Poster #135 - Early Predictors: The Impact of Childhood Exposure to Interparental Conflict on Developmental Outcomes for Emotion Self-Regulation and Related Problem Behaviour.

• In Event: Poster Session 09

Abstract

The capacity to independently regulate emotions occupies a central role in children’s physical, emotional, and mental wellbeing as they progress through development. The influence of adverse childhood experiences on the absence of attuned emotion self-regulation (ESR) abilities has been recurringly linked to a range of adverse developmental outcomes for children and adolescents, such as internalizing problem behaviours (i.e., anxiety) and externalizing problem behaviours (i.e., peer bullying/victimization). Although exposure to interparental conflict has been widely associated with short- and long-term adverse effects for children’s physical, emotional, social, and behavioural development, further investigation is needed to better understand how differential levels of exposure to interparental conflict may directly impact children and adolescents’ ESR abilities and related problem behaviour. Thus, the purpose of this study was to examine the pattern of effect among varying degrees of interparental conflict, children’s emotion self-regulation, and related problem behaviour.
Participants for this study included 479 adolescents aged 17-19 (mean 18) years and examined the association of children’s exposure to interparental conflict within their household, and level of ESR capacity and related problem behaviour during adolescence. Adolescents were asked to complete an online self-report questionnaire assessing level of interparental conflict, ESR capacities (i.e., expressive suppression and cognitive reappraisal use), internalizing and externalizing problem behaviour, and parent-child relationship quality (i.e., parent-child conflict and parent-child closeness). A series of multiple regression analyses were employed to explore a path model and respond to the following research question: How does exposure to different levels of interparental conflict during childhood differentially predict ESR and problem behaviours during adolescence, and how might parent-child relationship quality moderate this link? Eight regressions were performed with covariates entered at Block 1, ESR entered at Block 2, and externalizing and internalizing problem behaviour inputted, respectively, as outcome variables. Moderation analyses were also conducted to examine parent-child closeness and parent-child conflict as moderating variables, entered at Block 3 (see Figures 4 and 5). Findings revealed that ESR significantly predicted problem behaviours, where cognitive reappraisal negatively predicted internalizing problem behaviour (β = -.332, p < .001). By contrast, expressive suppression positively predicted externalizing (β = .095, p < .05) and internalizing (β = .279, p < .001) problem behaviour. Additionally, parent-child relationship quality significantly moderated the association between interparental conflict and children’s ESR, where expressive suppression was higher when interparental conflict was low for those experiencing higher parent-child conflict. These results suggest that the quality of children’s earliest parent-child interactions may have long-term implications for the employment of specific self-regulation strategies as they begin to navigate emotional episodes throughout late childhood and adolescence. Moreover, it is apparent that children’s problem behaviours are significantly shaped by the ways in which they attempt to self-regulate.
The findings of this work underscore the need to further investigate the role of parent-child and parent-to-parent interaction in children’s early emotional learning. Many preventions/intervention programs independently target parenting practices or children’s emotional development; future work should strive to develop programs that merge these methods.

Keywords: emotion self-regulation, parent-child relationship quality, children’s problem behaviour, interparental conflict.

Authors

• Katrina Rita Abela, McMaster University
  Presenting Author

• Danielle M Law, Wilfrid Laurier University