Postpartum Mothers' Leisure-Time Exercise Behavior is Linked to Positive Emotion During Partner Discussions.

Purpose: Marital dissatisfaction and conflict often increase for couples after the birth of a child and are evident in fewer positive family interactions and more negative family interactions. Because exercise is known to increase positive emotions and decrease negative emotions, the current study examined the extent to which higher levels of mothers' exercise during the postpartum period were related to more positive and fewer negative emotion-expressive behaviors with their infants' fathers.

Method: Mothers' (N = 46; M = 8 months postpartum) positive and negative expressive behaviors were coded during couples' discussions of current conflict and positive family experiences.

Caregiver Protective Behavior, Toddler Fear and Sadness, and Toddler Cortisol Reactivity in Novel Contexts.

Previous research has shown that caregiver protective behavior may exacerbate toddler distress in specific contexts. The current study sought to extend this work to examine associations between these variables and toddler cortisol reactivity. Ninety-three 24-month-old toddlers were observed across six novel contexts designed to elicit distress.

Relations of Parent-Youth Interactive Exchanges to Adolescent Socioemotional Development.

This study examined the relations of parent-youth agreement and disagreement during a joint problem-solving task and multi-methodological indices of socioemotional outcomes in adolescents (Mean age = 13). One hundred and sixty seven parents and their adolescent children participated. Each parent-youth pair played the interactive game Jenga, and their interactions were analyzed for frequency of elaborations (agreement during three or more conversational turns) and negotiations (disagreement during three or more conversational turns).