While interparental relations are known to affect children's functioning directly (i.e., exposure to conflict), and indirectly through parenting, little is known about the specific processes responsible for these pathways. According to a new theory of emotional security, children's emotional security is conceptualized as a primary mediating process of the direct and indirect effects of interparental relations on child adjustment. The current proposal seeks to test the hypotheses derived from the core proposition of this theory. First, marital relations are proposed to play a direct etiological role in the development of child problems by threatening children's sense of emotional security in the interparental subsystem. Second, marital conflict, through its link with parenting disturbances, is proffered to indirectly lead to children's emotional insecurity and thus lay the foundation for their future psychological risk. Third, whereas constructive marital relations (e.g., conflict resolution, intimacy) are hypothesized to foster healthy family contexts and children's security and competency, destructive marital relations (e.g., hostility, child-rearing fights) are thought to have deleterious consequences for family and child functioning. Fourth, characteristics of the wider family context (e.g., parental depression, child temperament) are hypothesized to be salient in shaping parenting and marital disturbances and changing the nature of their impact on child adjustment. One hundred and sixty elementary school children and their parents will participate in a two-wave longitudinal study, with measurement occasions spaced 12 months apart. The tripartite operationalization of emotional security, specifically defined as emotion regulation, representations of family relations, and regulation of exposure to family affect, makes it particularly amenable to empirical testing across multiple family subsystems (e.g., marital, parent-child). All key constructs (i.e., marital relations, parenting, security, child adjustment) will be assessed using multiple methods, agents, and contexts. Adaptive and maladaptive dimensions of family relations and child functioning will be measured to identify a broad set of developmental mechanisms underlying competency, resilience, and risk in the early school years. The longitudinal design and repeated measures of constructs will allow for the delineation of prospective mediator and moderator models as well as the analysis of stability, change, and bidirectionality among family processes.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
5R01MH057318-05
Application #
6639068
Study Section
Child/Adolescent Risk and Prevention Review Committee (CAPR)
Program Officer
Price, Leshawndra N
Project Start
1999-09-25
Project End
2005-05-31
Budget Start
2003-06-01
Budget End
2005-05-31
Support Year
5
Fiscal Year
2003
Total Cost
$160,139
Indirect Cost
Name
University of Rochester
Department
Psychology
Type
Schools of Arts and Sciences
DUNS #
041294109
City
Rochester
State
NY
Country
United States
Zip Code
14627
Davies, Patrick T; Martin, Meredith J; Cummings, E Mark (2018) Interparental conflict and children's social problems: Insecurity and friendship affiliation as cascading mediators. Dev Psychol 54:83-97
Davies, Patrick T; Parry, Lucia Q; Bascoe, Sonnette M et al. (2018) Children's Vulnerability to Interparental Conflict: The Protective Role of Sibling Relationship Quality. Child Dev :
Martin, Meredith J; Davies, Patrick T; Cummings, E Mark et al. (2017) The mediating roles of cortisol reactivity and executive functioning difficulties in the pathways between childhood histories of emotional insecurity and adolescent school problems. Dev Psychopathol 29:1483-1498
Koss, Kalsea J; Cummings, E Mark; Davies, Patrick T et al. (2017) Patterns of Adolescent Regulatory Responses During Family Conflict and Mental Health Trajectories. J Res Adolesc 27:229-245
Martin, Meredith J; Davies, Patrick T; Cummings, E Mark (2017) Distinguishing Attachment and Affiliation in Early Adolescents' Narrative Descriptions of Their Best Friendship. J Res Adolesc 27:644-660
Davies, Patrick T; Martin, Meredith J; Coe, Jesse L et al. (2016) Transactional cascades of destructive interparental conflict, children's emotional insecurity, and psychological problems across childhood and adolescence. Dev Psychopathol 28:653-71
Koss, Kalsea J; Cummings, E Mark; Davies, Patrick T et al. (2016) Harsh Parenting and Serotonin Transporter and BDNF Val66Met Polymorphisms as Predictors of Adolescent Depressive Symptoms. J Clin Child Adolesc Psychol :1-14
Davies, Patrick T; Hentges, Rochelle F; Coe, Jesse L et al. (2016) The multiple faces of interparental conflict: Implications for cascades of children's insecurity and externalizing problems. J Abnorm Psychol 125:664-78
Cummings, E Mark; Koss, Kalsea J; Davies, Patrick T (2015) Prospective relations between family conflict and adolescent maladjustment: security in the family system as a mediating process. J Abnorm Child Psychol 43:503-15
Davies, Patrick T; Coe, Jesse L; Martin, Meredith J et al. (2015) The developmental costs and benefits of children's involvement in interparental conflict. Dev Psychol 51:1026-1047

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