Poster #95 - Interparental Conflict and Children’s Externalizing Problems: The Protective Role of Effortful Control

• In Event: 1-169 - Poster Session 04
  In Poster Session: PS 04 Section - Family Context & Processes

Integrative Statement

Children’s externalizing problems have been identified as one of the most consistent sequelae of destructive interparental conflict (e.g., Buehler et al., 1997). However, modest to moderate effect sizes indicate considerable heterogeneity in the adjustment of children exposed to high levels of interparental conflict (Buehler et al., 1997; Fincham, 1994). Thus, a pressing task of a second generation of research is to identify sources of variability in the relationship between interparental conflict and externalizing problems (Cummings & Davies, 2002). Children’s effortful control is one promising mechanism that may elucidate the pathway between interparental conflict and externalizing problems. Effortful control may protect children within the context of interparental conflict by promoting strategies to manage reflexive, intense negative emotions and reduce emotional arousal and reactivity to family conflict (Repetti, Taylor, & Seeman, 2002). As the only study to directly test effortful control as a moderator, David and Murphy (2007) demonstrated that effortful control buffered children in the context of interparental conflict from vulnerability to problematic peer relations. However, these findings are limited in that the data were cross-sectional, interparental conflict and effortful control were measured via a single method, and the sample size was relatively small (N=62) and predominantly Caucasian. Thus, to address this significant gap in the literature, the primary aim of this study is to test the relative viability of effortful control in its role as a possible moderator of the prospective association between interparental conflict and children’s externalizing problems.
Participants included 243 preschool children and their mothers from diverse demographic backgrounds who participated in two waves of data collection spaced two years apart. Table 1 outlines the battery of measures used. We assessed interparental conflict through maternal and paternal surveys, and coder ratings of narratives from a semi-structured interview with mothers. Effortful control was assessed through observations of children’s abilities to inhibit prepotent impulses and enact subdominant responses. Lastly, we assessed children’s externalizing problems through surveys completed by mothers and teachers.
Autoregressive structural equation modeling analyses revealed that the Interparental Conflict x Effortful Control interaction predicted children’s Wave 2 externalizing problems even after the inclusion of an autoregressive path from Wave 1 to Wave 2 externalizing problems, and children’s gender, B=-.14, p=.026. To better characterize the interaction, we calculated the simple slopes of children’s externalizing problems for children with high and low (+/-1 SD) effortful control (Figure 1). Interparental conflict was significantly associated with Wave 2 externalizing problems for children with low effortful control, but not children with high effortful control. These findings are in accord with classic conceptualizations of protective effects indicating that children with high effortful control are buffered against the negative effects of interparental conflict. Planned analyses will be conducted to examine how and why effortful control moderates interparental conflict by examining children’s emotional reactivity to interparental conflict and their internal family representations as mediating mechanisms. Findings will be discussed in their relation to family process models (Repetti et al., 2002), conceptualizations of temperament (Rothbart, 1989), and their implications for understanding children’s vulnerability to interparental conflict.

Authors

• Morgan J Thompson, University of Rochester
  Presenting Author

• Patrick Davies, University of Rochester
  Non-Presenting Author

• Lucia Q Parry, University of Rochester
  Non-Presenting Author

• Melissa Sturge-Apple, University of Rochester
  Non-Presenting Author