Date of Award

Spring 2026

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Psychology

Committee Director

Christina Rodriguez

Committee Member

James Paulson

Committee Member

Cathy Lau-Barraco

Abstract

Parenting stress and negative parental attributions are key contributors to child abuse risk. Early parenting stress may increase a parent’s risk of negatively appraising their child’s behaviors, which, in turn, may influence their likelihood of harsh or abusive parenting. Grounded in Social Information Processing (SIP) Theory, the present study explored how these processes evolve over time and differ between mothers and fathers. Specifically, this study investigated whether parental negative attributions mediated the relationship between early parenting stress and later abuse risk. A sample of 203 first-time mothers and 151 of their male partners were recruited prenatally as part of a larger longitudinal study. Parents reported on their level of parenting stress when infants were six months old and their negative attributions regarding child behaviors when their child was 18 months. Child abuse risk was assessed at age four using a multimethod approach, including two self-report and one analog measure of child abuse risk. Independent mediation models were tested for mothers and fathers separately, as well as a dyadic model to permit direct comparisons of effects between mothers and fathers. Mothers’ early parenting stress predicted their later child abuse risk through maternal negative attributions. Fathers’ early parenting stress predicted their later abuse risk in the independent model, but this relationship did not hold when tested in the dyadic model. Instead, a relationship between fathers’ negative attributions and child abuse risk emerged. Paternal negative attributions were not a significant mediator in either model for fathers. Comparison testing revealed no significant differences between mothers and fathers, suggesting that maternal and paternal pathways were statistically similar. Taken together, these results suggest that early parenting stress and parental negative attributions may be important intervention points for both new mothers and fathers.

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DOI

https://doi.org/10.25777/6dxa-t648

ISBN

9798197809186

ORCID

0009-0001-1445-6709

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Psychology Commons

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