This associational study examines Maternal Separation Anxiety in a sample of at least college educated, employed mothers with young children in non-maternal care selected from Phase I of the National Institutes of Child Health and Development study of early child care. The study provides descriptive data on maternal separation anxiety from 6 months to 24 months after birth of a child, its association with indices of mother-child relations, and whether these associations are merely a manifestation of general neuroticism/anxiety or depressive symptoms, or if there is something unique about maternal separation anxiety of relevance to mother-child relations. Self-report and observational data on 147 mothers indicated that maternal separation anxiety showed high individual stability, but on average decreased over time. Maternal personality characteristics and maternal education level showed modest associations with MSA. However, MSA was associated with neither observed maternal behavior at day care drop-offs and pick-ups, nor infant-mother attachment in the expected patterns. Results suggest that MSA may not be a fruitful approach to thinking about parenting in a White, well-educated sample of women.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PITT/oai:PITTETD:etd-04222008-130915 |
| Date | 30 June 2008 |
| Creators | Gee, Amy Delaplane |
| Contributors | Catherine G. Greeno, PhD., Joan I. Vondra, PhD., Christina J. Groark, PhD., Lindsay Clare Matsumura, PhD. |
| Publisher | University of Pittsburgh |
| Source Sets | University of Pittsburgh |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.pitt.edu/ETD/available/etd-04222008-130915/ |
| Rights | restricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Pittsburgh or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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