Parental Warmth and Hostility in Parent-Child Interactions in Families of Depressed Parents

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of parental hostility and warmth on the children of depressed parents. The study includes parents with a history of Major Depressive Disorder and their children as participants. Parents and their children were filmed responding to pre-determined questions about positive and negative events in their families during two 15-minute interactions. The focus of the study is on levels of aggression and externalizing behaviors of the children in relation to the levels of parental hostility and warmth. The results demonstrated a positive correlation between parental hostility and child aggression and externalizing. Conversely, the results demonstrated a negative correlation between parental warmth and child aggression and externalizing behavior problems. Further, the regression analyses demonstrated a stronger association between parental hostility than parental warmth with children's behavior problems.