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Family deviance and family disruption in childhood: Associations with maternal behavior and infant maltreatment during the first two years of life

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 October 2008

Karlen Lyons-Ruth ,
David Zoll ,
David Connell  and
Henry U. Grunebaum
Karlen Lyons-Ruth*
Affiliation:
Harvard Medical School
David Zoll
Affiliation:
Harvard Medical School
David Connell
Affiliation:
Harvard Medical School Abt Associates
Henry U. Grunebaum
Affiliation:
Harvard Medical School
*
Reprint request should be sent to: K. Lyons-Ruth, Department of Psychiatry, The Cambridge Hospital at Harvard Medical School, 1493 Cambridge Street, Cambridge, MA 02139.
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Abstract

A structured childhood history interview was administered to 50 low-income mothers of infants. Three levels of risk for infant maltreatment were represented in the sample, including 10 maltreatment cases. Maternal behavior at home was rated and factor analyzed when the infants were 12 months and 18 months old, yielding separate factors labelled maternal involvement and hostile-intrusiveness. Risk for maltreatment was strongly correlated with the overall adversity of the mother's childhood history. Maternal hostile-intrusive behavior was best accounted for by psychiatric disorder in the mother's own mother and poor peer relationships in childhood. Maternal involvement was negatively associated with a separate cluster of variables indexing family disruption and lack of supervision. The emergence of two separate clusters of associations — positive affective involvement and negative affective involvement — is related to similar two-dimensional results in studies of self-reported mood, infant attachment relationships, and peer relationships. Implications of a two-dimensional affective construct for future theorizing in developmental psychopathology are discussed.

Type
Other Articles
Information
Development and Psychopathology , Volume 1 , Issue 3 , July 1989 , pp. 219 - 236
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1989

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