Mothers’ and fathers’ reflective functioning and its association with parenting behaviors and cortisol reactivity during a conflict interaction with their adolescent children

We assessed parental reflective functioning (PRF) with the Parent Development Interview - Revised, and investigated its association with parenting behaviors, i.e., autonomy support and psychological control (operationalized in terms of behaviors promoting and undermining autonomy relatedness), and stress responses (cortisol reactivity) during a parent-child conflict interaction task (Family Interaction Task). Participants were 40 mothers and 28 fathers, who took part in the study together with their adolescent children (N = 49). Mothers had significantly lower PRF and displayed more psychologically controlling behaviors in the interaction with their children than fathers. Rather than sex per se, high levels of PRF were the best predictors of autonomy support, whereas lower levels of PRF predicted more psychological control. Higher levels of PRF were also the best predictor for lower levels of parenting stress. Stress in the context of parenting was neither related to autonomy support nor to psychological control, which were best predicted by divorced family status. The findings point to the potential utility of interventions aimed at improving PRF and stress management in the context of parenting, especially in divorced families, given their protective effects on parenting behaviors