Faculty, Staff and Student Publications
Publication Date
1-1-2023
Journal
Developmental Psychobiology
Abstract
Guided by emotional security theory, this study examined the family-level antecedents of children's reaction patterns to interparental conflict in a sample of 243 preschool children (M age = 4.60 years; 48% Black; 16% Latinx; 56% girls) and their parents in the Northeastern United States. Behavioral observations of children's responses to interparental conflict over two annual measurement occasions assessed their tendencies to exhibit four patterns of defending against threat: secure (i.e., efficiently address direct threats), mobilizing (i.e., high reactivity to potential threat and social opportunities), dominant (i.e., directly defeat threat), and demobilizing (i.e., reduce salience as a target of hostility). Latent profile analyses of interparental, coparental, and parent characteristics derived from multiple methods at the first wave yielded four profiles corresponding with harmonious, enmeshed, compensatory, and detouring patterns of family-level functioning. Additional analyses revealed that children in harmonious and compensatory family profiles exhibited more secure patterns of reactivity over a 1-year period than children in the enmeshed family profile. In contrast, subsequent mobilizing reactivity was most pronounced for children in the enmeshed family profile. Finally, children in the detouring profile exhibited substantially higher levels of demobilizing reactivity to interparental conflict. Results are discussed in the context of how they inform and refine emotional security theory.
Keywords
Female, Child, Preschool, Humans, Male, Family Conflict, Parent-Child Relations, Parents
DOI
10.1037/dev0001497
PMID
36395044
PMCID
PMC9822861
PubMedCentral® Posted Date
January 2024
PubMedCentral® Full Text Version
Author MSS
Published Open-Access
yes
Included in
Child Psychology Commons, Emergency Medicine Commons, Pediatrics Commons, Psychiatric and Mental Health Commons