Meredith J. Martin

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 childrens 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 structural equation modeling in both studies revealed that childrens emotional insecurity in the interparental relationship mediated associations between destructive interparental conflict and childrens psychological problems even after including constructive conflict and family and child covariates as predictors. Conversely, emotional insecurity was not a mediator of associations between constructive interparental conflict and childrens psychological problems when destructive interparental conflict was specified as a risk factor in the analyses. The results are consistent with the evolutionary reformulation of emotional security theory and the resulting primacy ascribed to destructive interparental conflict in accounting for individual differences in childrens emotional insecurity and its pathogenic implications (Davies & Sturge-Apple, 2007).

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 childrens differential susceptibility to unsupportive and harsh caregiving practices. Guided by this model, we examined whether childrens behavioral strategies for coping with threat and challenge cohered into 2 broad, phenotypic dimensions--hawk and dove--that have been maintained by frequency-dependent selection throughout our ancestral history: Hawk-like strategies are characterized by approach, dominant-negative affect, and activity, whereas dove-like strategies are evidenced by avoidance, inhibition, and vulnerable affect. In turn, we examined the moderating effect of hawk or dove profile membership on childrens physiological and psychological adaptation to harsh rearing environments. Participants included 201 2-year-old toddlers and their mothers. Consistent with the Korte model, latent profile analyses extracted 2 profiles that cohered into hawk and dove strategies. Children were classified within hawk or dove profiles and separately examined in a process model of harsh caregiving. As predicted, associations between harsh caregiving practices and childrens basal cortisol, parasympathetic nervous system, and sympathetic nervous system activity were moderated by profile membership. In turn, basal physiological levels were differentially predictive of childrens psychological adaptation over time. Collectively, findings highlight the potential value of translating the study of evolutionary models to understanding developmental outcomes associated with harsh caregiving.

Toward Greater Specificity in Identifying Associations Among Interparental Aggression, Child Emotional Reactivity to Conflict, and Child Problems

This study examined specific forms of emotional reactivity to conflict and temperamental emotionality as explanatory mechanisms in pathways among interparental aggression and child psychological problems. Participants of the multimethod, longitudinal study included 201 two-year-old children and their mothers who had experienced elevated violence in the home. Consistent with emotional security theory, autoregressive structural equation model analyses indicated that childrens fearful reactivity to conflict was the only consistent mediator in the associations among interparental aggression and their internalizing and externalizing symptoms 1year later. Pathways remained significant across maternal and observer ratings of childrens symptoms and with the inclusion of other predictors and mediators, including childrens sad and angry forms of reactivity to conflict, temperamental emotionality, gender, and socioeconomic status.

The reformulation of emotional security theory: The role of children's social defense in developmental psychopathology

Although childrens security in the context of the interparental relationship has been identified as a key explanatory mechanism in pathways between family discord and child psychopathology, little is known about the inner workings of emotional security as a goal system. Thus, the objective of this paper is to describe how our reformulation of emotional security theory within an ethological and evolutionary framework may advance the characterization of the architecture and operation of emotional security and, in the process, cultivate sustainable growing points in developmental psychopathology. The first section of the paper describes how childrens security in the interparental relationship is organized around a distinctive behavioral system designed to defend against interpersonal threat. Building on this evolutionary foundation for emotional security, the paper offers an innovative taxonomy for identifying qualitatively different ways children try to preserve their security and its innovative implications for more precisely informing understanding of the mechanisms in pathways between family and developmental precursors and childrens trajectories of mental health. In the final section, the paper highlights the potential of the reformulation of emotional security theory to stimulate new generations of research on understanding how children defend against social threats in ecologies beyond the interparental dyad, including both familial and extrafamilial settings.

The multiple faces of interparental conflict: Implications for cascades of children’s insecurity and externalizing problems.

This multistudy article examined the relative strength of mediational pathways involving hostile, disengaged, and uncooperative forms of interparental conflict, childrens emotional insecurity, and their externalizing problems across 2 longitudinal studies. Participants in Study 1 consisted of 243 preschool children (M age = 4.60 years) and their parents, whereas Study 2 consisted of 263 adolescents (M age = 12.62 years) and their parents. Both studies utilized multimethod, multi-informant assessment batteries within a longitudinal design with 3 measurement occasions. Across both studies, lagged, autoregressive tests of the mediational paths revealed that interparental hostility was a significantly stronger predictor of the prospective cascade of childrens insecurity and externalizing problems than interparental disengagement and low levels of interparental cooperation. Findings further indicated that interparental disengagement was a stronger predictor of the insecurity pathway than was low interparental cooperation for the sample of adolescents in Study 2. Results are discussed in relation to how they inform and advance developmental models of family risk. (PsycINFO Database Record

The Developmental Costs and Benefits of Children's Involvement in Interparental Conflict.

Building on empirical documentation of childrens 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 childrens 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 child functioning at 2 measurement occasions spaced 2 years apart. In Study 2, 243 preschool children (M age = 4.60 years) participated in a multimethod (i.e., observations, structured interview, surveys) measurement battery to assess family functioning, childrens reactivity to interparental conflict, and their psychological adjustment. Across both studies, latent difference score analyses revealed that involvement moderated associations between emotional reactivity and childrens increases in psychological (i.e., internalizing and externalizing) problems. Childrens emotional reactivity to interparental conflict was a significantly stronger predictor of their psychological maladjustment when they were highly involved in the conflicts. In addition, the developmental benefits and costs of involvement varied as a function of emotional reactivity. Involvement in interparental conflict predicted increases in psychological problems for children experiencing high emotional reactivity and decreases in psychological problems when they exhibited low emotional reactivity. We interpret the results in the context of the new formulation of emotional security theory (e.g., Davies & Martin, 2013) and family systems models of childrens parentification (e.g., Byng-Hall, 2002).

Transactional cascades of destructive interparental conflict, children's emotional insecurity, and psychological problems across childhood and adolescence.

This study examined the transactional interplay among dimensions of destructive interparental conflict (i.e., hostility and dysphoria), childrens emotional insecurity, and their psychological problems from middle childhood and adolescence. Participants were 232 families, with the first of five measurement occasions occurring when children were in first grade (M age = 7 years). Cross-lagged, autoregressive models were conducted with a multiple-method, multiple-informant measurement approach to identify developmental cascades of interparental and child cascades. Results indicated that emotional insecurity was a particularly powerful mediator of prospective associations between interparental conflict (i.e., dysphoria and hostility) and child adjustment during adolescence rather than childhood. In reflecting bidirectionality in relationships between interparental and child functioning, childrens psychological problems predicted increases in interparental dysphoria during childhood and adolescence. Although emotional insecurity was not identified as a proximal predictor of interparental difficulties, an indirect cascade was identified whereby insecurity in early adolescence was associated with increases in teen psychological problems, which in turn predicted greater interparental dysphoria over time. Results are interpreted in the context of how they advance transactional formulation of emotional security theory and its resulting translational implications for clinical initiatives.

The mediating roles of cortisol reactivity and executive functioning difficulties in the pathways between childhood histories of emotional insecurity and adolescent school problems

This study tested a hypothesized cascade in which childrens insecure representations of the interparental relationship increase their school problems by altering childrens cortisol reactivity to stress and their executive functioning. Participants included 235 families. The first of five measurement occasions occurred when the children were in kindergarten (M age = 6 years), and they were followed through the transition to high school. The results indicated that childrens histories of insecure representations of the interparental relationship during the early school years were associated with executive functioning difficulties in adolescence (M age = 14 years). This in turn predicted subsequent increases in school adjustment difficulties 1 year later. In addition, elevated cortisol reactivity to interadult conflict mediated the association between early histories of insecurity and subsequent executive function problems in adolescence.

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-sorting task, before and after engaging in a family conflict task. Mothers’ implicit appraisals, on average, did not become more negative following conflicts with their teen. However, substantial variability was evident, suggesting that important individual differences exist in mothers’ cognitive reactivity to conflict. Greater susceptibility to implicit change predicted more harsh and insensitive parenting in response to their adolescents’ bids for support 1 year later. This effect held over and above mothers’ emotional reactivity to the conflict, their explicit negative attitudes about their adolescent, and maternal harshness at Time 1. Harsh and insensitive parenting, in turn, mediated the link between maternal implicit reactivity and subsequent increases in adolescent internalizing and externalizing problems. The results suggest that individual differences in maternal susceptibility to changes in implicit appraisals following conflictual interactions serve as a unique determinant of parenting in adolescence.

Social defense: an evolutionary-developmental model of children's strategies for coping with threat in the peer group.

Navigating the ubiquitous conflict, competition, and complex group dynamics of the peer group is a pivotal developmental task of childhood. Difficulty negotiating these challenges represents a substantial source of risk for psychopathology. Evolutionary developmental psychology offers a unique perspective with the potential to reorganize the way we think about the role of peer relationships in shaping how children cope with the everyday challenges of establishing a social niche. To address this gap, we utilize the ethological reformulation of the emotional security theory as a guide to developing an evolutionary framework for advancing an understanding of the defense strategies children use to manage antagonistic peer relationships and protect themselves from interpersonal threat (Davies and Sturge-Apple, 2007). In this way, we hope to illustrate the value of an evolutionary developmental lens in generating unique theoretical insight and novel research directions into the role of peer relationships in the development of psychopathology.