ABSTRACT
The purpose of the Meso-Analytic Behavioral Rating System for Family Interactions (MeBRF) is to assess the behavior of young children and parents during family interactions involving play or forced-compliance activities. The system involves observational ratings of child and parent functioning on a 5-point scale for each minute of a family interaction. The term meso-analytic refers to the unit of measure which is neither microanalytic, where the presence/absence of discrete behaviors are coded during brief time intervals (e.g., 6-10 seconds, speaker turns), nor macroanalytic, where behaviors are rated once for an entire interaction period. Instead, the unit of measure is “midlevel” and focuses on each participant’s behavior for each minute of a family interaction. The term rating highlights the fact that coders generate summary evaluations of behavior rather than code the yes/no occurrence of discrete behaviors. The constructs directly assessed by the MeBRF reflect social learning and developmental theories, with an emphasis on parent and child behaviors hypothesized and/or previously found to be related to child externalizing behavior problems. Parent ratings include positive attention, involvement, hostility, controllingness, coercive control, ambiguous control, and permissiveness toward the child. Child ratings consist of noncompliance, antisocial and prosocial behavior.
