Parenting Perfectionism and Parental Adjustment.

The parental role is expected to be one of the most gratifying and rewarding roles in life. As expectations of parenting become ever higher, the implications of parenting perfectionism for parental adjustment warrant investigation. Using longitudinal data from 182 couples, this study examined the associations between societal- and self-oriented parenting perfectionism and new mothers' and fathers' parenting self-efficacy, stress, and satisfaction. For mothers, societal-oriented parenting perfectionism was associated with lower parenting self-efficacy, but self-oriented parenting perfectionism was associated with higher parenting satisfaction. For fathers, societal-oriented parenting perfectionism was associated with higher parenting stress, whereas higher levels of self-oriented parenting perfectionism were associated with higher parenting self-efficacy, lower parenting stress, and greater parenting satisfaction. These findings support the distinction between societal- and self-oriented perfectionism, extend research on perfectionism to interpersonal adjustment in the parenting domain, and provide the first evidence for the potential consequences of holding excessively high standards for parenting.

It's (Not) Over: Relationship Instability and Recovery Between Victims and Detained Domestic Abusers.

We used an innovative data set involving audio-recorded conversations between abusers and victims to explore the interactional patterns that occur within violent relationships, following severe violence and the abuser's detainment. Using micro-level conversational data, our analysis sequenced the hopes/desires that victims and abusers expressed around their expectations for continuing or discontinuing a connection with each other. Conversations commonly included an expressed statement to end the relationship. Although it was common for both victims and abusers to express hope of ending the relationship, victims were most likely to initiate this desire. In response, abusers used multiple strategies to regain connection, including 1) challenging the victim, 2) declaring love or a desire to continue the relationship, 3) appealing for sympathy or help from the victim, and 4) mirroring or accepting the victim's desire to end the relationship (when other strategies were unsuccessful). Abusers' responses served to cultivate additional conflict in the relationship while at the same time maintained communication and facilitated relationship recovery following threats of dissolution. These findings contribute to an increased theoretical understanding of the dynamics of domestic violence in the sensitive period involving the couple's physical separation.

Doing Gender Online: New Mothers' Psychological Characteristics, Facebook Use, and Depressive Symptoms.

Online social networking sites, such as Facebook, have provided a new platform for individuals to produce and reproduce gender through social interactions. New mothers, in particular, may use Facebook to practice behaviors that align with their mothering identity and meet broader societal expectations, or in other words, to "do motherhood." Given that Facebook use may undermine well-being, it is important to understand the individual differences underlying new mothers' experiences with Facebook during the stressful first months of parenthood. Using survey data from a sample of 127 new mothers with Facebook accounts residing in the U.S. Midwest, we addressed two key questions: (a) Are individual differences in new mothers' psychological characteristics associated with their use and experiences of Facebook? and (b) Are new mothers' psychological characteristics associated with greater risk for depressive symptoms via their use and experiences of Facebook? Regression analyses revealed that mothers who were more concerned with external validation of their identities as mothers and those who believed that society holds them to excessively high standards for parenting engaged in more frequent Facebook activity and also reported stronger emotional reactions to Facebook commentary. Moreover, mothers who were more concerned with external validation were more likely to have featured their child in their Facebook profile picture. Mediation analyses indicated that mothers who were more prone to seeking external validation for their mothering identity and perfectionistic about parenting experienced increases in depressive symptoms indirectly via greater Facebook activity.

Who are the Gatekeepers? Predictors of Maternal Gatekeeping.

OBJECTIVE: The goal of this study was to identify determinants of maternal gatekeeping at the transition to parenthood. DESIGN: Participants included 182 different-gender dual-earner couples. During pregnancy, expectant parents completed questionnaires regarding their psychological functioning, attitudes, and expectations, and at 3 months postpartum questionnaires regarding maternal gatekeeping behavior and gate closing attitudes. RESULTS: SEM analyses revealed that mothers were more likely to close the gate to fathers when mothers held greater perfectionistic expectations for fathers' parenting, had poorer psychological functioning, perceived their romantic relationship as less stable, and had higher levels of parenting self-efficacy. In contrast, fathers with lower parenting self-efficacy appeared to elicit greater maternal gate closing behavior. Mothers who engaged in greater gate opening behavior were more religious. CONCLUSIONS: Maternal gatekeeping may be more strongly associated with maternal expectations and psychological functioning than with maternal traditional gender attitudes. Fathers' characteristics are less predictive of maternal gatekeeping than mothers' characteristics.

Sexual infidelity as trigger for intimate partner violence.

BACKGROUND: We conducted a qualitative study to examine acute, situational factors and chronic stressors that triggered severe intimate partner violence (IPV) in women. METHODS: Our sample consisted of 17 heterosexual couples, where the male was in detention for IPV and made telephone calls to his female victim. We used up to 4 hours of telephone conversational data for each couple to examine the couple's understanding of (1) acute triggers for the violent event and (2) chronic stressors that created the underlying context for violence. Grounded theory guided our robust, iterative data analysis involving audiotape review, narrative summation, and thematic organization. RESULTS: Consistently across couples, violence was acutely triggered by accusations of infidelity, typically within the context of alcohol or drug use. Victims sustained significant injury, including severe head trauma (some resulting in hospitalization/surgery), bite wounds, strangulation complications, and lost pregnancy. Chronic relationship stressors evident across couples included ongoing anxiety about infidelity, preoccupation with heterosexual gender roles and religious expectations, drug and alcohol use, and mental health concerns (depression, anxiety, and suicide ideation/attempts). CONCLUSIONS: Disseminated models feature jealousy as a strategy used by perpetrators to control IPV victims and as a red flag for homicidal behavior. Our findings significantly extend this notion by indicating that infidelity concerns, a specific form of jealousy, were the immediate trigger for both the acute violent episode and resulting injuries to victims and were persistently raised by both perpetrators and victims as an ongoing relationship stressor.