An Examination of the Curvilinearity of Maternal History of Filial Responsibility and Child Adjustment in the Context of Difficult Child Temperament

A moderate amount of filial responsibility is normative whereas too much or too little filial responsibility is a pathological family dynamic. Maternal history of excessive filial responsibility poses a risk to child adjustment in the next generation. The present study hypothesized that maternal history of filial responsibility would have a curvilinear effect on child externalizing and internalizing behaviors. Second, the present study sought to identify the mother-child dyads most susceptible to maternal history of filial responsibility. Results indicate that maternal history of filial responsibility was significantly associated with child internalizing behaviors and that this relationship was linear for filial responsibility broadly and instrumental caregiving specifically. Furthermore, difficult child temperament interacted with maternal history of emotional caregiving to influence child internalizing behaviors in the next generation, indicating that children with difficult child temperament were most impacted by maternal history of emotional caregiving at moderate levels and the risk then plateaued.