expectancies concerning parent effectiveness. The group means on these measures are reported in Table II. The multivariate F, calculated using Wiiks's lambda, was not significant, and inspection of group means indicated no consistev~t pattern of differences. The second analysis included the four scales from the PPEI, reflecting expectancies concerning personal effectiveness as a parent. This multivariate test was significant [F(4, 73) = 8.62, p < .001]. Univariate analyses indicated that the two groups differed for all but the ignore scale [withdrawal scale: F(1, 76) = 29.60, p < .001; contingent reinforcement scale: F(1, 76) = 11.06, p < .001; punishment scale: F(1, 76) = 6.10, p < .05]. Group means are reported in Table II. Figure 1 graphically depicts these findings, showing expectancy measures standardized to Z-scores for easier comparison of ~;eneral and personaI expectancies scales. Consonant with our hypotheses, parents of conductdisordered children did not differ from control parents in their beliefs concerning the effectiveness of various parenting behaviors for parents in

478

Baden and llowe Table II. Group Means and Standard Deviations on Measures of Parent Cognition

Clinic

Generalized Parental Expectancies (GPEQ) a Punishment scale Withdrawal scale Contingent Reinforcement scale Ignore scale Personal Parental Expectancies (PPEI) a Punishment scale Withdrawal scale Contingent Reinforcement scale Ignore scale Attribution scalesb External locus Stability Child control Parent control Globality Intentionality

Control

SD

.~

SD

35.9 43.3 46.6 29.8

9.3 8.1 10.0 8.6

35.4 45.7 46.3 28.9

9.6 7.0 6.8 8.2

17.5 21.0 25.6 14.6

4.3 5.9 4.3 3.4

20.5 27.3 28.7 14.2

6.3 3.8 3.6 4.0

0.81 1.iX) 1.10 0.78 0.87 1.10

3.51 2.76 3.98 3.34 2.56 2.49

0.82 0.96 0.88 0.70 1.10 0.94

3.21 3.67 3.65 1.91 3.84 3.56

aHigher scores on expectancy measures reflect increased expectancies for the effectiveness of this type of parenting behavior. bHigher ratings on attribution scales reflect beliefs that child behavior is more intentional, more due to factors external to the child, more stable, more global, more under parent control, or more under child control.

general. However, they were significantly less likely to believe in the effectiveness of these actions if they were to apply them personally to their own children. Moreover, clinic and control parents reporting that their children had many severe problems, as indicated in Eyberg number and intensity scores, were less likely to endorse the effectiveness of punishment, withdrawal of positives, and contingent reinforcement for themselves personally (see Table III). Correlations Among Attribution and Expectancy Measures Table III reports correlations among the various measures of attribution and personal expectancy for the sample as a whole, combining clinic and control mothers. It is clear that the six attribution scales are substantially intercorrelated. However, the level of intercorrelation is not constant across all scales. The highest correlations are among attributions for stability, globality, low parent control, and low child control. These four measures appear to form an interrelated set and, as reported above, three of these four measures show significant differences between clinic and control

Mothers'

479

Attributions

Group Means on Personal Expectancies Z-Goatee 0.6

-0.2

-

-0.4

-O.O --

~ Clinic Punjab

~--

Withdraw

m Control ~

ignore

-9-

Prslee

Group Means on General Expectancies Z-8ooree 0.6

0.4

...........................................

0.2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

-0.2

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

-0.4

...........................................................

-0.(

~ ClinOo Pun|oh

--4- Withdrew

__

~

, L Co~t~rel

|gaore

~

Prsle(~

Fig. L E x p e r i m e n t a l a n d c o n t r o l g r o u p m e a n s o n g e n e r a l a n d per~ sonal parental effectiveness expectation measures.

groups. The only other scale that differentiates clinic and control group~ is intentionality. As is apparent in Table III, intentionality ratings correlate significantly only with two of the four attribution scales (low parent contror and globality) in the above interrelated set, and these correlations are tow Inspection of Table ilI also indicates that the personal expectanc~ and attribution measures are significantly correlated with each other. Thest correlations are accounted for almost entirely by the measures in both set~

< .001. < .01. Cp < .05.

~p

Personal Parental Expectancies Interview (PPEI) 1. Punishment scale 2. Withdrawal scale .41 a 3. Contingent reinforcement scale .13 4. Ignore scale -.12 Attribution scales .30 b 5. External locus -.27 b 6. Stability 7. Child control .10 .39~ 8. Parent control -.33 b 9. Globality -.33 b 10. Intentionality Eyberg scales -.28 b 11. Problem n u m b e r -,30 b 12. Problem intensity

1.

-.1I .14 -.20 c .38a .31 b -.46 a -.17 -.44 a -.42 a

.08 -.41 a .18 .59 a -.52 ~ -.29 b -.59 ~ -.59 a

3.

.41 a -.~

2.

.02 -.04

-.10 -.02 -.03 -. 10 .07 -.02

4.

Personal parental expectancies

-.22 c

-.25 c

,44a

.33a -.53 a -.02

7.

~64

a

-.65 a

-.64 a -.39 a

8.

Attribution scales

,45 a

_.58 a .56a .17

-.13 -.21 c

_.37 ~

.20c -.23 c -.34 a

6.

.20 ~

-.16

5.

Table IlL Correlations A m o n g Personal Expectancy and Attribution Scales (N = 80)

.63a

.58 ~

9.

.54 ~

.50 ~

10.

m

r

D

=1

~g

Mothers' Attributions

481

that discriminated clinic and control groups: attributions of stability, global~ ity, low parent control, and intentionality; and personal expectancies concerning the e f f e c t i v e n e s s of punishment, withdrawal of positive reinforcement, and contingent reinforcement of alternative behavior. Hence, parents who attributed their child's misbehaviors to factors that are unstable, specific, and controllable by the parent endorsed the effectiveness of contingent reinforcement, withdrawal of positives, and punishment. Attributions of intentionality were also correlated with two of the four personal expectancy scales, but coefficients were lower.

DISCUSSION This study found that mothers of conduct-disordered children are more likely to attribute their children's misbehavior to child intent, to see the causes of their children's misbehavior as due to stable, global factors that are outside the mother's control, and to expect that attempts to influence their children's misbehavior will be ineffective. However, clinic mothers were no more likely than control mothers to see various behavioral parenting techniques as ineffective for parents in general. Findings concerning attributions of intent are consistent with suggestions advanced by Patterson (1982) that parents engaging in coercive interchanges with their children are typically prone to blame their children for their misbehavior. It is probable that readiness to blame co-exists with other cognitive and affective patterns such as overattention to aversive child behaviors or the tendency to become angry when a misbehavior is interpreted as intentional. Thus, the blameful stance of a parent, once in place, may be an important part of a cognitive-affective set that greatly increases the likelihood that the parent will continue to initiate and participate in cycles of reciprocated aggression with the child, and as such may play ar~ important role in this component of family coercion cycles. The second finding, concerning attributions about the global, stable~ and uncontrollable nature of the causes of child misbehavior and personat expectancies regarding the effectiveness of interventions, suggests that mothers of conduct-disordered children are also caught in a stance of helplessness. It seems likely that the cognitions associated with such a stance are antithetical to vigorous parenting, and that they contribute both to ineffectual attempts at discipline and to withdrawal in the face of escalating aggressiveness by the children. Thus, a stance of helplessness may be directly linked to this second important component of the coercion process. Given the research indicating increased incidence of depression in mothers of conduct-disordered children (Griest & Wells~ 1983), a~d the

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literature linking expectancy and attribution biases with depression (Garber & Hollon, 1980, Seligman, Aramson, Semmel, & Von Baeyer, 1979); the findings here raise questions regarding the relationships among parental helplessness, depression, and child conduct disorder. We suspect that the causal linkages among these variables will prove to be bidirectional, such that depression may be both the outgrowth of dealing with a difficult child as well as one of the factors that maintains a parent's stance of helplessness when interacting with that child. However, it is also important to consider that the depression and helpless stances found in mothers of conduct-disordered children may reflect a selection bias in studies reporting such findings. It may be that mothers of conduct-disordered children who are depressed are more likely to refer their children for treatment, and therefore are over-represented in family studies of conduct-disordered children.4 The findings of this study are strengthened by evidence that clinic and control groups did not differ concerning expectancies about the effectiveness of various behavioral parenting actions in general. This has two implications for the study. First, it reduces the likelihood that a general response set (such as halo or social desirability) could account for the results. Such a response set should also have influenced scores on the GPEQ, particularly since GPEQ items were similar to those in the personal efficacy measure. Second, this finding suggests that researchers need to pay closer attention to the level of generality implied by cognitive constructs used in the study of intimate relationships. It is possible that specific and general cognitions play very different roles in family transactions,

Directions for Future Research The current study provides evidence that parental stances of blame and helplessness are linked to the presence of child conduct disorder. It does not allow us to determine whether such parental cognitions of blame and helplessness are precursors of coercion cycles or whether they emerge as a result of already established cycles. It is possible that pre-existing parental beliefs interact with emerging behavior patterns in a complex fashion to shape both cognition and parental behavior in a slowly developing set of coercive interactions that evolve and rigidify over time. Future research will require longitudinal designs and repeated in vivo assessment of parental cognition and behavior to tease apart the direction of causality between cognitive and behavioral components of the coercion cycle. 4We wish to thank an anonymous reviewer for noting this possible source of bias in this research literature.

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Moreover, further work will be needed to establish whether stances of blame and helplessness are related to separate aspects of the coercion cycle (aversive parent behavior vs. parent withdrawal) as we have suggested. Research that assesses both cognition and parent behavior will be necessary to test this supposition. MacKinnon (1989) has presented initial evidence from a behavioral observation study of mothers and somewhat younger children that supports the first portion of this hypothesis. She found significant correlations between mothers' attributions of child intent and the level of coercive activity engaged in b# mothers during interactions with their children. Finally, it will be important to extend this model to include attention to affective variables. Affective responses by the parent, for example, may accompany stances of blame and helplessness. While a blaming stance may predispose parents to experience anger regarding their child's misbehavior, their helplessness posture may account for the depression noted in mothers of conduct-disordered children. It would be useful to explore these variables to see if affect mediates the relationship between cognition (either blaming or helpless) and parent behavior. For this reason it will be important to include assessments of parental depression and generalized anger or irritability in future studies. Overall, this study has provided strong evidence that parental cognitive stances of blame and helplessness are linked to the presence of conduct disorders in children. These findings indicate that future research in the area of parent cognition will prove fruitful in extending our understanding of the roots of this ubiquitous clinical condition.

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Eyberg, S. M., & Ross, A. W. (1978). Assessment of child behavior problems: The validation of a new inventory. Journal of Clinical Child Psychology, 7, 113-116. Fincham, F. D., & Bradbury, T. N. (1987). Cognitive processes and conflict i n close relationships: An attribution efficacy model. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 53, 1106-1118. Fincham, F. D., Beach, S., & Nelson, G. (1987). Attribution processes in distressed and nondistressed couples: 3. Causal responsibility attributions for spouse behavior. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 11, 71-86. Fleischman, M: J. (1981). A replication of Patterson's intervention for boys with conduct problems. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 49, 342-354. Garber, J., & Hollon, S. D. (1980). Universal versus personal helplessness in depression: Belief in uncontrollability or incompetence? Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 89, 56-66. GOlub, J. S. (1984). Abusive and nonabusive parents' perceptions of their children's behavior: An attributional analysis. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of California at Los Angeles. Griest, D. L., & Wells, K. C. (1983). Behavioral family therapy with conduct disorder in children. Behavioral Therapy, i 14, 37-53. Hollingshead, A, B. (1975), Four factor index of social status. Unpublished manuscript, Yale University, New Haven,. CT, Howe, G. W., Baden, A. D , Lewis, W. W., Ostroff, J., & Levine, B. (1989). Parents' expectations of the efficacy of behavioral parenting techniques. Unpublished manuscript available from George Howe, Center for Family Research, 613 Ross Hall; 2300 Eye St. N. W., Washington, DC~ 20037. Larrance, D. T., & Twentyman, C. T. (1983). Maternal attributions and child abuse. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 92, 449-457. Loeber, R., & Schmalling, K. B~ (1985a). Empirical evidence for overt and covert patterns of antisocial conduct problems: A metaanalysis. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 13, 332-352. Loeber, R., & Schmailing, K. B. (1985b). The utility of differentiating between mixed and pure forms of antisocial child behavior: Journal ofAbnorrnal ChiM Psychology, 13, 315-332. MacKinnon, C. E. (1989, April). The relation between mother~son attributions and the coerciveness of their interactions. Paper presented at the Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Kansas City, MO. McMahon, R. J. (1987). Some current issues in behavioral assessment of conduct disordered children and their families. Behavioral Assessment, 9, 235-252. Patterson, G. R. (1976). The aggressive child: Victim and architect of a coercive system. In E. J. Mash, L. A. Hamerlynck, & L. C. Hardy (Eds.), Behavior modification and families: 1. Theoly and research (pp. 267-316). New York: Brunner-Mazel. Patterson, G. R. (1982). Coercive family process. Eugene, OR: Castalia. Patterson, G. R., Reid, J. B. Jones, R. R., & Conger, R. E. (1975). A social learning approach to ramie, intervention: Vol. 1. Families with aggressive children. Eugene, OR: Castalia. Peterson, C., Semmel, A., yon Baeyer, C., Abramson, L. Y., Metalsky, G. I., & Seligman, M.E.P. (1982). The attributional style questionnaire. Cognitive Therapy and Research. 6, 287-300. Reid, J. B., Hinojosa-Rivero, G., & Lorber, R. (1979). Social learning approach to the outpatient treatment of children who steal Unpublished manuscript. Oregon Social Learning Center, Eugene, OR. Reid, J. B., Taplin, P. S., & Lorber, R. (1981). A social interactional approach to the treatment of abusive families. In R. B. Stuart (Ed.), Violent behavior: Social learning approaches to prediction, management, and treatment (pp. 83-101). New York: Brunner/Mazel. Rotter, J. B., Chance, J. E., & Phares, E. J. (1972). Applications of a social learning theory of personality. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston. Schaeffer, E. S., & Bell, R. Q, (1958). Development of a parental attitude research instrument. Child Development, 29, 339,361. Seligman, M. E., Abramson, L. Y., Semmel, A., & Von Baeyer, C. (1979). Depressive attributional style. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 88, 242-247.

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Simard, K. (1981). From here to delinquency: An investigation of achievement and home-quality characteristics in delinquent and socially aggressive preadolescent males. Unpublished master's thesis, University of Colorado, Boulder. Stringer, S. A., & LaGreca, A. M. (1985). Correlates of child abuse potential. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 13, 217-226. Wahler, R. G., & Dumas, J. E. (1987). Family factors in childhood psychology: Toward a coercion-neglect model. In T. Jacob (Ed.), Family interaction and psychopathology: Theories, methods, and findings (pp. 581-627). New York: Plenum Press. Walker, L. S. (1985). Mother's attributions regarding the behavior of chronically ill children. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association, Los Angeles. Walker, L. S., & Masters, J. C, (1989). Mothers' causal attributions for the behavior of children with chronic conditions: The relationship of attributions to child diagnostic conditions and parenting difficulties. Unpublished manuscript available from Dr. Lynn Walker, Asst. Professor of Pediatrics, Adolescent/Young Adult Medicine, 436 Medical Center South, Vanderbilt University Nashville, TN 37232.