MATERNAL DEPRESSION - EFFECTS ON SOCIAL COGNITION AND BEHAVIOR IN PARENT CHILD INTERACTIONS

The social interactions of depressed and nondepressed mothers an their preschool-age children were observed and mothers' perceptions of child behavior assessed. Depressed mothers, as a group, exhibited more negative behavior than controls; however, no differences were found for maternal positive behavior or contingent responding. There was a high degree of reciprocity between child and mother behavior in both groups and there was a trend for children of the depressed mothers to be more negative than the control children. The results with cognitive measures were consistent with depressive realism in perception of social interactions. Depressed mothers recalled more negative child behavior than nondepressed mothers; however, these perceptions paralleled the observed interactions. Overall, the results suggest that maternal depression is associated with negative parent-child interactions and more negative, albeit fairly accurate, perceptions of child behavior.