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

Abstract

Exposure to destructive interparental conflict consistently predicts children's externalizing symptoms. Research has identified children's emotional security as an explanatory mechanism underpinning this association, but little is known about the role of children's neurophysiology in this pathway. We aimed to address that gap using eventrelated potential (ERP) data from a sample of 86 children, ages 9-11 years. The P3 ERP was measured during an emotion categorization task involving photographs of a couple exhibiting facial expressions of emotion toward one another. Angry images were target stimuli, and happy and neutral images were nontarget stimuli. Children reported interparental conflict, and their mothers reported children's emotional security. Mothers also reported children's externalizing symptoms at two time points 1 year apart.Results indicated elevated interparental conflict predicted more behavioral dysregulation (an aspect of emotional insecurity), which predicted a smaller P3 on angry trials, which, in turn, predicted greater externalizing symptoms 1 year later, controlling for initial externalizing. Greater involvement in interparental conflict, another aspect of emotional insecurity, predicted a larger P3 on neutral trials. Further, both greater involvement and a larger P3 on happy trials predicted increases in externalizing. The results suggest differing associations between different elements of emotional insecurity and the P3.

Relations between childhood emotional insecurity, self‐esteem, and adulthood marital conflict in South Korea

“…Davies and Martin (2013) suggested that individual differences in the way security systems operate in the context of interparental conflict affect close relationships, such as those with friends and romantic relationships, during early adulthood. To date, many researchers have measured various emotional and behavioral responses that appear when children's developmental goals of emotional security are threatened in interparental conflict, and found that these responses can affect children's problem behaviors at the time of interparental conflict or within a period of 5 years (Cummings et al, 2012; Davies et al, 2014; Davies et al, 2021; Lee & Seo, 2021; Schermerhorn et al, 2021). However, to this author's knowledge, no empirical study has examined how emotional insecurity in interparental conflict affects the offspring's marital conflict (Davies et al, 2009).…”

Marital Conflict and Children’s Problem Behaviors: A Focus on the Mediating Effect of Children’s Pragmatic Language

“…Bandura (1977)의 사회학습이론에서는 인간이 타인의 행동을 관찰하거나 직접적인 경험을 통해 새로운 행동양식을 습득하 는데, 특히 부모를 아동의 강력한 모델링 대상으로 보고 있다. 즉, 부부갈등에 자주 노출되는 아동은 상대를 비난하고 존중 하지 않는 태도 (Buehler et al, 1997), 방어적이고 경멸적 자세 를 포함하는 부적응적인 의사소통 방식을 모방한다고 하였다 (Gottman & Driver, 2005) (Han, 2019;Katz & Gottman, 1993;Schermerhorn, Nguyen, & Davies, 2021) (Brock & Kochanska, 2016;Koss et al, 2011) 는 아동의 불안, 우울 등의 내재화 문제행동 (Cho & Choi, 2014;Fosco & Grych, 2012;M. Kim & Chung, 2017;Xuan et al, 2018) 과 공격성, 행동문제 등의 외현화 문제행동 (Buehler et al, 1997;Emery, 1982;Jeon & Lee, 2020) (Cummings, Goeke-Morey, & Papp, 2003;Koss et al, 2011) (Buehler et al, 1997;Kaczynski, Lindahl, Malik, & Laurenceau, 2006) (Brownlie, Bao, & Beitchman, 2016;E.…”