Financial strain, maternal attributions, emotion knowledge and children's behavioral readiness for school

Abstract In this research, we applied the family stress model to examine maternal hostile attribution bias and emotion situation knowledge as mediators linking family financial strain and children's behavioral readiness for school in a sample of affluent mothers and preschoolers (63 boys). The sample was diverse with regard to race, but the majority of the children were White. Using serial mediational analyses conducted by PROCESS, results indicated that the associations between perceived family financial strain and low levels of social competence and high levels of internalizing behavior were mediated by maternal hostile attributions and lowered child emotion situation knowledge. We discuss the impact of perceived financial strain on parental cognitions and young children's emotion knowledge and behavioral readiness for formal schooling and offer directions for future research and implications for interventions.