The Effect of Negative Emotionality of Infants on Parenting Behavior: The Moderated Mediating Effects of Mothers’ Grit and Parenting Stress
AUTHOR : 하지영, 최혜선
INFORMATION : page. 207~221 / 2026 Vol.33 No.3
ABSTRACT
This study aims to examine whether infants’ negative emotionality influences mothers’ parenting behaviors through parenting stress of mothers and whether mothers’ grit moderates this influence. We utilized data from 2,157 households in the first wave of the Korean Early Childhood Education and Care Panel Study. Data analysis was conducted using SPSS 29.0 and PROCESS Macro models 4 and 7 for mediating and moderated mediating effects, respectively. The results are as follows. First, infants' negative emotionality affected parenting behaviors through mothers' parenting stress. Infants' negative emotionality increased parenting stress, which in turn influenced parenting behaviors. Second, mothers’ grit moderated this mediation effect by strengthening the effect of infants’ negative emotionality on mothers’ parenting stress, which subsequently reduced parenting behaviors of mothers. This study suggests that since mothers and infants influence each other reciprocally, infants' negative emotionality can trigger mothers' parenting stress and behaviors, which in turn can affect the infant. The study also confirms that mothers' grit can serve as a protective factor against parenting stress. This study is meaningful because it shows the importance of a mother's grit as a factor that can positively develop mother-infant interactions.