The Effects of Maternal Rearing Attitudes and Depression on Compulsive-Like Behavior in Children: The Mediating Role of Children’s Emotional Traits

This study was designed to examine the effects of maternal rearing attitudes and depression on children’s compulsive-like behavior, mediated by children’s emotional traits. A questionnaire was completed by 116 mothers of 3 6-year-old children. There were no significant correlations between maternal factors and compulsive-like behavior in children. However, structural equation modeling using children’s emotional traits as the mediating variable indicated that maternal rearing attitudes influence children’s compulsive-like behavior via children’s anger trait. This finding suggests that mothers’ behavior does not lead directly to compulsive behavior in children, but that it influences children’s behavior through the process of shaping fundamental properties of emotion in children. While no association was found between compulsive-like behavior and the anxiety trait, which has been considered the core of compulsion, the findings suggest that the anger trait plays a principal role in the genesis of compulsive-like behavior. We suggest new possibilities in obsession-compulsion research.