Exploring children's emotional security as a mediator of the link between marital relations and child adjustment.

Guided by the emotional security hypothesis, this study examined whether links between marital relations and children's adjustment were mediated by children's emotional security, as evidenced by their emotional reactivity (e.g., vigilance, distress), regulation of exposure to parent affect (avoidance, involvement), and internal representations in the context of interparental relations. Multiple methods and contexts were used to assess 6- to 9-year-olds' emotional security in response to standardized, simulated conflicts involving parents. Latent variable path analysis supported a theoretical pathway whereby marital dysfunction was linked with adjustment problems as mediated by response processes indicative of emotional insecurity in relation to parental conflicts. Emotional reactivity and internal representations were most closely linked with marital relations and child adjustment, especially with regard to internalizing symptoms. The importance of understanding children's emotional security in the context of the marital subsystem is discussed.

[1]  G T Harold,et al.  Marital conflict and adolescent distress: the role of adolescent awareness. , 1997, Child development.

[2]  G. Harold,et al.  Mom and dad are at it again : adolescent perceptions of marital conflict and adolescent psychological distress , 1997 .

[3]  G. Margolin,et al.  Marital aggression, observed parental hostility, and child behavior during triadic family interaction , 1997 .

[4]  F D Fincham,et al.  Mom and dad are at it again: adolescent perceptions of marital conflict and adolescent psychological distress. , 1997, Developmental psychology.

[5]  C. Reynolds,et al.  What I Think and Feel: A Revised Measure of Children's Manifest Anxiety , 1997, Journal of abnormal child psychology.

[6]  Patrick T. Davies,et al.  Emotional security as a regulatory process in normal development and the development of psychopathology , 1996, Development and Psychopathology.

[7]  Ross A. Thompson,et al.  The double-edged sword : Emotional regulation for children at risk By : , 2009 .

[8]  Z. Stoneman,et al.  Parental religiosity, family processes, and youth competence in rural, two-parent African American families. , 1996 .

[9]  J. Strayer,et al.  Empathy, emotional expressiveness, and prosocial behavior , 1996 .

[10]  P. Davies.  Responses of Children and Adolescents to Marital Conflict Scenarios as a Function of the Emotionality of Conflict Endings. , 1996 .

[11]  F. Fincham,et al.  Marital Conflict, Parent-Child Relationships, and Child Adjustment: Does Gender Matter?. , 1996 .

[12]  D. Cicchetti,et al.  Emotions and emotion regulation in developmental psychopathology , 1995, Development and Psychopathology.

[13]  S. Beach,et al.  Predicting interpersonal competence in young adulthood: The roles of family, self, and peer systems during adolescence , 1995 .

[14]  G. Margolin,et al.  Relation among marital conflict, child coping, and child adjustment , 1995 .

[15]  Patrick T. Davies,et al.  Children's emotions as organizers of their reactions to interadult anger: A functionalist perspective. , 1995 .

[16]  E. M. Cummings,et al.  Usefulness of experiments for the study of the family. , 1995 .

[17]  D. Cicchetti,et al.  Responses of physically abused boys to interadult anger involving their mothers , 1994, Development and Psychopathology.

[18]  S. West,et al.  Coping, stress, and the psychological symptoms of children of divorce: a cross-sectional and longitudinal study. , 1994, Child development.

[19]  Patrick T. Davies,et al.  Marital conflict and child adjustment: an emotional security hypothesis. , 1994, Psychological bulletin.

[20]  E. M. Cummings,et al.  Young children's responses to constructive marital disputes. , 1994 .

[21]  John H. Grych,et al.  Does marital conflict cause child maladjustment? Directions and challenges for longitudinal research. , 1994 .

[22]  Patrick T. Davies,et al.  Marital conflict, gender, and children's appraisals and coping efficacy as mediators of child adjustment. , 1994 .

[23]  Z. Stoneman,et al.  Financial resources, parent psychological functioning, parent co-caregiving, and early adolescent competence in rural two-parent African-American families. , 1994, Child development.

[24]  J. Cassidy.  Emotion regulation: influences of attachment relationships. , 1994, Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development.

[25]  Ross A. Thompson,et al.  Emotion regulation: a theme in search of definition. , 1994, Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development.

[26]  D. L. Mumme,et al.  A functionalist perspective on the nature of emotion. , 1994, Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development.

[27]  M. A. Easterbrooks,et al.  Psychosocial risk, attachment, and behavior problems among school-aged children , 1993, Development and Psychopathology.

[28]  P. Cowan,et al.  Externalizing in preschoolers and early adolescents : a cross-study replication of a family model , 1993 .

[29]  F. Fincham,et al.  Marital conflict and children: retrospect and prospect , 1993 .

[30]  Kelly A. Brennan,et al.  Attachment Styles and the "Big Five" Personality Traits: Their Connections with Each Other and with Romantic Relationship Outcomes , 1992 .

[31]  R. Frank Falk,et al.  A Primer for Soft Modeling , 1992 .

[32]  F D Fincham,et al.  Assessing marital conflict from the child's perspective: the children's perception of interparental conflict scale. , 1992, Child development.

[33]  Nancy L. Stein,et al.  The organisation of emotional experience: Creating links among emotion, thinking, language, and intentional action , 1992 .

[34]  D. A. Smith,et al.  Marital adjustment, parental disagreements about child rearing, and behavior problems in boys: increasing the specificity of the marital assessment. , 1991, Child development.

[35]  G. Margolin,et al.  Mothers' and Sons' Cognitive and Emotional Reactions to Simulated Marital and Family Conflict. , 1991 .

[36]  S. Dornbusch,et al.  Caught between parents: adolescents' experience in divorced homes. , 1991, Child development.

[37]  T. Achenbach.  Manual for the child behavior checklist/4-18 and 1991 profile , 1991 .

[38]  J. Belsky,et al.  Patterns of marital change and parent-child interaction , 1991 .

[39]  John H. Grych,et al.  Marital conflict and children's adjustment: a cognitive-contextual framework. , 1990, Psychological bulletin.

[40]  R. Forehand,et al.  A mediational model of the impact of marital conflict on adolescent adjustment in intact and divorced families: the role of disrupted parenting. , 1990, Child development.

[41]  C. Zahn-Waxler,et al.  Antecedents of problem behaviors in children of depressed mothers , 1990, Development and Psychopathology.

[42]  D. Cicchetti,et al.  Attachment in the preschool years: Theory, research, and intervention. , 1990 .

[43]  C. Notarius,et al.  Children's responses to angry adult behavior as a function of marital distress and history of interparent hostility. , 1989, Child development.

[44]  Jan-Bernd Lohmöller,et al.  Latent Variable Path Modeling with Partial Least Squares , 1989 .

[45]  P. Graham,et al.  Coping with parental quarrels. , 1989, Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

[46]  D. Cicchetti,et al.  Finding order in disorganization: Lessons from research on maltreated infants' attachments to their caregivers. , 1989 .

[47]  E. M. Cummings,et al.  A process-oriented approach to children's coping with adults' angry behavior , 1988 .

[48]  J. Johnston,et al.  Ongoing postdivorce conflict and child disturbance , 1987, Journal of abnormal child psychology.

[49]  Roger Bakeman,et al.  Applying observational methods: A systematic view. , 1987 .

[50]  D. A. Kenny,et al.  The moderator-mediator variable distinction in social psychological research: conceptual, strategic, and statistical considerations. , 1986, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[51]  I. Bretherton,et al.  Attachment theory: Retrospect and prospect. , 1985 .

[52]  M. Rutter,et al.  The domain of developmental psychopathology. , 1984, Child development.

[53]  J. P. Rushton,et al.  Behavioral Development and Construct Validity: The Principle of Aggregation , 1983 .

[54]  R. Emery.  Interparental conflict and the children of discord and divorce. , 1982, Psychological bulletin.

[55]  G. Levinger,et al.  Patterns of Conflict Resolution and Marital Satisfaction* , 1981 .

[56]  K. O’leary,et al.  Marital discord and childhood behavior problems , 1980, Journal of abnormal child psychology.

[57]  C. Reynolds,et al.  Factor structure and construct validity of "what I think and feel": The Revised Children's Manifest Anxiety Scale. , 1979, Journal of personality assessment.

[58]  M. Ainsworth,et al.  Origins of the Sense of Security. (Book Reviews: Patterns of Attachment. A Psychological Study of the Strange Situation) , 1978 .

[59]  E. Waters,et al.  Attachment as an Organizational Construct , 1977 .

[60]  J. Bowlby.  Attachment and loss: retrospect and prospect. , 1969, The American journal of orthopsychiatry.

[61]  H. Locke,et al.  SHORT MARITAL ADJUSTMENT AND PREDICTION TESTS: THEIR RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY , 1959 .