Date of Award

5-2022

Thesis Date

5-2022

Degree Type

Honors Thesis-Restricted

Degree Name

B.S.

Department

Psychology

Degree Program

Psychology

Director

Sarah Black

Abstract

Research on informant discrepancies between parents and children has provided conflicting findings, especially when considering the role of family functioning and parental psychopathology. The present study examined the respective moderating effects of family function and parental psychopathology in the association between parent and child reports of children’s internalizing symptoms (i.e., depression and anxiety). Participants were 391 parent-child dyads with over half of parents and children being male. Children were eight to 17 years (M = 10.68, SD = 2.28). Children completed self-report questionnaires were completed self-report measures of depression and anxiety; parents completed measures about family functioning, child psychopathology, and their own depression and anxiety. Results showed that family functioning moderated the relation between parent and child reports for child depression and anxiety. While parent anxiety was not found to moderate the relation of parent and child reports of either depression or anxiety, parent depression moderated the relation between parent-and child-reports of child depression. Although parental psychopathology had less of a clear impact on discrepancies, the role of parent depression seems to have a greater moderating effect than parental anxiety. Furthermore, these findings highlight that family functioning not only moderated discrepancies in the present study, but should be further examined in future research.

Rights

The University of New Orleans and its agents retain the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible this honors thesis in whole or part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. The author retains all other ownership rights to the copyright of the honors thesis.

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