This proposal requests support (three years) to test a process model that explains and predicts the development and maintenance of aggressive mother-son interactions. The significance of examining the relations between attributions and aggressive behavior is that coercive mother-child interactions place children, especially boys, at risk for exhibiting antisocial behavior in other contexts, even into adolescence and adulthood.
The specific aims of this study are (1) to examine the relations between mothers' and children's attributions and the coerciveness of their interactions; (2) to chronicle stability and change (increase or decrease) in conflictual interpersonal mother-son interchanges and their social cognitions over one year in order to (3) assess the extent to which attributional processes contribute toward aggressiveness (coerciveness) and aggressive interactions contribute toward mothers' and sons' attributions; and (4) assess whether there are particular setting conditions (e.g., maternal depression, spousal conflict, economic stress) that increase the tendency of some mother-son dyads to make negative attributions and engage in coercive interactions. Toward these ends, 250 mother-son dyads from white married families will be studied prospectively. Two assessments (each separated by one year) will be made of mothers' and their sons' (7-9 years of age) attributions and coercive interactions. In addition, assessments will be made of personal-social and socioecological setting conditions that may contribute toward some mother-son dyads being particularly vulnerable to making negative attributions and engaging in coercive interactions.
