Emotional warmth and negative communication as mediators in the relationship between parental stress and well-being

The present study investigated the association of mothers’ and fathers’ parental stress with their own and their partners’ emotional warmth, negative communication, and well-being. Data were collected from 302 married couples (N = 604 parents), among whom 51 couples (N = 102 parents) also participated in a second assessment six months later. Actor-Partner Interdependence Models indicated that stressed parents experienced more negative communication with their children, less emotional warmth, and lower well-being.

Cross-sectionally, fathers’ and mothers’ parental stress was indirectly associated with their own well-being through their own negative communication with children and emotional warmth. In the time-lagged model, fathers’ parental stress at T1 was positively associated with their own and mothers’ negative communication at T2. Fathers’ negative communication was, in turn, negatively associated with their well-being at T2, supporting a time-lagged actor–actor indirect association.

Mothers’ parental stress at T1 was also negatively associated with their well-being at T2. These findings indicate that parental stress was associated with greater negative communication, lower emotional warmth, and poorer well-being cross-sectionally, while the time-lagged findings further supported associations between negative communication and well-being. Results support the importance of addressing stress, negative communication, and emotional warmth in family-focused interventions.

This work was supported by the Ministry of Research, Innovation, and Digitization, Romania, through CNCS–UEFISCDI (PN-III-P1-1.1-TE-2021-1203), PNCDI III. The project, Stress and Coping in Family Relationships: Longitudinal Effects on Couple Dynamics and Parenting Behaviors, was awarded to Petruța Rusu under the Research Projects for Young Independent Teams funding scheme. This work was supported by a grant of the Ministry of Research, Innovation and Digitization, CNCS-UEFISCDI, Project Number PN-III-P1-1.1-TE-2021-1203, within PNCDI III.

Department of Psychology and Educational Sciences, University Stefan cel Mare of Suceava, Suceava, 720229, Romania Petruța P. Rusu, Ionela Bogdan & Cornelia Ilciuc Department of Psychology, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iasi, Iasi, 700554, Romania The authors declare no competing interests. Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

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