Poster #143 - Preschoolers’ Representations of Family Relationships: Associations with Intimate Partner Violence and Child Maltreatment

• In Event: 3-003 - Poster Session 09
  In Poster Session: PS 09 Section - Parenting & Parent-Child Relationships

Integrative Statement

Emotional security theory (EST, Davies & Cummings, 1994) posits that children’s meaning-making of interparental conflict gives rise to children’s internal representations of family relationships, which has long-term implications for children’s adjustment. Much of the empirical support for EST derives from studies linking normative interparental conflict to child outcomes among typically developing families. In expanding EST to families experiencing significant adversity, such as intimate partner violence and child maltreatment, Davies and colleagues (2006) highlight the equivocal nature in which the interplay of parenting disruptions (e.g., perpetration of child maltreatment) and exposure to extreme interparental conflict (e.g., intimate partner violence) may influence children’s adjustment. In a novel extension of the extant literature, we examined associations among maternal report of violence between herself and her partner, the severity of abuse, neglect, and emotional maltreatment experienced by the child, and children’s internal representations of conflict regulation, hostility, and emotional security.

Participants included 82 nonmaltreated and 149 maltreated preschoolers and their mothers. Following the Maltreatment Classification System (Barnett et al., 1993), Department of Child Service records were reviewed to identify the form (i.e., physical and sexual abuse, neglect, emotional maltreatment) and the maximum severity of maltreatment (rated on a 5-point scale for each subtype) experienced by maltreated children (19% double coded, ks > .81). Nonmaltreated children were rated as 0 for severity on all subtypes. Mothers completed the Revised Conflict Tactic Scale Short Form (Straus & Douglas, 2004) to assess the frequency of physically and psychologically aggressive behaviors occurring between the mothers and their partners during the past year. Maternal report of their own and their partner’s behaviors were summed. A revised version of the MacArthur Story Stem Battery (Bretherton et al., 1990) used extensively in EST research was administered to children to elicit children’s internal working models through two story stems involving intimate partner conflict. For each stem, the experimenter presented the conflict and children were instructed to tell what happens next. Child mediation (i.e., degree to which children intervened in the conflict; 0 = no child involvement to 3 = excessive mediation), conflict spread (i.e., whether hostility between adults transmitted to the child; 0 = did not address conflict, 1 = no hostility, 2 = hostility towards the child), and emotional security (i.e. whether families were depicted as a source of support when encountering conflict; 0 = insecure, 3 =secure) were rated for each story (22% double coded, ks > .71).

Regression analyses were conducted for each internal representation construct with child age, child expressive language, physical IPV (intimate partner violence), psychological IPV, abuse severity, neglect severity, and emotional maltreatment severity entered simultaneously. Results revealed positive associations between abuse severity and psychological IPV in predicting the degree to which the adult conflict resulted in hostility towards the child. Children from families experiencing more psychological IPV were more likely to mediate adult conflict and children with more physical IPV were less likely to intervene. Abuse severity was negatively associated with emotional security. Implications for EST and child development in adverse family environments will be discussed.

Authors

• Monica Lawson, University of Notre Dame
  Presenting Author

• Kristin Valentino, University of Notre Dame
  Non-Presenting Author

• Ruth Speidel, University of Notre Dame
  Non-Presenting Author

• E. Mark Cummings, University of Notre Dame
  Non-Presenting Author

• Kaitlin Fondren, University of Notre Dame
  Non-Presenting Author