Child differential sensitivity to parenting

What is it about?

Testing the hypothesis of a child differential sensitivity to parenting improvement. 114 parents of preschoolers participated in two parenting experiments aiming to increase parental self-efficacy in view of improving child behavior.

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Why is it important?

Understanding individual differences in reaction to parenting intervention is a key clinical issue. This research contributes to show that such differences exist. Child differential sensitivity was found for the temperamental trait of negative emotionality but not for the temperamental trait of activity. However, this sensitivity was in an unexpected direction. Highly emotional children benefited less from this parental cognitive improvement than children low on emotionality. These results may be explained by the specific cognitive nature of these two parenting micro-trials.