Poster #91 - Cortisol Reactivity as a Moderator of the Pathways between Interparental Conflict, Emotional Insecurity, and School Adjustment

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

Integrative Statement

According to emotional security theory (Davies & Martin, 2014), associations between destructive forms of interparental conflict (e.g., anger, aggression) and children’s psychological adjustment are mediated by difficulties preserving a sense of security, characterized by high levels of vigilance and fear. Although research has repeatedly documented emotional insecurity as a mediator of children’s vulnerability to interparental conflict, significant individual differences in the power of emotional security to explain the risk underscore the importance of identifying moderators (Davies et al., 2016). Children’s physiological reactivity has been proposed to explain this heterogeneity (Davies et al., 2016). According to biological sensitivity to context theory (BSC; Boyce & Ellis, 2005), the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal (HPA) axis, and its product cortisol, is a physiological index of sensitivity to environmental cues in a for better or worse fashion. Children who experience heightened cortisol reactivity following a stressor are hypothesized to exhibit substantially greater emotional insecurity when exposed to high levels of destructive interparental conflict but disproportionately lower emotional insecurity when exposed to low levels of destructive interparental conflict. In contrast, children with low cortisol reactivity are expected to express moderate levels of emotional insecurity regardless of exposure to destructive conflict. Guided by the synthesis of emotional security and BSC theories, the aim of this study is to examine the novel hypothesis that children’s cortisol reactivity moderates the mediational pathway involving interparental conflict, emotional insecurity, and school adjustment.

Participants included 243 mothers, fathers, and their preschool children at three annual waves of data collection (W1 Mage = 4.6). At Waves 1 and 2, families participated in an interparental conflict task in which parents attempted to resolve common disagreements for ten minutes while the child was playing in the same room. At Wave 1, trained coders rated the interactions for dimensions of interparental conflict and saliva assessments were collected prior to and 20 minutes after the conflict. At Waves 1 and 2, coders rated indicators of children’s emotional insecurity in response to the parental conflictual interactions. Finally, teachers completed assessments of children’s school adjustment at Waves 1 and 3 (see Table 1). Consistent with prior research on emotional security as a mediator, initial SEM analyses indicated that interparental conflict at Wave 1 predicted increases in insecurity from Wave 1 to 2, which, in turn, predicted increases in school problems from Wave 1 to 3. To examine moderated mediation, multiplicative terms were computed from cross products of cortisol reactivity and each of the three indicators of interparental conflict. A significant interaction was found (see Figure 1). Consistent with BSC, follow-up simple slope analyses revealed that Wave 1 interparental conflict predicted significantly greater increases in Wave 2 insecurity at high (+1 SD), but not low (-1 SD), levels of cortisol reactivity. In further support of BSC, the graphical plot reflected a cross-over interaction and the Proportion Affected Index (i.e., (proportion of individuals in the “for better” region) index was .68. Findings will be discussed in terms of how they advance emotional security and BSC theories.

Authors

• Joanna Pearson, University of Rochester
  Presenting Author

• Patrick Davies, University of Rochester
  Non-Presenting Author

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