Rivalry in coparenting at the transition to parenthood

This chapter examined coparenting competition as a behavioral manifestation of the psychological construct of rivalry. Using data from the New Parents Project (NPP), we also tested whether greater parental similarity in psychological characteristics was associated with greater coparenting competition. 182 different-sex dual-earner couples participated in a study of the transition to parenthood in which expectant parents reported on their psychological characteristics (extraversion, conscientiousness, attachment avoidance and anxiety, and parenting self-efficacy) during the third trimester of pregnancy and were observed interacting together with their infants to assess coparenting competition at 9 months postpartum. Statistically significant interactions between mother and father psychological characteristics in hierarchical linear regression analyses revealed that similarly low levels of parent extraversion and attachment avoidance were associated with lower coparenting competition, whereas similarly low levels of parenting selfefficacy were associated with higher coparenting competition.