TEMPERAMENT
Maternal Happiness: the Role of Mother’s Personality and Child’s Temperament
Masterscriptie Preventieve Jeugdhulp en Opvoeding Universiteit van Amsterdam P.P. van Suylen Begeleiding: dr. A.L. van den Akker & dr. P.J. Hoffenaar Amsterdam, juni 2017
Table of Contents
Abstract 3
Introduction 4
Setpoint theory of happiness 5
Child temperament and maternal happiness 7
Method 9
Participants and procedure 9
Measures 10 Maternal happiness 10 Mother’s personality 10 Child’s temperament 11 Statistical analyses 11 Results 12
Maternal happiness over time 12
Maternal happiness and personality 13
The child’s temperament, mother’s personality and maternal happiness 13
Discussion 14
Strengths and limitations 17
Conclusion 19
References 21
Appendices 28
Table 1. 28
Abstract
Using setpoint theory of happiness, this study investigated the role of mother’s personality (neuroticism and extraversion) and perceived child’s temperament (positive affectivity, negative affectivity and effortful control) for mother’s happiness at three time-points: during pregnancy (T1), when the child was six months (T2), and one year old (T3). Mothers (N = 241) rated their own happiness and personality at all three time points and their child’s temperament at T2 and T3. The findings demonstrate that neuroticism and extraversion were relatively strongly associated with maternal happiness on T1, T2 and T3, and that the child’s positive affectivity and negative affectivity were associated with mother’s happiness at T3. These findings implicate that maternal happiness is not solely determined by the mother’s personality, but also by the child’s temperament.
Maternal Happiness: the Role of Mother’s Personality and Child’s Temperament In 2015, 17510 babies were born in the Netherlands and 96% of the women stated directly after birth that they were (very) happy (Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek, 2016). Maternal happiness is defined as subjective life satisfaction and refers to the degree to which mothers overall assess their life positively (Veenhoven & Timmermans, 1998). Most parents to-be believe that their child will be a source of love and joy, and provide a sense of meaning to their lives. They are aware of the time, money and energy children demand, but consider the benefits of parenting to be far greater than the costs, and they have an optimistic view about parenthood (Pouwels, 2011). Having a child is expected to result in greater maternal happiness, life satisfaction and feelings of having meaning in life, when the pregnancy was a result of choice (De Bruin, 2010; Cetre, Clark, & Senit, 2016; Nelson, Kushlev, English, Dunn, & Lyubomirsky, 2013). Several investigations confirm that parents experience more happiness than nonparents (Aassve, Goisis, & Sironi., 2012; Nelson et al., 2013). Although many studies find an increase in maternal happiness after having a baby, a number of studies have found that having children is not beneficial for one’s happiness (Blanchflower, 2008; Myrskylä & Margolis; 2014). Clark, Diener, Georgellis and Lucas (2008) for example, found that, even though most people love the idea of having children, having your own is not always beneficial for your happiness, and can even decrease someone’s wellbeing. Their research showed that maternal happiness increased in the years before the child was born and strongly decreased within the first two years after the child’s birth. The feeling of happiness mothers experienced when the child was two years old, was the lowest in a period of six years. Maternal happiness in the following two years increased slightly, but did not return to the level of happiness mothers experienced in the years before they had a child.
Most research examining maternal happiness find fluctuations in maternal wellbeing in the period between the mother was pregnant and in the year after she had her baby
(Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek, 2013, 2016; Cetre, Clark, & Senit, 2016; Dyrdal, Røysamb, Nes, &Vittersø, 2011; Myrskylä & Margolis, 2014; Margolis & Myrskylä, 2015). When examining the results of each individual study, there appear to be contradicting findings about the course of maternal happiness between the moment that the baby was born and when the child was one year old. Some show a decrease in the mother’s wellbeing which sets in directly after the child is born and continues until the child is between the two and three years of age (Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek, 2013, 2016; Myrskylä & Margolis, 2014). Dyrdal, Røysamb, Nes, &Vittersø (2011) found that maternal life satisfaction keeps increasing when the child is born, and strongly starts to decrease when the child is three to four months old. Other researchers do not give detailed information about course of maternal happiness within the first year after having a child (Cetre, Clark, & Senit, 2016; Margolis & Myrskylä, 2015). It appears that little is known about the exact course of maternal happiness between the moment the child is born and when the child is one year old. Overall, their does seem to be consensus about the fact that, after the baby is born, at some point, there is a (temporal) decrease in maternal happiness.
Setpoint theory of happiness
The setpoint theory of happiness provides a possible understanding of the effect of having a baby on a woman’s feeling of happiness. This theory states that an important life event such as having a baby temporarily changes someone’s ‘trait-like’ happiness, and that after a while the level of happiness returns to this trait-like setpoint which is determined by someone’s genetic dispositions and processes of adaptation and social comparison (Kohler, Behrman, & Skytthe, 2005). These processes of adaptation and social comparison depend on someone’s personality traits. The increased feelings of happiness or unhappiness will fade away as people adapt to the new situation (Kohler, Behrman, & Skytthe, 2005; Pouwels, 2011).
Personality composes of someone’s habitual response patterns in relation to internal and external stimuli. There is wide consensus about the use of five personality traits – the Big 5 – to describe one’s personality (Shiner & DeYoung, 2013). The Big 5 are neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness and conscientiousness (Zillig, Hemenover, &
Dienstbier, 2002). Hayes and Joseph (2003) investigated the influence of personality traits on wellbeing. Their results show that the neuroticism and the extraversion dimension are
consistently associated with a person’s overall happiness. Neuroticism predisposes people to experience negative thoughts and feelings, including fear, depression, shame, impulsivity and vulnerability. Extraversion is associated with positive thoughts and feelings, including feeling social, energetic and adventuristic (Brebner, Donaldson, Kirby, & Ward, 1995; Deneve & Cooper, 1998; De Raad & Doddema-Winsemius, 2006; Gutiérrez, Jiménez, Hernández, & Pcn, 2005).
Based on the setpoint theory of happiness, maternal feeling of happiness after one year should not significantly differ from the feeling of happiness before one has a child. The trait-like feeling of happiness only temporary changes after a mother has her child, and returns back to a certain setpoint, determined by someone’s personality. The first research question is: To what extent do maternal happiness in the months before the baby is born and one year after the baby is born correspond, and differ from maternal happiness six months after the baby is born?
The setpoint theory of happiness states that maternal feeling of happiness depends on personality traits. When this is true, a mother’s personality should correlate highly with maternal happiness. As mentioned earlier, Hayes and Joseph (2003) found that the personality traits neuroticism and extraversion are related to a mother’s feeling of happiness. Due to having a baby, maternal happiness might temporarily be affected by the changes the new situation brings and feelings it evokes, and temporarily change the strengths of the correlation
between maternal happiness, extraversion and neuroticism. An interesting question, taking all the changes during this period of pregnancy and having a new-born into account, would be whether these correlations differ over time. The second research question is: To what extent do neuroticism and extraversion correlate with maternal happiness in the months before the baby is born, in the months after the baby is born and one year after the baby is born?
Child temperament and maternal happiness
Although the setpoint theory states that major life events do not permanently affect happiness, having a baby might be different from another life event like losing your job or winning a great amount of money. Having a child is not a temporary event that disappears within a few years, but it requires long term dedication to raise a child. Besides the additional nurturing that a mother will have to get used to when taking care of her new-born, the baby also has a style of approach and response to the environment. This style of approach and response is stable across time and situations and is often referred to as the baby’s
temperament (Van den Akker, Deković, Prinzie, & Asscher, 2010).
Rothbart, Ahadi, Heshey, and Fischer (2001) distinguish three aspects of
temperament: positive affectivity, negative affectivity and effortful control. Children who are high on positive affectivity are highly sensitive and approaching towards their surroundings. They display a wide variety of positive feelings like joy, happiness and pride (Whittle, Allen, Lubman & Yücel, 2005). Children who are high on negative affectivity show more avoiding and inhibitory behaviour and are sensitive to punishment. They also have a wide variety of negative feelings like anger, fear and frustration (Whittle, Allen, Lubman, & Yücel, 2005). Effortful control refers to the capacity of children to control their impulses and emotions. Children who are high on effortful control are longer interested in tasks and regulate their attention better (Whittle, Allen, Lubman, & Yücel, 2005). The amount of positive affectivity, negative affectivity and effortful control a baby possesses constitutes their temperament,
which affects their behaviour and reactions to their surroundings, including to their mother. Higher positive affectivity can increase the amount of maternal happiness. These babies show a lot of joy and happiness. This can give a mother feelings of competence, which results in greater happiness (Ryan & Deci, 2000). When a baby feels a lot of anger, fear and frustration, it usually evolves into excessively crying (Watson & Clark, 1984). Having a new-born that excessively cries, has a negative effect on maternal happiness and can even cause depression (Civic & Holt, 2000). Also, lower effortful control can be expected to be associated with less maternal happiness due to insecurity. When a mother feels like she is not capable of
communicating or playing with her child, due to the baby’s lack of focused attention, this can affect her feeling of competence and eventually happiness (Laible, 2004). Even though the setpoint theory states that maternal happiness is largely affected by her personality, it is interesting to investigate whether the child’s temperament has additional explanatory value on maternal happiness. The third research question is: To what extent does the child’s
temperament determine the mother’s feeling of happiness one year after having a baby? For the mother’s wellbeing, it is important that she is aware of the impact of her personality and the child’s temperament on her feeling of happiness.
The aim of this study is to determine maternal happiness in relation to mother’s personality and child’s temperament. The first question is: To what extent do maternal happiness in the months before the baby is born and one year after the baby is born
correspond, and differ from maternal happiness six months after the baby is born? We expect that maternal happiness in the months before the baby is born (T1) and one year after the baby is born (T3) are approximately the same, but both significantly differ from maternal feeling of happiness six months after the baby is born (T2). The second research question is: To what extent do a mother’s personality and her feeling of happiness correlate with each other in the months before the baby is born, in the months after the baby is born and one year after the
baby is born? The correlation between maternal happiness and the personality traits extraversion and neuroticism is hypothesized to be high when the mother is pregnant and when the child is one year old. When the child is six months old, it is hypothesized the strength of the correlation between the mother’s happiness and her personality is weaker. The third research question is: To what extent does a child’s temperament determine a mother’s feeling of happiness one year after having a baby? It is hypothesized that higher negativity is associated with lower maternal happiness, higher positive affect with an increase amount of maternal happiness and a lower amount of effortful control can be expected to be associated with less maternal happiness.
Method
Participants and procedures
The sample in this research consisted of 304 women. To conduct relevant analyses, participants had to provide information about their happiness on at least two measuring moments. Sixty-three participants did not meet this condition and were excluded. From the remaining 241 participants, 9.3% of the information was missing. The Little’s MCAR test confirmed that the information was missing at random (Chi2 / df = 1.681) and that the data could be imputed by using expectation maximisation. The mean age of the participants at T1 was 33 years (SD = 33.24, range= 22 - 44). Of the participating women, 97.7% reported to have a partner and 95.4% of the women answered that they had the Dutch nationality. The percentages of the mother’s highest educational level were 0.4% for elementary school, 32.4% for secondary school, 42.7% for non-university higher education, 23.2% for university and 1.2% answered “different”. About half of the women (52.7%) expected her first child and of the new-borns, 45.2% were boys, 42.3% were girls and for 12,4% of the babies, mother’s did not provide information about the sex of her baby.
questionnaire about their personality and one question about their feeling of happiness at that moment. For all mothers, these questions were asked during their pregnancy (T1). Six months after their baby was born (T2) and when the baby was one year of age (T3), the mothers also filled in an online questionnaire, containing questions about their personality, their child’s behaviour and one question about their feeling of happiness.
Measures
Maternal happiness. Mothers reported on their feeling of happiness by answering one
question: All together, how happy are you? Mother’s had the possibility to answer this question on a 5-points Likert scale, ranging from 1 (very unhappy) to 5 (very happy). Abdel-Khalek (2006) measured the convergent and divergent reliability of the self-rating report on happiness, containing of a single item, by comparing the results with positive and negative traits like: hope, positive affectivity, optimism (positive), pessimism, anxiety and insomnia (negative). He found that the single-item scale has a good convergent (.34 < r < .70) and divergent (-.50 < r < -.13) validity. The retest reliability of measuring maternal happiness with a single-item scale is very high (r = .86). Reliabilities approaching .70 or higher are reliable enough to be used for research (Abdel-Khalek, 2006).
Mother’s personality. Mothers responded at T1 online to the Big Five Inventory
(BFI) questionnaire (5-point Likert scale, strongly disagree = 1 to strongly agree = 5). This version of the BFI has adequate levels of reliability for extraversion (α=.82) and neuroticism (α=.80). Extraversion consisted of 8 questions, for example “I see myself as someone who is full of energy”. Neuroticism also consisted of 8 questions, for example “I see myself as someone who worries a lot”. The BFI has an average scale intercorrelation of .24. Denissen, Geenen, Van Aken, Gosling, & Potter (2008) found in their research that the Dutch version of the BFI has high levels of external and factorial validity and is applicable to different age groups.
Child’s temperament. Mothers scored their child’s temperament by answering
questions of the short version of the Infant Behavior Questionnaire (IBQ-R). The IBQ-R has been designed to measure temperament in infants who are 3 to 12 months old. This
questionnaire consists of 91 questions, containing three broad factors. The first factor, “Surgency/Extraversion” consists of 40 questions, for example “How often during the last week did your baby enjoy being tickled by you or someone else in your family?”. The second factor “Negative affectivity” consists of 25 questions, for example “How often during the last week did the baby startle at a sudden change in body position (e.g., when moved suddenly)?”. The third factor “Orieting/Regulation” consists of 27 questions, for example “How often during the last week did the baby watch adults performing household activities (e.g., cooking, etc.) for more than 5 minutes?”. The internal consistency for the first factor
“Surgency/Extraversion” was α = .84, the second factor “Negative affectivity” had an internal consistency of α = .89 and the internal consistency for the third factor “Orieting/Regulation” was α = .82. Mothers were asked to report, on a 7-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (never) to 7 (always), the relevant occurrence of certain behaviour of their child. Mother’s also had the option to answer “Does not apply”. An example of a question from the questionnaire is: During the past week, how often did your baby: protest being placed in a confining place (infant seat, play pen, car seat, etc)? (Gartstein & Rothbart, 2003). Mothers answered questions about their child’s temperament at T2 and T3.
Statistical analyses
A repeated measures analysis was conducted to compare the average feeling of happiness at T1, T2 and T3, to answer the first research question whether maternal happiness in the months before the baby is born and one year after the baby is born corresponds to or differs from the mother’s feeling of happiness when the child is six month old. The second research question was answered by conducting three correlation analyses at T1, T2 and T3.
For all three moments, the correlation between extraversion and happiness and between neuroticism and happiness was investigated. In addition, these correlations were compared with the results at T2 and T3. To compare these correlations, the Fischer’s z-scores were determined. To answer the third research questions, a stepwise multiple regression analyse was conducted. First, the assumptions of independent variables, multicollinearity, independent errors and homoscedasticity were tested. When these assumption were met, the stepwise multiple regression was conducted. The background variables, mother’s age and her highest educational level, where entered first, the maternal personality traits neuroticism and
extraversion were added in the second step and the three aspects of the child’s temperament were added in the third step.
Results
Maternal happiness over time
Descriptives statistics and correlations of the dependent and independent measures variables are presented in Table 1. The average feeling of happiness among mothers was relatively high at all measuring moments. The repeated measures analysis, F(2, 239) = 3.44, p = .034, η2 = .028, demonstrated a statistically significant difference between scores on
maternal happiness at T1, T2 and T3 and it indicated a small to medium effect size of time on maternal happiness (Richardson, 2011). Time had a curvilinear effect on maternal happiness. Pairwise comparison of maternal happiness at the three measuring moments showed that the mean difference was -.072 for T1 and T2, .019 for T1 and T3, and .091 for T2 and T3. The average scores on maternal happiness at T1 and T2 (p = .189) and at T1 and T3 (p = .696) did not differ significantly from each other. The difference between maternal happiness at T2 and T3 was significant (p = .009). This means that there was a significant increase in maternal happiness between the moment when the child was six months and when the child was 1 year old.
Maternal happiness and personality
The correlations between extraversion and maternal happiness at T1, T2 and T3 and neuroticism and maternal happiness at T1, T2 and T3 were significant (p < .05) (see Table 1). Overall, the correlation between extraversion and maternal happiness was positive. This indicates that the higher a mother scored on extraversion, the happier she reported to be. The correlation between extraversion and maternal happiness did not significantly differ over time. The difference between the correlation at T1 and T2 was Δr = .051 (Δz = .689, p = .245), between T2 and T3 the correlation was Δr = -.022 (Δz = -.435, p = .332) and between T1 and T3 it was Δr = .029 (Δz = .386, p = .350). Neuroticism was negatively correlated with maternal happiness. The higher a mother scored on neuroticism, the less happy she reported to be. The strength of the negative correlation between neuroticism and maternal happiness between the months in which a mother was pregnant (T1) and when the baby was six months old (T2) became stronger (Δr = -.186, Δz = -2.569, p = .005). The strength of the correlation between neuroticism and maternal happiness when the child was one year old remained stronger compared to the strength of the correlation between neuroticism and maternal happiness during pregnancy (Δr = -.149, Δz = -2.020, p = .022). This indicated that
neuroticism was stronger negatively associated with maternal happiness when the child was six months old and when the child was one year old, than when the mother was pregnant. The correlation between neuroticism and maternal happiness at T2 and T3 (Δr = .037, Δz = .760, p = .224) did not differ significantly.
The child’s temperament, mother’s personality and maternal happiness
The correlation analysis between the dependent and the independent variables is presented in Table 1. All correlations were smaller than .8, so the stepwise multiple regression was performed (see Table 2). By analysing the VIF-values, it was verified that
assumption of independent errors (Durbin-Watson value = 1.92). By analysing the plots, it could be concluded that the assumptions of homoscedasticity was also met.
In a stepwise multiple regression, the statistical influence of the independent variables on maternal happiness at T3 was analysed by stepwise entering them into an equation. At first, several background variables were entered. These were mother’s age and her highest educational level. These variables did not have a significant impact on the mother’s happiness at T3 (F(2, 238) = 0.059, p = .942). In the second step, the personality traits neuroticism and extraversion were added (ΔF(2, 236) = 11.113, p < .001). The impact of these independent variables was small. Whereas extraversion did not impact the mother’s feeling of happiness significantly, neuroticism did have a significant impact on maternal happiness. By adding the child’s positive affectivity, negative affectivity and effortful control in the third step, the additional impact of the child’s temperament on maternal happiness when the child is one year old was examined (ΔF(3, 233) = 4.817, p = .003). This third step also had a small effect and explained an additional 5.3% of the variance in maternal happiness. Positive affectivity (p = .022 ) and negative affectivity (p = .002 ) were significant predictors. The child’s positive affectivity was associated with maternal happiness and the child’s negative affectivity with a decrease in maternal happiness. Overall, the added independent variables explained a small aspect of maternal happiness when the child was one year old.
Discussion
The aim of this study was to examine maternal happiness, by investigating the association with the mother’s personality and the child’s temperament. In the first research question, the aim was to investigate whether maternal happiness in the months before the baby is born and one year after the baby is born corresponds or differs from maternal happiness six months after the baby is born. In this study, evidence was found that maternal happiness in the months before the baby was born is similar to the level of happiness one year
after the baby was born. Also, maternal happiness when the baby was six months was lower from how happy mothers felt when the baby was one year old. The second research question was: “To what extent do neuroticism and extraversion correlate with maternal happiness in the months before the baby is born, in the months after the baby is born and one year after the baby is born?”. Results showed that neuroticism and extraversion were associated with maternal happiness at all three measuring moments. For extraversion, the strength of this correlation did not differ over time. The strength of the correlation between maternal happiness and neuroticism was highest when the child was six month old. The last research question had to bring insight in the possible explanatory value of the child’s temperament when investigating the mother’s wellbeing when the child is one year old. Evidence was found that temperament has an additional explanatory value when considering maternal happiness. Two aspects of the child’s temperament, positive affectivity and negative affectivity, were associated with maternal happiness when the child was one year old.
The results of the present study are partially in accordance with the setpoint theory of happiness, which states that major life events such as having a child, only temporarily influence happiness (Kohler, Behrman, & Skytthe, 2005). Results showed no statistical significant difference in maternal happiness from the time she was pregnant until the baby was one year old, which is in line with the setpoint theory of happiness. However, statistics showed no significant decrease in the months between the baby was born and when the baby is six months old, but did find a significant increase in maternal happiness in the months between the baby was six months old and when they celebrated their first birthday. These puzzling results display no clear image of what the impact is of having a baby on maternal happiness during the first twelve months of the baby’s life. Several studies have indicated that maternal happiness increases strongly when the mother is pregnant (Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek, 2013, 2016; Cetre, Clark, & Senit, 2016; Dyrdal, Røysamb, Nes, &Vittersø, 2011;
Myrskylä & Margolis, 2014; Margolis & Myrskylä, 2015). In this study, the time on which maternal happiness during pregnancy was measured, differed for all mothers. Dyrdal et al. (2011) found a significant increase in life satisfaction between early pregnancy (19 weeks) and late pregnancy (30 weeks). Because there were no boundaries defined for the amount of months a mother had to be pregnant in order to participate, this might have influenced the average score on happiness at T1.
The results of the analyse to answer the second research question also partially confirm the setpoint theory of happiness. The theory states that maternal happiness is largely determined by the mother’s personality traits neuroticism and extraversion. The results confirm the strong association between the two personality traits and maternal happiness. However, the temporal effect of the life changing event was not reflected by the results. The strength of correlation between maternal happiness and extraversion did not differ over time. The strengths of correlation between maternal happiness and neuroticism did differ over time, but contrary to what was expected, the strength increased at T2 and T3. When the child is six months old and one year old, the maternal personality trait neuroticism was more strongly associated with her feeling of happiness than when she was pregnant.
A possible explanation for this finding is that having a new-born comes with all sorts of new, unexpected, experiences. Mothers scoring high on neuroticism have a lack of adaptive flexibility (Snyder & Monson, 1975). These features can, due to the changes that come with having a new-born, be of great importance when having a new-born. It is possible that the association between maternal happiness and neuroticism becomes stronger when the child is six month old, because mothers scoring high on neuroticism became more aware of their struggles with adapting to the new situation, or that the new situation askes for more adaptive flexibility. Another possible explanation is that the association between neuroticism and maternal happiness when the mother was pregnant, was supressed by external influences. The
strong situation theory states that strong situations constrain behavioural options. They provide clear signals about what is expected and restrict the degree of behavioural variability (Cooper & Withey, 2009). Pregnancy is possibly a strong situation which comes with the expectation of others that the mother is happy about that fact that she will be expecting a child. These expectations might have affected the mother’s feeling of happiness or answers about her personality.
After conducting analyses to test whether the child’s perceived temperament had
additional explanatory value when investigating maternal happiness when the child is one year old, results partially confirmed this hypothesis. Aside from the negative impact of neuroticism, two aspects of the child’s temperament, negative affectivity and positive affectivity also affect maternal happiness when the child is one year old. As hypothesized, a child’s perceived negative affectivity is associated with the mother’s feeling of unhappiness and the child’s positive affectivity is associated with her wellbeing. Mothers that scored their child high on positive affectivity, also tend to be happier and mothers that scored their children high on negative affectivity, indicated to be less happy. Only effortful control was not associated with maternal happiness when the child was one year old. The lack of effect by effortful control can be explained by the difficulty of measuring this aspect. The children that were investigated were one year old. At this age, it is possibly difficult to assess children’s capacity to control their impulses and emotions. Kochanska and Knaack (2003) found that effortful control starts to emerge between six and twelve months, and that it becomes increasingly important in the second year and beyond.
Strengths and limitations
The present study has several strengths. First, the longitudinal design incorporating three measurements on maternal happiness allowed us to investigate the course of maternal happiness over time. Second, this investigation did not only test whether maternal happiness
was associated with the mother’s personality, but also focused on the additional explanatory value of the child’s temperament when considering maternal happiness after having a child. No other research was found that took both variables into account.
Despite the strengths of this study, several limitations are also worth mentioning. First, the request to participate in the present study was addressed to women that were expecting a baby, independent of the amount of months they were pregnant. The fact that maternal happiness during pregnancy was not measured at the same time for all mothers, might have influenced the results from this study. Maternal happiness increases strongly during
pregnancy (Cetre, Clark, & Senit, 2016; Dyrdal, Røysamb, Nes, &Vittersø, 2011; Myrskylä & Margolis, 2014; Margolis & Myrskylä, 2015; Nelson et al., 2013). Due to this inequality, it is questionable to compare the average scores on maternal happiness at T1 with the scores on maternal happiness at T2 and T3 because these last two where measured at the same moment for all mothers. In further research all measuring moments should be the same for all mothers. Second, the range of measuring moments in this study is limited. Longitudinal studies that assess maternal happiness from before the mother is pregnant until the moment that the child is 3 or 4 years of age, show a clearer image of the effect of having a child. These studies show that maternal happiness increases strongly until the baby is born after which there is a drop in maternal happiness. The decrease in maternal happiness continues after the child is one year old. When the child is approximately three to four years of age, a mother’s feeling of
happiness is slightly lower than her maternal happiness before she got pregnant (Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek, 2016; Cetre, Clark and Senit, 2016; Dyrdal, Røysamb, Nes, &Vittersø, 2011; Myrskylä & Margolis, 2014; Pouwels, 2011). These findings indicate that the time at which maternal happiness is measured, is of importance for drawing conclusions about the increase or decrease of maternal wellbeing after a child is born. To make clear statements about the effect of having a baby on maternal happiness it is necessary to broaden
the range of measuring moments. The first measurement should be conducted when the mother is not pregnant yet and the last should be conducted when the child is approximately four years old (Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek, 2013). Also, mothers should be followed intensively to explain fluctuations in maternal happiness affected by other life events. Further, Bates, Pettit, Dodge and Ridge (1998) consider temperament as a child’s characteristic that is also determined by the perception of the parents. In the present study, the child’s temperament was determined by the answers mothers gave about the temperament of their child. Despite the fact that the answers about the child’s temperament are not based on one single
observation, but on the daily impression of the mother, might have affected the
measurements. It is possible that the perception of the mothers influenced her answers on the IBQ-R questionnaire and that this does not give an accurate image of the child’s actual temperament. Seifer, Sameroff, Barrett, and Krafchuk (1994) found that parental reports on their child’s temperament do not resemble the actual temperamental behaviour of the child. Further research should consider the possibility to score a child’s temperament by
independent or multiple observers. The last limitation worth mentioning is the fact that the difference between mothers that participated in this study concerning the presence of a partner, highest educational level and ethnicity is limited. Of all participating mothers, almost everyone had a partner and considered themselves as someone with a Dutch nationality. Two-thirds of the women had a higher educational level or university degree. In order to draw generalizable conclusions about the influence of the mother’s personality and the child’s temperament on maternal happiness, in further research it would be better to have a greater difference in background of the participants.
Conclusion
This study found evidence that supports the setpoint theory of happiness, which states that an important life event such as having a baby, only temporarily change someone’s
happiness, but after a while will stabilize back towards a certain setpoint, which is largely determined by someone’s personality. The strength of a mothers’ personality traits
neuroticism and extraversion influence her overall feeling of happiness from the time she is pregnant until the child is one year old. When women score high on neuroticism, this is highly associated with feelings of unhappiness when the child is six months old and one year old. The strength of the impact of extraversion on maternal happiness will not differ over time. An additional finding was that, alongside with the personality traits neuroticism and extraversion, maternal happiness was also influenced by the child’s temperament. When the child is one year old, the amount of positive affectivity and negative affectivity the child possesses is associated with the mother’s feeling of happiness. This finding is in contradiction with the implications of the setpoint theory, that maternal happiness solely depends on personality. Whether the additional influence of temperament on maternal happiness is temporal or long-lasting, must be investigated in further research.
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Table 1
Descriptives for Maternal Happiness and Personality and the Child’s Temperament, Means, Standard Deviations and Intercorrelations for the Dependent and Independent Variables
Measure 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 1. Happiness T1 - 2. Happiness T2 .324** - 3. Happiness T3 .308** .684** - 4. Neuroticism -.136* -.322** -.285** - 5. Extraversion .137* .188** .166** -.454* - 6. Positive affectivity .142* .007 .189** -.170* .286** - 7. Negative affectivity -.091 -.276** -.227** .160* -.152* .017 8. Effortful control -.163* .215** .116 -.113 .043 .335** -.332** M 4.64 4.57 4.66 2.63 3.72 5.13 2.78 5.38 SD .73 .74 .54 .64 .58 .52 .73 .53 * p < .05. ** p < .01.
Table 2
Stepwise Multiple Regression Analysis Predicting Maternal Happiness (T3) from the Mother’s Personality and the Child’s Temperament
Maternal Happiness
Predictor ΔR2 B SE β
Step 1 .000
Constant 4.776 .342
Mother’s Age -.003 .009 -.020
Highest educational level -.004 .044 -.006
Step 2 .087*
Constant 5.434 .497
Mother’s Age -.005 .009 -.036
Highest educational level -.024 .043 -.038
Neuroticism -.233* .060 -.273**
Extraversion .042 .065 .045
Step 3 .053*
Constant 5.165 .700
Mother’s Age -.004 .009 -.030
Highest educational level -.006 .042 -.009
Neuroticism -.206* .059 -.241** Extraversion -.017 .067 -.019 Positive affectivity .171* .074 .162* Negative affectivity -.153* .049 -.206** Effortful control -.033 .072 -.032 * p < .05. ** p < .01.
