Within- and Between-Family Differences in Cooperative and Competitive Coparenting

Coparenting, the coordination between adults in their parental roles, uniquely contributes to the functioning of multiple family subsystems (Caldera & Lindsey, 2006; Gable, Belsky, & Crnic, 1995; Margolin, Gordis, & John, 2001; Schoppe-Sullivan, Mangelsdorf, Frosch, & McHale, 2004). Coparenting encompasses multiple domains (Feinberg, 2003; Van Egeren & Hawkins, 2004), but considerable research has focused on how supportive or undermining parents are of each other’s parenting efforts (Gable et al., 1995; McHale, 1995). Within the context of family interaction, supportive coparents advance each other’s parenting efforts and work together to achieve the same goals. In contrast, conflict regarding parenting and actively working against the other parent’s goals are characteristic of undermining coparents. Given the critical function of coparenting within the family, there is emerging interest in the factors that influence coparenting behavior. We examine these processes in families with preschoolers because this developmental period can be challenging for some parents as children are increasing in their autonomy and noncompliance, but are still developing the ability to regulate their emotions and behavior (Kuczynski & Kochanska, 1990). To date, research has largely investigated the factors that account for differences in coparenting across families. A clear gap in the literature is whether situational demands that may vary across different family interaction contexts influence coparenting behavior, especially considering that the effect sizes for cross-situational consistency of parenting behavior during this period are generally small to moderate (Holden & Miller, 1999). There has been some interest in overt versus covert coparenting that reflect contexts with different family members present (McHale, 1997). The ecological context of parenting model posits that contextual factors such as stress and support influence coparenting behavior (Feinberg, 2003). Coparenting may, therefore, vary as a function of the stress or support that an interaction context provides. One study found that coparenting competition differed across play versus caregiving tasks when infants were 3 and 12 months old (Kuersten-Hogan, Franco, & Son, 2013). Cooperation, however, did not differ across contexts. The primary aim of the current study was to examine whether there was within-family variation in competition and cooperation across a freeplay, structured play, and clean-up task to address the gap in the literature regarding within-family differences in coparenting. If within-family differences are evident, the next step is to explore some factors that may account for these differences. McHale and colleagues (McHale, Kuersten-Hogan, Lauretti, & Rasmussen, 2000) identified profiles based on multiple family processes and found that high levels of warmth, cooperation, and child-centered family interaction cohere. In addition, greater parenting demands and stress are thought to be linked with less child-centered behavior (Deater-Deckard, 1998). Situations that require parents to get their children to perform specific tasks are potentially more demanding for parents than playing with their children. Given the above research, we expect that fluctuations in child-centered behavior across contexts will account for within-family variation in cooperation but not competition. The ecological context of coparenting model also posits that marital and child characteristics influence the quality of coparenting behavior (Feinberg, 2003). Not surprisingly, marital conflict is generally associated with hostile and competitive coparenting (McHale, 1995). Kitzmann (2000) found that couples who engaged in more negativity during couple discussions engaged in less supportive coparenting in subsequent triadic interactions. Further, both marital conflict and positive marital engagement seem to be more consistently associated with coparenting 3-year-olds versus infants (Schoppe-Sullivan et al., 2004). Children’s temperament, particularly negative affectivity, has also emerged as a correlate of coparenting behavior though the results have been inconsistent. For instance, when infants were easier to soothe, mothers, but not fathers, reported a more positive coparenting relationship (Burney & Leerkes, 2010). Moreover, negative affectivity has been linked to more intrusive and undermining coparenting, but was not associated with cooperative coparenting (Cook, Schoppe-Sullivan, Buckley, & Davis, 2009; Lindsey, Caldera, & Colwell, 2005). We concentrate on children’s inhibitory control, a regulatory dimension of temperament, that is fairly stable by three and half years of age (Kochanska & Knaack, 2003). Children with low inhibitory control are more likely to have difficulty sitting still, following directions and display greater externalizing behaviors (Kochanska & Knaack, 2003) which can put a strain on the coparenting relationship. There is some evidence that the association between temperament and coparenting depends on the quality of the marital relationship. In one study, under conditions of low marital quality having a fussy and less adaptable infant increased coparents’ undermining behaviors (Schoppe-Sullivan, Mangelsdorf, Brown, & Sokolowski, 2007). Similarly, fathers were more likely to engage in more negative coparenting when they reported low quality marital relationships and considered their infants highly reactive (Burney & Leerkes, 2010). This research suggests that positive marital relationships can buffer families from the potential stresses of parenting a child with a difficult temperament. In contrast, Cook et al. (2009) found that preschoolers’ negative affectivity was associated with less supportive coparenting only when marital adjustment was high. Together, these findings allude to potential differences in these associations depending on the age of the child. We examined whether the interaction between inhibitory control and marital relationship quality predicts between-family differences in coparenting behavior during family interaction with preschoolers. In sum, the first and primary aim was to examine whether there was significant within- and between-family variation in cooperation and competition. Very little is known regarding the consistency of coparenting across different situations and the current study is an important step in beginning to explore this. The second aim was to examine whether fluctuations in child-centered behavior were associated with within-family variation in coparenting. The third aim explored whether marital relationship quality and children’s inhibitory control were associated with between-family differences in coparenting while adjusting for the variation within-families.