Experiential Avoidance of Parents Questionnaire (EAP)

1. Experiential Avoidance of Parents Questionnaire (EAP) Melinda Ippolito Morrill, Erin McFadden & James V. Cordova Clark University

2. Background • Effective parenting is essential to the healthy functioning of children during early childhood and for lifelong development, while impaired parenting puts children at risk for many psychological problems. • Evidence that qualities of family relationships are repeated across generations- “Multi-generational transmission process” • Parents who received ineffective parenting in their own family-of-origin are at a higher risk to repeat these cycles with their own children. • Not all at-risk parents continue impaired parenting practices with the next generation

3. Background Cont’d • An important mechanism that is hypothesized to influence intergenerational transmission of parenting practices is experiential avoidance of negative experiences with one’s parents • Experiential avoidance has been defined as an unwillingness to remain in contact with internal experiences that may produce negative affect • Coparenting has been defined as a family-systems process by which couples work together or, alternatively, struggle against each other when raising their child (Belsky & Fearon, 2004; Talbot & McHale, 2004). • A good deal of coparenting conflict is thought to be parents’ attempts to avoid their own pain and fears from their own histories (McHale, 2007). • In order to study these phenomena, it is first necessary to develop and validate a new measure of these constructs.

4. Relevant Literature • The negative sequellae of psychological avoidance are well-documented in the literature (e.g., Marx & Sloan, 2005; Tull, Gratz, Salter, et al., 2004; Polusny, Rosenthal, Aban, et al.; Hayes, Wilson, Gifford, et al., 1996). • Selma Fraiberg et al.’s (1975) classic hypothesis was: • Traumatic parenting in the family-of-origin may not be consciously remembered by parents who follow suit with their own children, whereas if these painful feelings are remembered and actively experienced and accepted by the parent, the parent will have more sensitivity and empathy towards their child. • Some existing evidence that experiential avoidance is related to ineffective parenting: • Shea & Coyne (2006); Berlin, Sato, Jastrowski, Woods & Davies (2005); Koren-Karie (2002)

5. EAP Development Methods • DeVellis (2003) step-by-step process of scale development was followed in the development of the EAP • 1) Determine clearly what construct will be measured, based on relevant theory. • 2) Generate an item pool, making sure that each item reflects the latent variable being measured. • 3) Determine the format for the measure. Considerations at this stage begin with considering the format most compatible with the theoretical assumptions the scale is based on. Then, specifics need to be determined. • 4) Have the item pools reviewed by experts in the field of the subject being measured. This is to ensure that the scale has face and content validity.

6. EAP Development Methods • Four experts were asked to review the EAP and give feedback about the following: • How relevant each item is to what we intend to measure • Evaluation of the items' clarity and conciseness-problematic wording, etc. • Ways of tapping the phenomenon that are not included • They were asked to use a shorthand scale of 1-5 to rate how relevant/applicable/useful each item was: • 1 being not at all useful & 5 being extremely useful • They also had the option to use narrative comments if they preferred. Based on their comments and further review, the final version of the EAP was formulated.

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10. Future Directions • Content and construct validity of the EAP could be measured by comparing its performance to established measures such as: • The Acceptance and Action Questionnaire- Revised (AAQ-R; Hayes et al., 2004) • The Parental Acceptance and Action Questionnaire (PAAQ; PAAQ; Ehrenreich & Cheron, 2005) • The Alabama Parenting Questionnaire (APQ; Frick, 1991) • Quality of Parenting Inventory (QPI; adapted from QMI; Norton, 1983) • Family-of-Origin Alabama Parenting Questionnaire (FOAPQ- Self (Adapted from APQ)

11. Future Directions Cont’d • The EAP study would both contribute to the understanding of multigenerational family processes, and advance past work with family-of-origin influences on couples. • Investigating intergenerational transmission of parenting practices in couples, and how this can be influenced by experiential avoidance of the family of origin, could provide important information about how these mechanisms affect couples’ coparenting and parenting. • Long-term goal: • To gather data toward building a program of research around psychotherapeutic interventions for at-risk couples to interrupt intergenerational transmission of ineffective parenting practices.

12. Discussion • The EAP has been newly developed as a self-report questionnaire to measure a process that is potentially capable of interrupting intergenerational transmission of impaired parenting practices. • Since the EAP measures a construct that have not been previously measured, extra attention was paid to every detail of the scale development process. • The next step in the development of this questionnaire would be to administer it to a development sample and/or to a large representative sample for validation. • The ability to measure these constructs in couples could also have important implications for exploring how partner dynamics influence each other’s parenting. • This ultimately could provide essential information to interrupt ineffective parenting that negatively impacts future generations.

13. Thank you!MMorrill@Clarku.edu