Challenging circumstances moderate the links between mothers' personality traits and their parenting in low-income families with young children

Abstract

The need for research on potential moderators of personality-parenting links has been repeatedly emphasized, yet few studies have examined how varying stressful or challenging circumstances may influence such links. We studied 186 diverse, low-income mother-toddler dyads. Mothers described themselves in terms of Big Five traits, were observed in lengthy interactions with their children, and provided parenting reports. Ecological adversity, assessed as a cumulative index of known risk factors, and the child's difficulty observed as negative affect and defiance in interactions with mothers were posited as sources of parenting challenge. Mothers high in Neuroticism reported more power assertion. Some personality-parenting relations emerged only under challenging conditions. For mothers raising difficult children, higher Extraversion was linked to increased observed power assertion, but higher Conscientiousness was linked to decreased reported power assertion. There were no such relations for mothers of easy children. By contrast, some relations emerged only in the absence of challenge. Agreeableness was associated with more positive parenting for mothers who lived under conditions of low ecological adversity, and with less reported power for those who had easy children, and Openness was linked to more positive parenting for mothers of easy children. Those traits were unrelated to parenting under challenging conditions. © 2012 American Psychological Association.