Patrick T Davies
Biographic Data
| ID | 118476 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Patrick T Davies |
| GIVEN NAMES | Patrick T |
| FAMILY NAME | Davies |
| SIGNATURE | DAVIES P T |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Rochester |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-2725-9736 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 76 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 418 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 76 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1994 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 10 |
Delineating specificity in parental responses to children’s distress: Associations with neighborhood risk and children’s socioemotional outcomes
008). Findings highlight how parents' reaction strategies differentially impact children's socioemotional outcomes over time, indicating gendered contributions to parents' influences on children and contributing greater insight into the interaction between neighborhood contexts and the family system. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
The Dynamics of Interparental Conflict, Adolescent Emotional Insecurity, and Adolescent Social Maladjustment: A Parallel Process Latent Growth Curve Analysis
Romantic attachment styles, harsh parenting behavior, and children’s emotional reactivity: A process model
This study examined whether parenting behavior serves as an intervening mechanism in accounting for associations between romantic attachment styles and children’s emotional reactivity (i.e., anger and distress reactivity). Participants included 235 mothers (62% White) and a preschool-aged child ( M age = 2.97; 55% female) recruited from a moderate-sized city in the northeastern United States. Families visited the laboratory at two measurement occ…
A tutorial on dyadic growth curve mediation modeling: An applied example testing pathways of fathers’ depression vulnerability to destructive marital conflict
Researchers within and beyond the psychology of men and masculinities (PMM) have underscored the importance of identifying pathways underlying men's mental health in the context of dyadic relationships. Accordingly, there is an emerging need for advancement and accessible application of corresponding longitudinal quantitative methods. Although both Dyadic Growth Curve Modeling and Growth Curve Mediation Modeling have each been used increasingly t…
Unpredictability in caregiver–child relationships: Impact on child verbal abilities and externalizing problems
This study examined longitudinal associations between caregiver-child dyadic unpredictability, children's verbal abilities, and externalizing problems, and the moderating role of temperamental surgency. Participants were 235 families with young children ( M age = 2.97 years, SD = 0.38, range = [2-4], 55.3% female, ethnicity: 55.2% White, 21.3% African American, 16.2% mixed race). Mother-child dyadic unpredictability measured at Wave 1 was linked …
Lessons learned from witnessing constructive interparental conflict and the beneficial implications for children
This study examined children's emotion situation knowledge and social problem-solving abilities as mediators in the prospective link between constructive interparental conflict (IPC) and children's psychological adjustment in a sample of 238 preschool children ( M age = 4.38 years; 52% female children; 28% Black; 14% multiracial or other race; 16% Latinx) and their mothers. The methodological approach consisted of multiple methods and informants …
Why is constructive interparental conflict beneficial for children’s mental health? The role of effortful control and positive affect
[Correction Notice: An Erratum for this article was reported online in Developmental Psychology on Jun 16 2025 (see record 2026-29795-001). In the article "Why Is Constructive Interparental Conflict Beneficial for Children's Mental Health? The Role of Effortful Control and Positive Affect" by Patrick T. Davies, Vanessa T. Cao, Alexandria A. Baker, and Melissa L. Sturge-Apple (Developmental Psychology, advance online publication, May 12, 2025, htt…
Family-level profiles of parental reactions to emotions: Longitudinal associations with multi-informant reports of adolescent internalizing and externalizing symptoms
Longitudinal study of associations between family-level emotion socialization and adolescent adjustment is limited. When American children (53.5% girls) were in second grade (N = 213; M age = 7.98; data collected 2002–2003), mothers and fathers (79.8% of mothers and 74.2% of fathers were White) reported on their reactions to children's emotions; in seventh, eighth, and ninth grade (M age = 13.03, 14.17, 15.29, respectively; data collected 2007–20…
Parasympathetic and Sympathetic Reactivity and Their Coordination as Antecedents to the Cascade of Children's Callous-Unemotional Traits and Later Psychological Adjustment
This study examined whether a mediational cascade involving children's respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) reactivity to a series of cognitive and socio-evaluative stressors, their callous-unemotional (CU) traits, and psychological adjustment was moderated by their cardiac pre-ejection period (PEP) reactivity. Using a multi-method, multi-informant design, 238 mothers and their preschool children (Mage = 4.38, 52% female; 68% White; 18% Black; 14% …
Interparental conflict and adolescent emotional security across family structures
This study investigated whether interparental conflict was differentially related to forms of emotional security (i.e., family, interparental, parent–child) and whether forms of emotional security were differentially associated with mental health problems for adolescents in married versus divorced/separated families. Participants were 1032 adolescents (ages 10–15; 51% male, 49% female; 82% non‐Hispanic White, 9% Black/African American, 5% Hispani…
Interparental conflict dimensions and children's psychological problems: Emotion recognition as a mediator
This study tested children's emotion recognition as a mediator of associations between their exposure to hostile and cooperative interparental conflict and their internalizing and externalizing symptoms. From 2018 to 2022, 238 mothers, their partners, and preschool children (Mage = 4.38, 52% female; 68% White; 18% Black; 14% Multiracial or another race; and 16% Latinx) participated in three annual measurement occasions. Path analyses indicated th…
Parent–child boundary dissolution and children’s psychological difficulties: A meta-analytic review
Boundary dissolution has broadly been defined as the breakdown of boundaries and loss of psychological distinctiveness in the parent-child subsystem. Qualitative reviews have highlighted the developmental and clinical value of examining boundary dissolution as a multidimensional construct. Though prior work suggests patterns share minimal variance, research has yet to quantitatively synthesize the weighted effect of distinct patterns. The primary…
Advancing differential susceptibility research: Development and validation of the temperamental sensitivity Q-scale
Temperamental sensitivity (TS), which is a correlated suite of traits reflecting a lower threshold of environmental stimulation and heightened responsivity to a range of environmental contexts, is an empirically documented susceptibility factor that increases children's plasticity to supportive and harsh family environments. To expand the limited options for assessing TS, this article tested the psychometric properties of a new Q-set measure (i.e…
Hostile interparental conflict and parental discipline: Romantic attachment as a spillover mechanism
This study examined parental romantic attachment security as a mediator of prospective associations between hostile interparental conflict and parental discipline (i.e., power-assertive, permissive, and inductive discipline) for mothers and fathers of young children. Furthermore, this study utilized a novel, automatic assessment of romantic attachment security in examining whether romantic attachment assessed at controlled (i.e., self-reported) a…
A process model of parental executive functioning as a spillover mechanism linking interparental conflict and parenting difficulties across parenting domains
There is a well-documented interdependency between destructive interparental conflict (IPC) and parenting difficulties (i.e., spillover effect), yet little is known about the mechanisms that "carry" spillover between IPC and parenting. Guided by a cascade model framework, the current study used a longitudinal, multimethod, multi-informant design to examine a process model of spillover that tested whether parental executive functioning (working me…
Longitudinal effects of father‐adolescent attachment on anxiety: A multi‐informant study
Research has demonstrated that many elements of the family context can play a significant role in the development of anxiety in adolescents. Some work suggests that parent‐adolescent attachment may serve as an antecedent of adolescent anxiety problems, but there remains a gap in research that examines both the mother‐adolescent and father‐adolescent attachment relationship and its impact on adolescent anxiety. Evidence suggests that parent‐child …
Testing different sources of environmental unpredictability on adolescent functioning: Ancestral cue versus statistical learning and the role of temperament
BACKGROUND: The dimensional model of environmental adversity highlighted the effects of an unpredictable environment in promoting risky development. Toward gaining greater specificity in understanding, this multimethod, longitudinal study investigated the role of two sources of environmental unpredictability-ancestral cues versus statistical learning, and their interaction with dove temperament conceptualized within the evolutionary model of temp…
Understanding heterogeneity in pathways between interparental conflict and children's involvement: The moderating role of affect-biased attention
The study examined the moderating role of children's affect-biased attention to angry, fearful, and sad adult faces in the link between interparental conflict and children's distinct forms of involvement. Participants included 243 preschool children (M age = 4.60 years, 56% female) and their parents from racially (48% African American, 43% White) and socioeconomically (median annual household income = $36,000) diverse backgrounds. Data collection…
Family-level antecedents of children’s patterns of reactivity to interparental conflict: Testing the reformulation of emotional security theory
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 patte…
Interparental conflict as a quadratic predictor of children’s reactivity to interparental conflict and school adjustment: Steeling effects or risk saturation
This study examined interparental conflict as a curvilinear predictor of children's reactivity to interparental conflict and, in turn, their school problems across three annual measurements. Participants included 243 preschool children (Mage = 4.60 years; 56% girls) and their parents from racially (e.g., 48% Black; 16% Latinx) diverse backgrounds. Interparental conflict was a significant quadratic predictor of children's emotional reactivity (β =…
The cognitive costs and advantages of children’s exposure to parental relationship instability: Testing an evolutionary-developmental hypothesis
Guided by evolutionary-developmental models, this study tested the hypothesis that children's exposure to parental relationship instability, defined by initiation and dissolution of caregiver intimate relationships, has both costs in cognitive impairments and benefits in enhanced learning skills. Participants included 243 mothers and their preschool children ( M age 4.60 years; 56% girls) from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds (e.g., 46% Blac…
The Vestiges of Childhood Interparental Conflict: Adolescent Sensitization to Recent Interparental Conflict
This study examined whether childhood interparental conflict moderated the mediational pathway involving adolescent exposure to interparental conflict, their negative emotional reactivity to family conflict, and their psychological problems in a sample of 235 children (Mage = 6 years). Significant moderated-mediation findings indicated that the mediational path among Wave 4 interparental conflict during adolescence, change in youth negative react…
A Prospective Longitudinal Study of Mother–Child Attachment and Externalizing Trajectories in Boys and Girls
Family context in association with the development of child sensory processing sensitivity
Informed by the biological sensitivity to the context (BSC) theory, this multimethod, longitudinal study sought to examine how family context may be associated with the development of child sensory processing sensitivity (SPS) over a year. Participants were 235 young children (Mage = 2.97 at the first measurement occasion, 55.3% were girls) and their parents (median annual household income: $55,000 to 74,999), who were followed for two annual mea…
Parsing alcohol-dependent mothers’ insensitivity to child distress: Longitudinal links with children’s affective and anxiety problems
Prior work suggests that substance-dependent mothers insensitively respond to their child's emotional needs, which can increase children's risk for psychopathology. However, the mechanisms and processes underlying these associations remain unclarified. Mothers' insensitivity to children's distress is an especially unique predictor of child maladjustment, yet no study has examined whether or how different types of insensitivity to child distress u…
Marital conflict and child adjustment: An emotional security hypothesis
An emotional security hypothesis that builds on attachment theory is proposed to account for recent empirical findings on the impact of marital conflict on children and to provide directions for future research. Children's concerns about emotional security play a role in their regulation of emotional arousal and organization and in their motivation to respond in the face of marital conflict. Over time these response processes and internalized rep…
Gender-specific pathways between maternal depressive symptoms, family discord, and adolescent adjustment
Relations among maternal depressive symptoms, family discord, and adolescent psychological adjustment were examined in a sample of 443 middle adolescents and their mothers. Histories of maternal depressive symptoms, gathered at 3 occasions with 6-month intervals, were related to subsequent adolescent reports of depressive symptoms, conduct problems, and academic difficulties for girls but not for boys. Mediational tests indicated that girls' grea…
A process analysis of the transmission of distress from interparental conflict to parenting: Adult relationship security as an explanatory mechanism
Toward advancing conceptualizations of the spillover hypothesis, this study examined the conditions and mechanisms underlying the transmission of distress from the interparental relationship to parenting difficulties over a 2-year period in a sample of 233 mothers (M = 35.0 years) and fathers (M = 36.8 years) of kindergarten children. Findings from autoregressive structural equation models indicated that parents' gender moderated associations bet…
Constructive and Destructive Marital Conflict, Parenting, and Children's School and Social Adjustment
This study addresses the links between destructive and constructive marital conflict and mothers' and fathers' parenting to understand associations with children's social and school adjustment. Multi-method, longitudinal assessments of 235 mothers, fathers, and children (129 girls) were collected across kindergarten, first, and second grades (ages 5-7 at Time 1; ages 7-9 at Time 3). Whereas constructive marital conflict was related to both mother…
The role of child adrenocortical functioning in pathways between interparental conflict and child maladjustment
This study examined the interplay between interparental conflict and child cortisol reactivity to interparental conflict in predicting child maladjustment in a sample of 178 families and their kindergarten children. Consistent with the allostatic load hypothesis (McEwen & Stellar, 1993), results indicated that interparental conflict was indirectly related to child maladjustment through its association with individual differences in child cortisol…
The interparental relationship: Meta-analytic associations with children’s maladjustment and responses to interparental conflict
The aim of the current meta-analysis was to aggregate concurrent and longitudinal empirical research on associations between the interparental relationship and both children's maladjustment (i.e., externalizing and internalizing symptoms) and children's responses to interparental conflict (i.e., emotional, behavioral, cognitive, and physiological). Based on major theoretical frameworks, we distinguished between six dimensions of the interparental…
Interparental conflict and children's school adjustment: The explanatory role of children's internal representations of interparental and parent-child relationships
This study examined how children's insecure internal representations of interparental and parent-child relationships served as explanatory mechanisms in multiple pathways linking interparental conflict and parent emotional unavailability with the emotional and classroom engagement difficulties the children had in their adjustment to school. With their parents, 229 kindergarten children (127 girls and 102 boys, mean age = 6.0 years, SD = .50, at W…
Interparental violence, maternal emotional unavailability and children's cortisol functioning in family contexts
Our goal in the present study was to examine the specificity of pathways among interparental violence, maternal emotional unavailability, and children's cortisol reactivity to emotional stressors within interparental and parent-child relationships. The study also tested whether detrimental family contexts were associated, on average, with hypocortisolism or hypercortisolism responses to stressful family interactions in young children. Participant…
Delineating the sequelae of destructive and constructive interparental conflict for children within an evolutionary framework
We examined the joint role of constructive and destructive interparental conflict in predicting children's emotional insecurity and psychological problems. In Study 1, 250 early adolescents (M = 12.6 years) and their primary caregivers completed assessments of family and child functioning. In Study 2, 201 mothers and their 2-year-old children participated in a multimethod, longitudinal design with 3 annual measurement occasions. Findings from str…
The developmental costs and benefits of children’s involvement in interparental conflict
Building on empirical documentation of children's involvement in interparental conflicts as a weak predictor of psychopathology, we tested the hypothesis that involvement in conflict more consistently serves as a moderator of associations between children's emotional reactivity to interparental conflict and their psychological problems. In Study 1, 263 early adolescents (M age = 12.62 years), mothers, and fathers completed surveys of family and c…
The distinctive sequelae of children’s coping with interparental conflict: Testing the reformulated emotional security theory
Two studies tested hypotheses about the distinctive psychological consequences of children's patterns of responding to interparental conflict. In Study 1, 174 preschool children (M = 4.0 years) and their mothers participated in a cross-sectional design. In Study 2, 243 preschool children (M = 4.6 years) and their parents participated in 2 annual measurement occasions. Across both studies, multiple informants assessed children's psychological func…
The Interplay between Maternal Depressive Symptoms and Marital Distress in the Prediction of Adolescent Adjustment
We examine the nature and directionality of paths among maternal depressive symptoms, marital distress, and adolescent depressive and externalizing symptoms in 506 adolescent-mother dyads. Structural equation models, used with data from three measurements, were conducted to examine the specificity of marital distress and maternal depressive symptoms as potential mediators of one another in the prediction of adolescent adjustment. Findings from st…
Patterns of children's adrenocortical reactivity to interparental conflict and associations with child adjustment: A growth mixture modeling approach
Examining children's physiological functioning is an important direction for understanding the links between interparental conflict and child adjustment. Utilizing growth mixture modeling, the present study examined children's cortisol reactivity patterns in response to a marital dispute. Analyses revealed three different patterns of cortisol responses, consistent with both a sensitization and an attenuation hypothesis. Child-rearing disagreement…
An examination of the impact of harsh parenting contexts on children's adaptation within an evolutionary framework
The current study tests whether propositions set forth in an evolutionary model of temperament (Korte, Koolhaas, Wingfield, & McEwen, 2005) may enhance our understanding of children's differential susceptibility to unsupportive and harsh caregiving practices. Guided by this model, we examined whether children's behavioral strategies for coping with threat and challenge cohered into 2 broad, phenotypic dimensions--hawk and dove--that have been mai…
Interparental conflict and children’s social problems: Insecurity and friendship affiliation as cascading mediators
Although social difficulties have been identified as sequelae of children's experiences with interparental conflict and insecurity, little is known about the specific mechanisms underlying their vulnerability to social problems. Guided by emotional security theory, this study tested the hypothesis that children's emotional insecurity mediates associations between interparental conflict and their social difficulties by undermining their affiliativ…
Interparental Discord and Parenting: Testing the Moderating Roles of Child and Parent Gender
Objective. This multimethod, prospective study examined whether child and parent gender moderate the relation between interparental discord and changes in parenting practices over a 1-year time span. Design. Self-report questionnaires of interparental discord and parenting as well as an observational measure of interparental discord were collected from a sample of 226 mothers and fathers of kindergarten children. Results. Multigroup analyses usin…
Trivariate Modeling of Interparental Conflict and Adolescent Emotional Security: An Examination of Mother–Father–Child Dynamics
Children’s representations of family relationships, peer information processing, and school adjustment
This study examined children's peer information processing as an explanatory mechanism underlying the association between their insecure representations of interparental and parent-child relationships and school adjustment in a sample of 210 first graders. Consistent with emotional security theory (P. T. Davies & E. M. Cummings, 1994), results indicated that children's insecure representations of the interparental relationship were indirectly rel…
Children's emotions as organizers of their reactions to interadult anger: A functionalist perspective
Children's emotions have been implicated as mediating their responses to interadult anger, but this proposition has not been directly tested. Sixty-four 4-8-year-olds (32 boys and 32 girls) were induced to feel angry, sad, happy, or just okay before their exposure to interadult anger. Data were analyzed by means of (a) analyses of variance testing differences across conditions and (b) correlations between children's emotions during affect inducti…
Children’s attentional biases to emotions as sources of variability in their vulnerability to interparental conflict
Little is known about the role children’s processing of emotions plays in altering children’s vulnerability to interparental conflict. To address this gap, the present study examined whether the mediational cascade involving children’s exposure to interparental conflict, their insecure responses to interparental conflict, and their psychological problems varied as a function of children’s pre-existing biases to attend to angry, fearful, sad, and …
Understanding how and why effortful control moderates children’s vulnerability to interparental conflict
This study examined the moderating role of effortful control in the association between interparental conflict and externalizing problems in a diverse sample of preschool children ( N = 243; M age = 4.60 years). Using a multimethod, multi-informant, prospective design, findings indicated that the relation between interparental conflict and externalizing problems was only significant among children with poor effortful control. Children with high e…
Interactive effects of family instability and adolescent stress reactivity on socioemotional functioning
This study investigated whether adolescent vagal stress reactivity to parent-adolescent conflict moderates the effects of family instability on the development of adolescent behavioral problems. Participants were 192 adolescents ( M age = 12.4) and their parents across 2 measurement occasions. Results indicated that the interaction between family instability and vagal stress reactivity significantly predicted change in externalizing problems. Gre…
Mothers’ implicit appraisals of their adolescents as unlovable: Explanatory factor linking family conflict and harsh parenting
This study examined the consequences of negative change in mothers' implicit appraisals of their adolescents after engaging in a family disagreement. Participants included 194 mothers and their early adolescents (Mage = 12.4 at Wave 1; 50% female) followed over 1 year. Mothers' implicit appraisals of her child as "unlovable" were assessed using the Go/No-Go Association Task-Child (Sturge-Apple, Rogge, Skibo, et al., 2015), an associative word-sor…
The genetic precursors and the advantageous and disadvantageous sequelae of inhibited temperament: An evolutionary perspective
Guided by evolutionary game theory (Korte, Koolhaas, Wingfield, & McEwen, 2005), this study aimed to identify the genetic precursors and the psychosocial sequelae of inhibited temperament in a sociodemographically disadvantaged and racially diverse sample (N = 201) of 2-year-old children who experienced elevated levels of domestic violence. Using a multimethod, prospective design across 3 annual measurement occasions, the authors conducted struct…
Hostile interparental conflict and parental discipline: Romantic attachment as a spillover mechanism
This study examined parental romantic attachment security as a mediator of prospective associations between hostile interparental conflict and parental discipline (i.e., power-assertive, permissive, and inductive discipline) for mothers and fathers of young children. Furthermore, this study utilized a novel, automatic assessment of romantic attachment security in examining whether romantic attachment assessed at controlled (i.e., self-reported) a…
Maternal Depression and Child Development
Marital conflict and child adjustment: An emotional security hypothesis
An emotional security hypothesis that builds on attachment theory is proposed to account for recent empirical findings on the impact of marital conflict on children and to provide directions for future research. Children's concerns about emotional security play a role in their regulation of emotional arousal and organization and in their motivation to respond in the face of marital conflict. Over time these response processes and internalized rep…
Children's emotions as organizers of their reactions to interadult anger: A functionalist perspective
Children's emotions have been implicated as mediating their responses to interadult anger, but this proposition has not been directly tested. Sixty-four 4-8-year-olds (32 boys and 32 girls) were induced to feel angry, sad, happy, or just okay before their exposure to interadult anger. Data were analyzed by means of (a) analyses of variance testing differences across conditions and (b) correlations between children's emotions during affect inducti…
Children and Marital Conflict: The Impact of Family Dispute and Resolution
Marital Conflict and Child Development. Conflict in the Marital Dyad. Children's Reactions to Marital Conflict. Effects of Specific Aspects of Marital Conflict on Children. Interparental Conflict and the Family. Methodology and Message. Conclusions, Implications, and Guidelines
Gender-specific pathways between maternal depressive symptoms, family discord, and adolescent adjustment
Relations among maternal depressive symptoms, family discord, and adolescent psychological adjustment were examined in a sample of 443 middle adolescents and their mothers. Histories of maternal depressive symptoms, gathered at 3 occasions with 6-month intervals, were related to subsequent adolescent reports of depressive symptoms, conduct problems, and academic difficulties for girls but not for boys. Mediational tests indicated that girls' grea…
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-yea…
The Interplay between Maternal Depressive Symptoms and Marital Distress in the Prediction of Adolescent Adjustment
We examine the nature and directionality of paths among maternal depressive symptoms, marital distress, and adolescent depressive and externalizing symptoms in 506 adolescent-mother dyads. Structural equation models, used with data from three measurements, were conducted to examine the specificity of marital distress and maternal depressive symptoms as potential mediators of one another in the prediction of adolescent adjustment. Findings from st…
Effects of marital conflict on children: Recent advances and emerging themes in process‐oriented research
Background: The effects of marital conflict on children's adjustment are well documented. For the past decade research has increasingly focused on advancing a process‐level understanding of these effects, that is, accounting for the particular responses and patterns embedded within specific contexts, histories, and developmental periods that account for children's outcomes over time. Methods: As a vehicle for presenting an update, this review fol…
II. Study 1: Child Responses to Interparental Conflict: Comparing the Relative Roles Of Emotional Security and Social Learning Processes
Interparental Conflict and Adolescent Adjustment: Why Does Gender Moderate Early Adolescent Vulnerability?
The role of child gender in the relationship between interparental conflict and adolescent psychological symptoms was examined in a sample of 924 children 10 to 15 years old and 172 of their mothers. Interparental conflict was a significantly stronger predictor of adolescent internalizing symptoms for girls than boys across type of informant (i.e., mother or child). In examining why the risk posed by interparental conflict differed by gender, fur…
Interparental Discord and Parenting: Testing the Moderating Roles of Child and Parent Gender
Objective. This multimethod, prospective study examined whether child and parent gender moderate the relation between interparental discord and changes in parenting practices over a 1-year time span. Design. Self-report questionnaires of interparental discord and parenting as well as an observational measure of interparental discord were collected from a sample of 226 mothers and fathers of kindergarten children. Results. Multigroup analyses usin…
Towards a family process model of maternal and paternal depressive symptoms: Exploring multiple relations with child and family functioning
Background: Research has focused on maternal dysphoria and child adjustment. However, family process models indicate gaps in the study of paternal dysphoria, broader family functioning, and diverse child outcomes. Method: A community sample of 235 mothers and fathers of kindergarten children completed measures of depressive symptoms, family functioning and child adjustment. Teachers also provided measures of child adjustment. Results: Supportive …
Children's Reactions to Marital Conflict in Israel and in the United States
Objective. Gaps in cross-cultural study limit understanding of whether effects of marital discord on children are culturally universal. Design. Israeli (39 boys; 40 girls) and U.S. (97 boys; 118 girls) kindergarteners responded to analog presentations of resolved and unresolved marital conflicts. Results. Children reacted negatively to marital conflict across cultures and were sensitive to the topics of conflict, whether or not it was escalating …
Interparental Discord and Child Adjustment: Prospective Investigations of Emotional Security as an Explanatory Mechanism
Advancing the process-oriented study of links between interparental discord and child adjustment, 2 multimethod prospective tests of emotional security as an explanatory mechanism are reported. On the basis of community samples, with waves spaced 2 years apart, Study 1 (113 boys and 113 girls, ages 9–18) identified emotional security as a mediator in a 2-wave test, whereas Study 2 (105 boys and 127 girls, ages 5–7) indicated emotional security as…
Impact of Hostility and Withdrawal in Interparental Conflict on Parental Emotional Unavailability and Children's Adjustment Difficulties
This multimethod, prospective study examined the nature of pathways between interparental hostility and withdrawal, parental emotional unavailability, and subsequent changes in children's internalizing and externalizing behaviors, and school adjustment difficulties over a 3-year period in a sample of 210 mothers, fathers, and 6-year-old children. The results of autoregressive structural equation models indicated that interparental withdrawal had …
The role of child adrenocortical functioning in pathways between interparental conflict and child maladjustment
This study examined the interplay between interparental conflict and child cortisol reactivity to interparental conflict in predicting child maladjustment in a sample of 178 families and their kindergarten children. Consistent with the allostatic load hypothesis (McEwen & Stellar, 1993), results indicated that interparental conflict was indirectly related to child maladjustment through its association with individual differences in child cortisol…
Parental Depressive Symptoms, Children's Representations of Family Relationships, and Child Adjustment
This study extends the investigation of family process models of parental dysphoria and child adjustment, by examining depressive symptoms in both fathers and mothers, and by examining children's representations of family relationships as possible explanatory mechanisms. Participants were 232 children (Time 1 mean age: 5.99; 105 boys, 127 girls) and their cohabiting parents, who participated for three consecutive years. Children's internal repres…
Marital Conflict in the Context of Parental Depressive Symptoms: Implications for the Development of Children's Adjustment Problems
Relations among parental depressive symptoms, overt and covert marital conflict, and child internalizing and externalizing symptoms were examined in a community sample of 235 couples and their children. Families were assessed once yearly for three years, starting when children were in kindergarten. Parents completed measures of depressive symptoms and children's internalizing and externalizing symptoms. Behavioral observations of marital conflict…
Interparental conflict and children's school adjustment: The explanatory role of children's internal representations of interparental and parent-child relationships
This study examined how children's insecure internal representations of interparental and parent-child relationships served as explanatory mechanisms in multiple pathways linking interparental conflict and parent emotional unavailability with the emotional and classroom engagement difficulties the children had in their adjustment to school. With their parents, 229 kindergarten children (127 girls and 102 boys, mean age = 6.0 years, SD = .50, at W…
A process analysis of the transmission of distress from interparental conflict to parenting: Adult relationship security as an explanatory mechanism
Toward advancing conceptualizations of the spillover hypothesis, this study examined the conditions and mechanisms underlying the transmission of distress from the interparental relationship to parenting difficulties over a 2-year period in a sample of 233 mothers (M = 35.0 years) and fathers (M = 36.8 years) of kindergarten children. Findings from autoregressive structural equation models indicated that parents' gender moderated associations bet…
Children’s representations of family relationships, peer information processing, and school adjustment
This study examined children's peer information processing as an explanatory mechanism underlying the association between their insecure representations of interparental and parent-child relationships and school adjustment in a sample of 210 first graders. Consistent with emotional security theory (P. T. Davies & E. M. Cummings, 1994), results indicated that children's insecure representations of the interparental relationship were indirectly rel…
Delineating the sequelae of destructive and constructive interparental conflict for children within an evolutionary framework
We examined the joint role of constructive and destructive interparental conflict in predicting children's emotional insecurity and psychological problems. In Study 1, 250 early adolescents (M = 12.6 years) and their primary caregivers completed assessments of family and child functioning. In Study 2, 201 mothers and their 2-year-old children participated in a multimethod, longitudinal design with 3 annual measurement occasions. Findings from str…
Interparental violence, maternal emotional unavailability and children's cortisol functioning in family contexts
Our goal in the present study was to examine the specificity of pathways among interparental violence, maternal emotional unavailability, and children's cortisol reactivity to emotional stressors within interparental and parent-child relationships. The study also tested whether detrimental family contexts were associated, on average, with hypocortisolism or hypercortisolism responses to stressful family interactions in young children. Participant…
An examination of the impact of harsh parenting contexts on children's adaptation within an evolutionary framework
The current study tests whether propositions set forth in an evolutionary model of temperament (Korte, Koolhaas, Wingfield, & McEwen, 2005) may enhance our understanding of children's differential susceptibility to unsupportive and harsh caregiving practices. Guided by this model, we examined whether children's behavioral strategies for coping with threat and challenge cohered into 2 broad, phenotypic dimensions--hawk and dove--that have been mai…
Prospective Relations Between Parental Depression, Negative Expressiveness, Emotional Insecurity, and Children’s Internalizing Symptoms
Psychology (73 works) · Developmental psychology (71 works) · Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development (56 works) · Attachment and Relationship Dynamics (53 works) · Family Dynamics and Relationships (48 works) · Clinical Psychology (42 works) · Social Psychology (34 works) · Clinical Psychology (29 works) · Social Psychology (24 works) · Emotional security (19 works)