Flexibilidad relacional y estrés parental

The aim of this study was to evaluate the relationship between higher and moderate parental stress scores and derived relations in parents and undergraduate students. A group comparison design with a pretest measure was used in this study. The sample size was divided in three different groups, thirteen parents with high scores on the Parental Stress Index (PSI) were assigned to one group, other thirteen parents with moderate scores on the PSI were assigned to a second group, and thirteen undergraduate students were assigned to a control group. Initially all participants were exposed to a video of a child exhibiting disruptive behaviors. Following this all participants were exposed to a conditional discrimination training A-B and A-C, one stimulus set A corresponded to nonsense figures, a second stimulus set B corresponded to children's disruptive behaviors, and the set C to positive parenting behaviors. Then mixed relations (A-B and A- C) were trained followed by transitivity and equivalence tests. The results show that participants with high scores on the PSI exhibited low response accuracy and longer response latencies during derived relations compared to the control group and moderate stress. These results suggest that parents with high PSI scores, have greater difficulty in establishing new relations between stimuli, especially stimuli loaded with emotional value. These findings have implications at clinical level, specifically in relational flexibility.