Anne ShafferUniversity of Georgia | UGA · Department of Psychology
Anne Shaffer
PhD
About
76
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Introduction
Skills and Expertise
Publications
Publications (76)
The limited inclusion of racial/ethnic minorities in the development and validation of parenting measures limits our understanding of whether parenting constructs are valid in racial and ethnic minorities. Tests of measurement invariance/equivalence (MI/E) of parenting measures can help evaluate the validity of parenting constructs among racial/eth...
The identification of intermediate mechanisms that account for the intergenerational transmission of child maltreatment can elucidate processes of risk and resilience in families. This study investigated the role of maternal emotion dysregulation; we hypothesized that emotion dysregulation would mediate the relation between mothers’ history of malt...
Questions persist in the parenting literature regarding how best to define positive and negative parenting behaviors. Are there optimal parenting behaviors shared by mothers and fathers, or among different racial and ethnic groups? This study draws from a nationally representative sample of US parents of school-age children, testing aspects of meas...
Parenting provides many positive experiences for mothers and fathers but also presents them with many challenges, such as regulating their emotions during interactions with their children. While emotion regulation (ER) has emerged as an important predictor of parenting behavior and a transdiagnostic target of parenting interventions, measures speci...
The Five Minute Speech Sample’s (FMSS) measure of parental expressed emotion (EE), defined as criticism (CRIT) and emotional overinvolvement (EOI), has been increasingly used to measure family emotional climate in relation to youth psychopathological development. As CRIT and EOI were defined based on adults, a meta-analysis and systematic review wa...
Purpose:
Women in South Africa also have high rates of depression and intimate partner violence, and they often co-occur. Women living with HIV who experience IPV are particularly likely to experience elevated levels of depressive symptoms and such symptoms are more likely to persist. Although the association between IPV and depression has been ex...
Background:
The accurate assessment of childhood maltreatment (CM) is important in medical and mental health settings given its association to adverse psychological and physical outcomes. Reliable and valid assessment of CM is also of critical importance to research. Due to the potential of measurement bias when comparing CM across racial and ethn...
Family expressiveness: Links to emotional maltreatment and later interpersonal functioning
Intergenerational transmission of childhood maltreatment mediated by emotion dysregulation.
Identifying Race Differential Item Functioning for the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire
Broader autism phenotype in relation to emotion dysregulation and the role of positive parenting
Emotion Regulation in the Context of Parenting: A Review and Directions for Measurement Development
Dating violence has been linked to past experiences of childhood emotional abuse; however, little research has explored how stress reactivity functions within interpersonal relationships to amplify or attenuate these associations. The present study investigated the moderating effects of cortisol stress reactivity on associations between retrospecti...
Correlates of expressed emotion in mothers of young children
In a diverse community sample of mothers (N = 108) and their preschool-aged children (Mage = 3.50 years), this study conducted person-oriented analyses of maternal emotion regulation (ER) based on a multimethod assessment incorporating physiological, observational, and self-report indicators. A model-based cluster analysis was applied to five indic...
This study examines childhood emotional maltreatment as a developmental predictor of psychological aggression perpetration in young adult dating couples, using a dyadic framework to account for individual and partner effects. We further investigate observations of skillful emotion communication (i.e., discussion of emotional experiences, including...
Background
Non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) is a behavior of increasing prevalence in adolescents with links to various negative mental health and adjustment outcomes. Poor emotion expression has been linked with NSSI use, whereas the use of adaptive coping strategies has been identified as a protective factor against NSSI. The current study examine...
The aims of the current study were to use dyadic data analysis to examine the associations of history of childhood emotional maltreatment to current relationship satisfaction among young adult romantic partners as moderated by the effects of hostile behavioral observations within these romantic couples. Our sample included 52 young adult romantic d...
This study examined three potential moderators of the relations between maternal parenting stress and preschoolers’ adjustment problems: a genetic polymorphism—the short allele of the serotonin transporter (5-HTTLPR, ss/sl allele) gene, a physiological indicator—children's baseline respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), and a behavioral indicator—moth...
This study examined profiles of specific emotion deficits, including poor emotion awareness, reluctance to express emotion, sadness inhibition and dysregulation, and anger inhibition and dysregulation. Self-report questionnaires assessed adolescents’ emotion skills and nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) engagement, frequency, severity, methods, and age...
Narcissism is associated with dysfunction in interpersonal relationships. Empirically, limited information is available about how narcissism affects observed interactions in romantic relationships. In this study, we employed dyadic data analyses to investigate the effects of narcissism on relationship functioning. Young adult couples (N = 54 couple...
Parenting is a cognitive, emotional, and behavioral endeavor, yet limited research investigates parents’ executive functions and emotion regulation as predictors of how parents interact with their children. The current study is a multimethod investigation of parental self-regulation in relation to the quality of parenting behavior and parent–child...
The five-minute speech sample is an indirect measure of familial emotional climate, measuring the degree of criticism and/or emotional over-involvement a parent displays while describing a child. Originally developed for parents of adult children with chronic mental illness, the five-minute speech sample has more recently been used among parents of...
Parenting behaviors are multifaceted and dynamic and therefore challenging to quantify. Measurement methods have critical implications for study results, particularly for prevention trials designed to modify parenting behaviors. Although multiple approaches can complement one another and contribute to a more complete understanding of prevention tri...
High self-control is associated with positive relationship outcomes. The purpose of this research was to examine the relationship between self-control and communication patterns between romantic partners. Dyadic data analyses revealed main effects of actor and partner self-control on mutually constructive communication and demand/withdraw. Addition...
While there is a growing body of literature examining the influence of emotion socialization on children's emotional and social development, there is less research on what predicts emotion socialization behaviors among parents. The current study explores maternal emotion regulation difficulties as a predictor of emotion socialization practices, spe...
Family-based therapy (FBT) is the gold standard of treatment for adolescents with anorexia nervosa (AN) and has shown to be more effective than other forms of treatment in several randomized controlled trials. However, FBT is a behaviorally based intervention that does not explicitly address emotional distress often exhibited by patients and their...
The goal of this brief report is to demonstrate the utility of quantifying parental discipline practices as relative frequencies in measuring changes in parenting behavior and relations to child behavior following intervention. We explored comparisons across methodological approaches of assessing parenting behavior via absolute and relative frequen...
The present study examined the relationship between reports of childhood parentification, current romantic relationship constructive communication, and adult attachment-related cognitions in 57 college participants. Results from analyses indicated that childhood emotional parentification was negatively associated with constructive communication and...
This study used a diverse community sample to test a moderated mediation model, investigating maternal depressive symptoms as a mediator of the relations between maternal emotional maltreatment and child behavior problems; we further tested the moderating effects of observed maternal hostility on these relations. Participants included 64 mother–chi...
From a bio-behavioral framework, the relations between physiological synchrony, positive behavioral synchrony, and child self-regulation under varying levels of risk were examined among 93 mother- (M age = 30.44 years, SD = 5.98 years) preschooler (M age = 3.47 years, SD =.52 years, 58.70% male) dyads. Physiological synchrony was examined using int...
Little is known about how processes underlying maternal psychopathology, such as emotion dysregulation, are related to children’s adjustment problems. Further, scant research has explored child protective factors that can buffer these associations. We used a multi-method approach to examine whether child positive affect functions as a protective an...
Little research has investigated factors that may moderate the intergenerational transmission of emotionally unsupportive parenting behaviors. The present study examined the role of two moderators, emotion dysregulation and maternal age at childbirth, on the relation between maternal childhood history of emotional maltreatment and current observati...
Maternal expressed emotion (EE), including maternal criticism and emotional over-involvement, is considered an index of family emotional climate that is critical for children’s psychological well-being. Limited research investigates how each element of EE differentially contributes to child behavior problems, or explores the mechanisms, such as chi...
The present study sought to further specify conceptual models of youth positive affect (PA) by examining mothers' observed PA as a mediator of the relation between family risk (based on maternal reports of demographic factors) and children's PA in a sample of 82 mothers (M = 31.25 years, SD = 6.16) and their preschool-aged children (M = 3.51 years,...
Grounded in Emotional Security Theory (Cummings & Davies, 1994), the present study examined the unique role of parenting stress in the transmission of conflict from intimate partner violence (IPV) victimization to observed emotionally unsupportive parenting behavior (i.e., hostility, psychological control, emotional unavailability) within a communi...
This study examined the link between maternal emotion regulation (ER) and emotion parenting behaviors and child ER, particularly emphasizing the previously understudied potential associations between mothers’ ER and concurrent emotion parenting behaviors. Community-recruited participants included 64 mother–child (M = 9.5 years, 38 girls) dyads. Mot...
Limited research has investigated the long-term effects of childhood emotional abuse on later forms of parenting. This study utilized a person-centered approach to explore the relation between retrospectively-reported maternal childhood emotional abuse and observed parenting behaviors during a conflict discussion. Data were collected from 53 caregi...
While prior research has examined the relationship between maternal depressive symptoms and child externalizing behaviors, little research has focused specifically on the moderating effects of observed parenting behaviors on this relationship. This study was conducted to investigate the role of emotionally maltreating parenting behaviors, which wer...
In the parent intervention outcome literatures, discipline practices are generally quantified as absolute frequencies or, less commonly, as relative frequencies. These differences in methodology warrant direct comparison as they have critical implications for study results and conclusions among treatments targeted at reducing parental aggression an...
This case study reports on the use of a developmentally sensitive behavioral treatment program for a 4-year-old Korean girl diagnosed with selective mutism. Multi-method assessment, consisting of parent and teacher reports, as well as school and home-video observation, confirmed the diagnosis. Behavioral therapy was administered with an emphasis on...
The present study examined the association between retrospective reports of paternal parentification and self-reports of romantic relationship satisfaction and insecurity among a sample of 542 college women (mean age = 19.29 years). Results indicated that paternal parentification is negatively associated with romantic relationship satisfaction and...
This study investigated the roles of parents' and children's emotion dysregulation in children's display of internalizing and externalizing symptoms by incorporating person- and variable-centered approaches. Sixty-four children (ages 8-11) participated in this study with their mothers. Study variables were collected via multiple methods, including...
The overall aim of this multi-informant study was to examine pre-post treatment changes, and maintenance at 3-year follow-up, for multiple dimensions of the family context, for a modular intervention that has previously demonstrated significant clinical improvements in child behavior and maintenance of these effects. Family outcomes included parent...
In the current study, we examined longitudinal changes in, and bidirectional effects between, parenting practices and child behavior problems in the context of a psychosocial treatment and 3-year follow-up period. The sample comprised 139 parent-child dyads (child ages 6-11) who participated in a modular treatment protocol for early-onset ODD or CD...
This study examined the mediating role of emotion dysregulation in the relation between retrospective reports of childhood emotional maltreatment and current satisfaction in a romantic relationship. Participants included 492 (135 male, 357 female) young adults in current romantic relationships. Results indicated that total emotion regulation diffic...
Emotional maltreatment is associated with detrimental outcomes in youth, yet research investigating its phenomenology, prevalence, and detection has lagged behind that investigating other forms of maltreatment. Researchers, practitioners, and policymakers are challenged by how best to address and identify emotional maltreatment in childhood, given...
The current study examined the relationship of maternal- and paternal-perpetrated intimate partner violence (IPV) to children’s internalizing and externalizing symptomatology. Mother-child dyads (N = 53; child ages 8–11) reported maternal- and paternal-perpetrated IPV exposure and measures of child symptomatology. Results demonstrated that: (a) mat...
The current study expands upon the extant literature by examining the influence of contextual risk factors (e.g., parental psychological distress, household income, educational attainment) on parental responses to children’s emotional experiences. Participants included 97 ethnically and demographically diverse mother–child dyads with children rangi...
This study investigated the transmission of boundary dissolution (BD) in parent-child relationships from parental behaviors observed in early childhood to adolescent behaviors observed at age 13 and relations to adolescent psychosocial adaptation. The goals of the study are (a) to examine the developmental relation of early childhood BD to several...
This study examined the intergenerational transmission of psychopathology symptoms with 7-12 year-old children (N = 97; 44 boys, 53 girls, M age = 9.14, SD = 1.38) and their mothers (M age = 38.46, SD = 6.86). Child emotion regulation mediated the links between maternal psychopathology and child internalizing and externalizing symptoms. In turn, th...
Parent management training (PMT) employs a therapist as a consultant who works directly with a parent (mediator) to alleviate the problem behavior of a child (target). The basic PMT format consists primarily of instruction by the therapist in parenting techniques, structured modeling, role plays and practice sessions, and homework assignments for t...
This chapter looks at children in their beginning school years. For children involved with child welfare, the transition to school brings new opportunities but may also present new obstacles to those who lack stability in their home or community environments. The chapter examines a major developmental construct-resilience-defined as adaptation in t...
This study examined the mediating roles of several family variables in the relation between IPV witnessing and children’s
emotional and behavioral problems among 129 low-income, African American children ages 8 to 12. According to the mediational
model tested, experiencing or witnessing IPV negatively impacted the following family variables: matern...
Prospective studies of intergenerational continuity in parenting quality remain scarce, with little attention given to the potential role of social competence as a mediator of continuity. This study examined social competence as a mediator in the pathway from 1st generation (G1) to 2nd generation (G2) parenting quality. A normative sample of childr...
Objectives:
This investigation examined developmental pathways between childhood emotional maltreatment and adaptational outcomes in early adolescence. This study utilized a developmental psychopathology perspective in adopting a multidimensional approach to the assessment of different forms of emotional maltreatment and later adjustment outcomes....
One of the greatest methodological problems in the study of childhood maltreatment is the discrepancy in methods by which cases of child maltreatment are identified. The current study compared incidents of maltreatment identified prospectively, retrospectively, or through a combination of both methods.
Within a cohort of 170 participants followed f...
To evaluate the efficacy of a parent-based sexual-risk prevention program for African American preadolescents.
Randomized controlled trial.
Community-based study conducted in Athens, Georgia; Atlanta, Georgia; and Little Rock, Arkansas from 2001 to 2004.
From 1545 inquiries, 1115 African American parent-preadolescent dyads (child, aged 9-12 years)...
Chapter one serves as an introduction to the issue of why and how families matter in child development. The authors point out that the family has played the most prominent role in theory, research, practice, and policy aimed at understanding and improving child welfare and development. In the risk and resilience literature, quality of parenting and...
Generational boundary dissolution is a form of parent-child relationship disturbance in which the typical parent and child roles become distorted or even reversed. While recognized as a pathological family process among clinicians, generational boundary dissolution has also become the subject of empirical study. The current paper presents the theor...
Countless studies have shown that one of the most consistent areas of a child's life found to contribute to both the development and the treatment of antisocial behavior is the family. Positive parenting practices, such as a supportive parent-child relationship, authoritative discipline methods, and close supervision, are major protective factors a...
The purpose of this study was to explore differences in rates and characteristics of child sexual and physical abuse experiences among women in Singapore and the US.
Participants (N=153) completed an anonymous questionnaire which assessed experiences of childhood sexual and physical abuse, abuse characteristics (e.g., victimization age, severity),...
In an effort to expand the parental conflict literature beyond 2-parent and divorced families, this study examined the following questions: Is coparental conflict between single mothers and the individuals who assist them in raising their children associated with child adjustment, and do parenting skills mediate or moderate this association? The sa...
Unwanted sexual attention (UWSA) encompasses unsolicited verbal comments, gestures, stares, and other noncontact behaviors made regarding one's sexuality and physical appearance. The present study examined the correlates and impact of such UWSA perpetrated toward girls by family members. The first objective of the study was to explore whether famil...
We longitudinally examined across four years the presence and correlates of depressive symptoms in a sample of inner-city African-American children, an ethnic minority population which is understudied regarding child depressive symptoms. Results, based on mother- and child-report, did not indicate gender differences in depressive symptoms at the on...
We longitudinally examined across four years the presence and correlates of depressive symptoms in a sample of inner-city African-American children, an ethnic minority population which is understudied regarding child depressive symptoms. Results, based on mother- and child-report, did not indicate gender differences in depressive symptoms at the on...
Adolescents are at high risk for a number of negative health consequences associated with early and unsafe sexual activity, including infection with human immunodeficiency virus, other sexually transmitted diseases, and unintended pregnancy. As a result, researchers have attempted to identify those factors that influence adolescent sexual risk beha...
We present descriptive information pertaining to mothers'' decision to disclose their HIV infection status to their children, examine correlates of disclosure, and compare mother and child reports of psychosocial adjustment difficulties as a function of disclosure. In contrast to prior studies, a longitudinal (pre-disclosure to post-disclosure) des...
Behavioral parent training has emerged as one of the most successful and well-researched interventions to date in the treatment and prevention of child and adolescent problem behaviors, withextensive empirical support for its clinical utility having been obtained over the last several decades. At this point in time, it is useful to consider the dev...
Projects
Projects (3)
Parenting is a primary target in effective child mental health interventions, and implementing such interventions requires valid, reliable, and equitable assessment of parenting practices. However, the limited inclusion of racial and ethnic diversity in measure development hamper validity, reliability, and equity of parenting assessment in diverse populations. This proposal addresses this unmet need by revising and validating the Multidimensional Assessment of Parenting Scale (MAPS) to yield a psychometrically sound measure of parenting for use in racially and ethnically diverse families.