Exploring the salience of anger for new mothers, their partners, and their young offspring

Phillips, Rebecca 2013. Exploring the salience of anger for new mothers, their partners, and their young offspring. PhD Thesis, Cardiff University. Item availability restricted.

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Abstract

The corpus of research contained within this thesis concerns the presence and prediction of mothers’ and fathers’ anger over the transition to parenthood, and their associations with anger manifested in their offspring as infants and toddlers. These topics were addressed in the context of a prospective longitudinal study of first-time parents and their infants in Wales, the Cardiff Child Development Study (CCDS). Attention was first paid to mothers’ experience of anger during their pregnancies and the postnatal period, detailing predictors of anger and the modest increase in anger across time (Chapter 3). Secondly, the significance of anger in the context of antenatal and postnatal depression was established (Chapter 4). Mothers and mothers-to-be who had experienced a depressive episode described greater frequencies of anger than mothers who were well, with levels of anger in pregnancy also predicting the onset of postpartum depression. Thirdly, the investigation into anger was extended to include fathers and the parental relationship, revealing that women reported more anger than men at both time points. Again, a modest increase in anger expressed within the relationship across the transition to parenthood was found, and a number of variables of interest were established in the prediction postpartum interparental anger (Chapter 5). In the final empirical chapter, the relevance of parents’ anger before entering parenthood and their expression of anger in the home were considered as predictors of anger in their offspring as infants and toddlers. By toddlerhood, clear associations between the generations were noted, with interparental anger established as the most salient predictor of toddler anger in this sample (Chapter 6). Together, these findings suggest anger is a salient emotion across the transition to parenthood, both for parents and their offspring.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Status:	Unpublished
Schools:	Psychology
Subjects:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	30 March 2016
Last Modified:	19 Mar 2016 23:23
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/49991

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