(PS4-18) Depressed Mood and Couple Functioning: A Daily Diary Study of the Stress Generation Model Within a Family Systems Context

Abstract Text: It is well documented that, on average (i.e., across people), individuals with higher depressive symptoms experience poorer couple functioning (e.g., lower relationship satisfaction, greater conflict; see Whisman et al., 2021, for a review). These findings are consistent with the stress generation model of depression (Hammen, 1991; 2006), which posits that depressed individuals contribute to interpersonal strain through maladaptive thoughts and behaviors. However, little is known about how depressive symptoms and couple functioning covary within individuals (i.e., what couple functioning looks like on occasions when individuals are more depressed than usual) or whether such associations extend beyond the couple’s romantic relationship to include how they relate as coparents. How couples relate as coparents has important implications for the quality of their parenting (Feinberg, 2003). Better understanding of daily covariations between depressed mood and couple outcomes (both romantic relationship and coparenting quality) is critical, as linkages between short-term fluctuations in parental depressed mood and couple functioning may give rise to stable patterns of relational dynamics that persist over time to the detriment of the broader family system.

This study investigated how daily fluctuations in parents’ depressed mood predict fluctuations in couple functioning, specifically romantic relationship and coparenting quality, using intensive longitudinal data. It also examined whether baseline parental depressive symptoms moderate these daily associations. 150 caregiving parents (95.3% mothers) of adolescents (Mage = 43.4, SD = 6.9) living in rural or semi-rural communities completed a baseline survey and 21 consecutive days of diary reports on individual well-being and family functioning.

Findings were consistent with the stress generation model at both the between- and within-person levels. More specifically, parents with more severe depressive symptoms at baseline reported poorer overall couple relationship (i.e., lower interparental positiveness, higher interparental conflict) and coparenting quality (i.e., lower coparenting support, higher triangulation) over the 21-day period. Multilevel analyses also revealed that on days when parents’ mood was more depressed than usual, parents reported poorer romantic relationship quality (lower interparental positiveness, higher interparental conflict) and coparenting quality (lower coparenting support, higher triangulation). Baseline depression severity did not moderate these daily associations.

This study extends the stress generation model to demonstrate both between- and within-person associations between depressive symptoms and couple functioning from a family systems perspective. Interventions that help individuals regulate short-term fluctuations in mood may prevent or mitigate relationship distress or negative coparenting and parenting behaviors over time.