title: Neighborhood disadvantage as a moderator of the association between harsh parenting and toddler-aged children's internalizing and externalizing problems.
abstract: Neighborhood dangerousness and belongingness were expected to moderate associations between harsh parenting and toddler-age children's problem behaviors. Fifty-five predominantly African American mothers participated with their 2-year old children. Neighborhood danger, neighborhood belongingness, and children's problem behaviors were measured with mothers' reports. Harsh parenting was measured with observer ratings. Analyses considered variance common to externalizing and internalizing problems, using a total problems score, and unique variance, by controlling for internalizing behavior when predicting externalizing behavior, and vice versa. Regarding the common variance, only the main effects of neighborhood danger and harsh parenting were significantly associated with total problem behavior. In contrast, after controlling for externalizing problems, the positive association between harsh parenting and unique variance in internalizing problems became stronger as neighborhood danger increased. No statistically significant associations emerged for the models predicting the unique variance in externalizing problems or models considering neighborhood belongingness.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of New Orleans, New Orleans, LA 70148, USA.
authors.forename: Kristin L
authors.initials: KL
authors.lastname: Callahan
authors.forename: Laura V
authors.initials: LV
authors.lastname: Scaramella
authors.forename: Robert D
authors.initials: RD
authors.lastname: Laird
authors.forename: Sara L
authors.initials: SL
authors.lastname: Sohr-Preston
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001741:Black or African American; D002652:Child Behavior; D002653:Child Behavior Disorders / Q000209:etiology / Q000523:psychology*; D002675:Child, Preschool; D006801:Humans; D007389:Internal-External Control; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D009034:Mother-Child Relations; D009035:Mothers / Q000523:psychology; D055820:New Orleans; D016487:Parenting / Q000523:psychology*; D011203:Poverty; D012111:Residence Characteristics; D012931:Social Environment; D055815:Young Adult