Browsing by Author "Korkut, Beliz"

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The effects of the child, maternal and environmental characteristics on behavioral problems in early childhood period
(2018-01) Korkut, Beliz; Arıkan, Gizem; Arıkan, Gizem; Dost Gözkan, Ayfer; Acartürk, Z. C.; Department of Psychology; Korkut, Beliz
The main aim of the present thesis study was to compare the mothers and children from low- and high-socioeconomic status (SES) in terms of the mothers' social support, stress, perception of the child intentionality, and the children's behavioral problems. In addition, the current study aimed to examine whether there is a differentce in the relationship between perceived social support, maternal stress, mother's perception of child's intentionality and child internalizing and externalizing behavioral problems between mothers and children from different SES groups. The second aim was to examine whether the mothers' social support, stress, perception of the child intentionality and children's internalizing and externalizing problems showed a change or remained stable within 1 year, and to explore the influence of mothers' developmental expectations and child temperament on child behavioral problems in addition to perceived social support, maternal stress, mothers' perception of child's intentionality. The main study recruited 463 mothers with children aged 12-46 months and the follow-up study had 67 mothers with children aged 19-51 months. A series of structural equation models (SEM) were run in order to show the associations in total sample and in different SES groups (Low-SES vs. High-SES). For the follow-up, the Paired T-tests and a series of hierarchical regression analyses were conducted to see the differences in variables from first and second time points, and to examine how perceived social support, maternal stress, mother's perception of child's intentionality, in addition to influence of child temperament and mothers' developmental expectations predict internalizing and externalizing problems. In the main study, the maternal stress positively predicted both internalizing and externalizing problems, whereas the social support negatively predicted only internalizing problems. The negative intentionality was both the predictor and the mediator for internalizing problems for the total sample. The maternal stress was found to predict internalizing and externalizing behavioral problems negatively and the negative intentionality predicted the internalizing problems and mediated the relationship between maternal stress and internalizing problems in the low-SES group. In the high-SES sample, maternal stress positively predicted internalizing and externalizing problems, and social support negatively predicted both internalizing and externalizing problems. In the follow-up, the emotionality and the maternal stress positively predicted internalizing problems, whereas the emotionality, activity, and maternal stress positively predicted externalizing problems. Moreover, maternal stress partially mediated the relationship between emotionality and internalizing problems, and fully mediated the relationship between emotionality and externalizing problems. The results indicated that mother's stress, social support, their attributions and expectations about their child's behaviors and state as well as child temperament can contribute to problem behaviors. However, these effects may vary in different SES groups in Turkey. The future studies and interventions should focus on underpinnings of maternal stress while addressing protective factors for different SES groups in order to prevent behavioral problems during early childhood.