In the current study, we focused on the parental negativity (or negative content) variable, which assesses parental use of physical control and criticism during the interaction (inter-rater intraclass correlations were 0.97). Observer ratings of maternal and paternal negativity were modestly associated with maternal- and paternal-informant reports of their own conflictive parenting (r = 0.12 and 0.16, respectively). Although small, these associations are fully consistent with the modest observer rating/informant report correlations seen in other studies (Arsenault et al. 2003; Burt et al. 2011). A composite rating of maternal and paternal negativity was available for 941 twins.
