Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, Vol. 33, No. 1, Februray 2005, pp. 1–11 (
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2005)
DOI: 10.1007/s10802-005-0929-9
The Relations Among Maternal Depression, Maternal
Criticism, and Adolescents’ Externalizing
and Internalizing Symptoms
Alice A. Frye
1,2
and Judy Garber
1,2
Received September 23, 2002; revision received May 31, 2004; accepted August 19, 2004
This study examined the relations between maternal criticism and externalizing and internalizing
symptoms in adolescents who varied in their risk for psychopathology. Both maternal-effects and
child-effects models were examined. The sample consisted of 194 adolescents (mean age = 11.8 years)
and their mothers; 146 mothers had a history of depressive disorders and 48 did not. When adoles-
cents were in 6th and 8th grade, maternal criticism was measured with the five-minute speech sample
and adolescents’ symptoms were assessed with the Child Behavior Checklist. Maternal criticism was
significantly associated with both adolescents’ externalizing and internalizing symptoms, beyond
the contribution of the chronicity/severity of mothers’ depression history. Maternal criticism did not
mediate the relation between maternal depression and adolescent symptoms. In contrast, adolescent
externalizing behaviors mediated the relation between chronicity/severity of maternal depression his-
tory and maternal criticism in 6th grade. Prospective analyses showed that adolescents’ externalizing
symptoms in 6th grade significantly predicted maternal criticism in 8th grade, controlling for maternal
depression history and prior maternal criticism. Results are discussed in terms of the importance of
examining child-effects models in studies of maternal criticism.
KEY WORDS: maternal depression chronicity and severity; criticism; adolescent externalizing and internalizing
symptoms.
Excessive criticism by significant others is hypoth-
esized to create a hostile and stressful environment that
may initiate and/or exacerbate distress, particularly in al-
ready vulnerable individuals (e.g., Asarnow, Goldstein,
Tompson, & Guthrie, 1993; Hooley & Gotlib, 2000). Such
excessive criticism has been linked with psychopathol-
ogy in adults (Hooley, Orley, & Teasdale, 1986; Vaughn,
Snyder, Jones, Freeman, & Falloon, 1984) and children
(Asarnow et al., 1993; Asarnow, Tompson, Woo, &
Cantwell, 2001). Family members’ levels of criticism pre-
dict relapse among schizophrenics (Moline, Singh, Morris,
& Meltzer, 1985; Vaughn et al., 1984; Vaughn & Leff,
1976) and depressed patients (Hooley et al., 1986; Okasha
1
Department of Psychology and Human Development, Vanderbilt Uni-
versity, Nashville, Tennessee.
2
Address all correspondence to Alice Frye or Judy Garber, Department
of Psychology and Human Development, Peabody 512, 230 Appleton
Place, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee 37203-5721; e-mail:
aafrye@yahoo.com; judy.garber@vanderbilt.edu.
et al., 1994). A meta-analytic review (Butzlaff & Hooley,
1998) showed that both psychotic and depressed patients
who returned to a high criticism home environment af-
ter hospitalization were much more likely to relapse than
those who returned to a low criticism environment.
However, these findings may present only a part of
the picture. The focus on the critical family member as
the “cause” of relapse among other family members bears
some resemblance to the ‘mal-de-mere’ model that was
preeminent in the 1960s and came under criticism from
Sameroff (1975) and others for its unidirectional approach.
An alternative position (Sameroff, 1975, 2000) is that fam-
ily members interact with and influence the environment
that in turn affects them (e.g., Rueter & Conger, 1998).
In other words, recipients of criticism actually may en-
gender a certain amount of criticism through their own
behaviors, or, as Coyne (1976) has suggested, as a re-
sult of their symptomatology. Nonetheless, whereas some
studies of expressed emotion (EE) have acknowledged
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2005 Springer Science+Business Media, Inc.