Contextual Analysis of Child Oppositional and Maternal Aversive Behaviors in Families of Conduct-Disordered and Nonproblem Children

Abstract

We examined the relationship between contextual variables and ongoing patterns of aversive interchange between parents and children in families of oppositional and nonproblem children. We obtained observational measures of child and maternal aversiveness and setting events (maternal activity, physical location, persons present) in each of five home settings on two separate occasions to derive a profile of families' typical patterns of interaction. We sought to determine how much levels of oppositional child and aversive maternal behavior varied as a function of contextual variables. As expected, the results showed that oppositional children and their mothers engage in higher levels of aversive interchange, compared to controls. However, both groups obtained a very similar profile in terms of how long mothers engaged in different household activities and stayed in different locations and how long children spent in the presence of their mother, father, and siblings. A regression analysis showed that a combined model that included both child aversiveness and all three sets of contextual variables accounted for a significantly greater amount of variance in maternal aversiveness than a model that included child aversiveness alone. A similar finding was obtained in a regression analysis to predict child aversiveness, However, the amount of variance accounted for by contextual variables varied considerably across families. We discuss implications of these findings for understanding family processes associated with oppositional behavior.