The Interplay Among Children's Negative Family Representations, Visual Processing of Negative Emotions, and Externalizing Symptoms

Abstract

This study examined the transactional interplay among children's negative family representations, visual processing of negative emotions, and externalizing symptoms in a sample of 243 preschool children (M = 4.60 years). Children participated in three annual measurement occasions. Cross-lagged autoregressive models were conducted with multimethod, multi-informant data to identify mediational pathways. Consistent with schema-based top-down models, negative family representations were associated with attention to negative faces in an eye-tracking task and their externalizing symptoms. Children's negative representations of family relationships specifically predicted decreases in their attention to negative emotions, which, in turn, was associated with subsequent increases in their externalizing symptoms. Follow-up analyses indicated that the mediational role of diminished attention to negative emotions was particularly pronounced for angry faces.

Child response processes as mediators of the association between caregiver intimate relationship instability and children’s externalizing symptoms.

“…These changes in negative family representations, in turn, were associated with increases and more modest reductions in externalizing symptoms across a 2-year period. In support of this mediational link, previous research has demonstrated that negative family representations concurrently and longitudinally predict children’s externalizing problems (Davies et al, 2018; Stadelmann et al, 2007; Wagner et al, 2015). Thus, in accord with life history theory, appraisals of their primary social worlds (i.e., the family unit) as undermining safety and social cohesion may canalize children into a life history strategy that progressively coalesces into defiance, exploitation, antagonism, and impulsivity (Del Giudice, 2016).…”

“…family representations concurrently and longitudinally predict children's externalizing problems (Davies et al, 2018;Stadelmann et al, 2007;Wagner et al, 2015). Thus, in accord with life history theory, appraisals of their primary social worlds (i.e., the family unit) as undermining safety and social cohesion may canalize children into a life history strategy that progressively coalesces into defiance, exploitation, antagonism, and impulsivity (Del Giudice, 2016).…”

“…Children's negative family representations. At the preschool and kindergarten waves, children's negative internal representations were assessed through the revised version of the Mac-Arthur Story Stem Battery (MSSB-R; Davies, Coe, Hentges, Sturge-Apple, & van der Kloet, 2018). Consistent with the original version of the MSSB (Bretherton, Oppenheim, Buchsbaum, Emde, & the MacArthur Narrative Group, 1990), the MSSB-R is a narrative storytelling technique designed to assess children's internal representations of family relationships in the context of stressful or conflictual events.…”

“…Second, the Poor Caregiver Competence code indexed the degree to which the children portrayed the adult caregivers as threatening or completely inept figures in their roles of providing support, protection, or security. Third, the Child Overall Insecurity code measured children's collective portrayal of the family relationship as a source of severe threat (rather than support) to their safety and welfare (for more details, see Davies et al, 2018). At each wave, ratings for each scale were averaged across the six stories to obtain single composite variables of Antagonistic Relationship Quality (␣ ϭ .62 at the preschool wave and .74 at the kindergarten wave), Poor Caregiver Competence (␣ ϭ .75 at the preschool wave and .76 at the kindergarten wave), and Child Overall Insecurity (␣ ϭ .82 at the preschool wave and .78 at the kindergarten wave).…”

The interplay among interparental conflict, children's emotional insecurity, neurophysiological correlates of processing interparental conflict cues, and externalizing symptoms

“…In contrast, two studies have also shown evidence for defensive exclusion. Specifically, as a proposed indicator of emotional insecurity in the family, children's negative cognitive representations of the family predicted subsequent decreases in children's duration of attention to anger; those decreases, in turn, predicted increases in externalizing symptoms (Davies, Coe, Hentges, Sturge-Apple, & van der Kloet, 2018). In another study, decreases in children's behavioral indices of emotional security in the interparental subsystem over a 1-year period were associated with concomitant decreases in their duration of attention to anger .…”