Patrick T Davies

• Ph.D.
• Professor at University of Rochester

This article examined children’s positive affect and effortful control as mediators of associations between their exposure to constructive interparental conflict (IPC) and their social, emotional, and behavioral adjustment. Study 1 participants consisted of 243 mothers and their partners and preschool children (Mage = 4.60 years; 56% female; 54% Bl...

This study utilized a novel, observational paradigm to identify functional patterns of father responsiveness to child distress. In particular, we sought to identify a pattern of caregiving deactivation characterized by parenting behavior that functioned to minimize activation of the caregiving behavioral system. We also sought to identify a pattern...

Despite the impact of maltreatment on child psychopathology, research has shown that the effects of maltreatment can vary depending on individual characteristics. Guided by differential susceptibility theory, this multi-method longitudinal study examined the role of temperamental sensitivity in shaping the relation between maltreatment and the deve...

In this updated review for the Partner Abuse State of the Knowledge Project, we examine and summarize empirical articles on the impact of parental conflict and emotional abuse on children and families that were published between 2012 and 2023. The past decade of research has largely advanced an understanding of the sequelae of parental conflict in...

This study examined whether parenting behavior serves as an intervening mechanism in accounting for associations between romantic attachment styles and children’s emotional reactivity (i.e., anger and distress reactivity). Participants included 235 mothers (62% White) and a preschool-aged child ( M age = 2.97; 55% female) recruited from a moderate-...

Research has demonstrated that many elements of the family context can play a significant role in the development of anxiety in adolescents. Some work suggests that parent‐adolescent attachment may serve as an antecedent of adolescent anxiety problems, but there remains a gap in research that examines both the mother‐adolescent and father‐adolescen...

Longitudinal study of associations between family‐level emotion socialization and adolescent adjustment is limited. When American children (53.5% girls) were in second grade ( N = 213; M age = 7.98; data collected 2002–2003), mothers and fathers (79.8% of mothers and 74.2% of fathers were White) reported on their reactions to children's emotions; i...

Boundary dissolution has broadly been defined as the breakdown of boundaries and loss of psychological distinctiveness in the parent–child subsystem. Qualitative reviews have highlighted the developmental and clinical value of examining boundary dissolution as a multidimensional construct. Though prior work suggests patterns share minimal variance,...

Temperamental sensitivity (TS), which is a correlated suite of traits reflecting a lower threshold of environmental stimulation and heightened responsivity to a range of environmental contexts, is an empirically documented susceptibility factor that increases children’s plasticity to supportive and harsh family environments. To expand the limited o...

This study examined parental romantic attachment security as a mediator of prospective associations between hostile interparental conflict and parental discipline (i.e., power-assertive, permissive, and inductive discipline) for mothers and fathers of young children. Furthermore, this study utilized a novel, automatic assessment of romantic attachm...

There is a well-documented interdependency between destructive interparental conflict (IPC) and parenting difficulties (i.e., spillover effect), yet little is known about the mechanisms that “carry” spillover between IPC and parenting. Guided by a cascade model framework, the current study used a longitudinal, multimethod, multi-informant design to...

This multi-method longitudinal study sought to investigate linkage in parental neuroendocrine functioning – indicated by cortisol – over two measurement occasions. In addition, we examined how parental cortisol linkage may operate as an intermediate factor in the cascade of contextual risks and parenting. Participants were 235 families with a young...

Maternal insensitivity to children’s emotional distress (e.g., expressions of sadness or fearfulness) is one mechanism through which maternal alcohol dependence may increase children’s risk for psychopathology. Although emotion dysregulation is consistently associated with psychopathology, it remains unclear how or why alcohol dependence’s effects...

Developmental psychopathology has successfully advanced an understanding of risk and protective factors in multivariate models. However, many areas have relied on top-down approaches that define psychological constructs based largely or solely on their physical form. In this paper, we first describe how top-down approaches have significantly hinder...

Empirical research examining the Spillover Hypothesis has largely substantiated that interparental conflict comprised of hostility and anger has negative implications for parenting behaviors and cascading effects on children’s development. However, less is known about how constructive forms of interparental conflict may operate in spillover process...

Although the association between interparental conflict and adolescent adjustment is well documented, the intervening mechanisms that explain this relationship are not fully understood. Guided by the spillover hypothesis and the self-determination theory, this study examined whether the associations among interparental conflict and adolescent depre...

Research suggests that unsupportive parenting practices are consistent but modest risk factors for children's behavioral and social problems, emphasizing the importance in identifying sources of variability in children's vulnerability. To address this research direction, this study examined children's callous-unemotional (CU) traits (i.e., affectiv...

This study investigated whether interparental conflict was differentially related to forms of emotional security (i.e., family, interparental, parent-child) and whether forms of emotional security were differentially associated with mental health problems for adolescents in married versus divorced/separated families. Participants were 1032 adolesce...

This study examined children’s exposure to family adversity, hostile reactivity to parental conflict, and negative family representations as mediators of the prospective relation between their temperamental exuberance and externalizing symptoms. Participants included 243 preschool children ( M age = 4.60 years; 56% girls) and parents (48% Black; 16...

Guided by emotional security theory, this study examined the family-level antecedents of children's reaction patterns to interparental conflict in a sample of 243 preschool children (M age = 4.60 years; 48% Black; 16% Latinx; 56% girls) and their parents in the Northeastern United States. Behavioral observations of children's responses to interpare...

The study examined the moderating role of children's affect‐biased attention to angry, fearful, and sad adult faces in the link between interparental conflict and children's distinct forms of involvement. Participants included 243 preschool children (Mage = 4.60 years, 56% female) and their parents from racially (48% African American, 43% White) an...

This study tested whether the associations between interparental conflict, children’s emotional reactivity, and school adjustment were moderated by children’s cortisol reactivity in a sample of young children (N = 243; mean age = 4.6 years at Wave 1; 56% female, 44% male) and their parents. Using a longitudinal, autoregressive design, observational...

In clinically referred children, boys and those with disorganized mother–child attachments tend to show the most maladaptive externalizing trajectories; however, additional research is necessary to test whether these findings hold in a community sample. Therefore, 235 community children (106 boys) were followed from ages 6 to 15 years across six ti...

This multi-method longitudinal study evaluated how changes in maternal sensitive parenting may operate as an indirect factor linking family instability and the development of child externalizing problems over time. This study also investigated how mothers’ stress reactivity within the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) may moderate the association be...

Phenotypic resemblance refers to the degree of physical and behavioral similarity between parent and child. Evolutionary approaches to the determinants of parenting have consistently found father-child phenotypic resemblance to serve as a risk factor for harsh discipline, but we still know little about the mechanisms underlying these associations....

Guided by evolutionary-developmental models, this study tested the hypothesis that children's exposure to parental relationship instability, defined by initiation and dissolution of caregiver intimate relationships, has both costs in cognitive impairments and benefits in enhanced learning skills. Participants included 243 mothers and their preschoo...

The present study investigated the interdependence in the moment-to-moment fluctuations in parenting behavior during a triadic family interaction. Furthermore, by considering parenting interdependence within the broader family context, we also evaluated the role of various family risks (i.e., family instability, coparenting conflict, child external...

Building on Ellis et al.’s theorization for potent dimensions of environmental adversity, the present work sought to evaluate how environmental harshness and unpredictability might function directly and in interaction with child sensory processing sensitivity (SPS) to shape the development of child socioemotional functioning. Participants were 235...

Guided by the evolutionary perspective and specialization hypothesis, this multi-method (behavioral observation, questionnaire) longitudinal study adopted a person-centered approach to explore children’s problem-solving skills within different contexts. Participants were 235 young children (M age = 2.97 years at the first measurement occasion) and...

This study examined interparental conflict as a curvilinear predictor of children's reactivity to interparental conflict and, in turn, their school problems across three annual measurements. Participants included 243 preschool children (Mage = 4.60 years; 56% girls) and their parents from racially (e.g., 48% Black; 16% Latinx) diverse backgrounds....

Guided by models of family unpredictability, this study was designed to identify the distinctive sequelae of disorganized interparental conflict, a dimension of interparental conflict characterized by abrupt, inexplicable changes in parental emotional lability, conflict tactics, and verbalizations. Participants included 208 kindergarten children (M...

Informed by the biological sensitivity to the context (BSC) theory, this multimethod, longitudinal study sought to examine how family context may be associated with the development of child sensory processing sensitivity (SPS) over a year. Participants were 235 young children (Mage = 2.97 at the first measurement occasion, 55.3% were girls) and the...

Previous research has highlighted the value in parsing unidimensional assessments of children’s involvement in interparental conflict into distinct forms for advancing an understanding of children’s development; however, little is known about the underlying antecedents of distinct forms of involvement. The present study provides the first systemati...

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 event-related po...

The goal of the present study was to examine associations between maternal use of power assertive parenting across different discipline contexts and children’s adjustment in a sample of low-income, racially diverse families. Drawing from social domain perspectives on parenting, we specifically examined discipline in response to child transgressions...

This multistudy article examines whether children's susceptibility to their socialization experiences varies as a function of their dove temperament dispositions, an evolutionarily informed pattern of traits marked by a low threshold of environmental stimulation and greater behavioral flexibility across environmental contexts. Participants in Study...

Het belang van de ouderlijke partnerrelatie voor de ontwikkeling van het kind is al langer bekend. Het doel van deze meta-analyse was het samenvoegen van cross-sectioneel en longitudinaal empirisch onderzoek naar het verband tussen de ouderlijke partnerrelatie en het maladaptief functioneren van kinderen (d.w.z. externaliserende en internaliserende...

Prior work suggests that substance-dependent mothers insensitively respond to their child’s emotional needs which can increase children’s risk for psychopathology. However, the mechanisms and processes underlying these associations remain unclarified. Mothers’ insensitivity to children’s distress is an especially unique predictor of child maladjust...

Emerging conceptual frameworks identify executive functions as a potential explanatory variable in determinants of parenting, and a growing body of research has demonstrated associations between executive functions and parenting behaviors. Toward this end, the current study employs a process model investigating how maternal executive functions (wor...

This study examined children's duration of attention to negative emotions (i.e., anger, sadness, fear) as a mediator of associations among maternal and paternal unsupportive parenting and children's externalizing symptoms in a sample of 240 mothers, fathers, and their preschool children ( M age = 4.64 years). The multimethod, multi-informant design...

Parentification is a parent-child dynamic in which children assume caregiving responsibilities while parents fail to support and reciprocate children's roles. There is a gap between empirical research, which typically operationalizes parentification as the occurrence of children's caregiving behaviors, and theory, which emphasizes consideration of...

The present study examined the developmental value of parsing different forms of children's risky involvement in interparental conflict as predictors of children's subsequent psychological adjustment. Participants included a diverse sample of 243 preschool children (Mage = 4.6 years) and their mothers across two measurement occasions spaced 2 years...

Parental alcohol dependence is a significant risk factor for harsh caregiving behaviors; however, it is unknown whether and how harsh caregiving changes over time and across parenting contexts for alcohol-dependent mothers. Furthermore, to our knowledge, no studies have examined whether and how distinct dimensions of child characteristics, such as...

This research investigated whether biases in processing threatening emotional cues operate as an indirect pathway through which parental harsh discipline is associated with adolescent socio‐emotional functioning. Participants were 192 adolescents (M age = 12.4), and their parents assessed over two years. Findings revealed two significant indirect p...

This study examined whether childhood interparental conflict moderated the mediational pathway involving adolescent exposure to interparental conflict, their negative emotional reactivity to family conflict, and their psychological problems in a sample of 235 children (Mage = 6 years). Significant moderated-mediation findings indicated that the med...

This study examined interparental conflict as a linear and curvilinear predictor of subsequent changes in adolescents' negative emotional reactivity and cortisol functioning during family conflict and, in turn, their psychological difficulties. In addition, adolescents' negative emotional reactivity and cortisol functioning during family conflict w...

Guided by conceptualizations of relational boundaries from family systems theory, this study examined unique links between detouring (e.g., alliance between parents against child) and young children's psychological functioning after accounting for general family negativity and conflict. Participants in this longitudinal (i.e., 2 annual waves of dat...

Little is known about the role children's processing of emotions plays in altering children's vulnerability to interparental conflict. To address this gap, the present study examined whether the mediational cascade involving children's exposure to interparental conflict, their insecure responses to interparental conflict, and their psychological pr...

Maternal sensitivity to child distress is fundamental for children’s emotional development because children’s emotion-regulation processes develop and evolve via early parent-child interactions (Leerkes, 2011). Alternatively, insensitivity to child distress, or caregiving inadequately attuned to children’s emotional needs, can undermine children’s...

The aim of the current meta-analysis was to aggregate concurrent and longitudinal empirical research on associations between the interparental relationship and both children's maladjustment (i.e., externalizing and internalizing symptoms) and children's responses to interparental conflict (i.e., emotional, behavioral, cognitive, and physiological)....

The present study investigated physiological synchrony across mothers, fathers, and adolescents during a conflict discussion. In particular, a multilevel, within-dyad approach was used to parameterize synchrony within the parasympathetic nervous system. Moreover, we examined how domains of conflict within the larger family system influenced the lev...

The present study investigated physiological synchrony in the parasympathetic nervous system among fathers, mothers, and adolescents during a real‐time family interaction, and child characteristics that may moderate the level of physiological synchrony. Our sample consisted of 191 families with adolescents (Mage = 12.4 years) and both of their pare...

This study examined the moderating role of effortful control in the association between interparental conflict and externalizing problems in a diverse sample of preschool children (N = 243; M age = 4.60 years). Using a multimethod, multi-informant, prospective design, findings indicated that the relation between interparental conflict and externali...

This study examined children's insecure representations of the family as a mechanism accounting for the association between coparental discord and children's externalizing problems in a diverse sample of 243 preschool children (mean [M] age = 4.60 years). The results from a multimethod, multi-informant, prospective design indicated that coparental...

Guided by the self-determination theory, this weekly diary study tested a process model in which week-to-week mother-reported interparental conflict and perceived partner responsiveness were associated with maternal autonomy support by means of maternal psychological need satisfaction. During six consecutive weeks, 258 mothers (Mage = 41.71 years)...

According to spillover theory (Engfer, 1988), disruptions in one relationship (e.g., interparental) may lead to perturbations in another (e.g., parent–child), and these boundary disturbances have been linked to child psychopathology. Yet few studies have explored spillover from both constructive and destructive interparental conflict in relation to...

This study investigated whether adolescent vagal stress reactivity to parent-adolescent conflict moderates the effects of family instability on the development of adolescent behavioral problems. Participants were 192 adolescents (M age = 12.4) and their parents across 2 measurement occasions. Results indicated that the interaction between family in...

Guided by a domain-specific approach to parenting framework, this research examined differential associations among three domains of parenting (e.g., guided learning, reciprocity, control) and children's executive function. The second aim was examine whether child surgency and negative emotionality temperament traits moderated associations among th...

This study tested whether the association between interparental conflict and adolescent externalizing symptoms was moderated by a polygenic composite indexing low dopamine activity (i.e., 7-repeat allele of DRD4 ; Val alleles of COMT ; 10-repeat variants of DAT1 ) in a sample of seventh-grade adolescents (Mean age = 13.0 years) and their parents. U...

This study examined the interplay between a polygenic composite and cortisol activity as moderators of the mediational pathway among family adversity, youth negative emotional reactivity to family conflict, and their psychological problems. The longitudinal design contained three annual measurement occasions with 279 adolescents (Mean age = 13.0 ye...

Maternal alcohol dependence has been broadly linked to deficits in parenting behaviors that have negative implications for child development. However, less is known about how alcohol dependence predicts parenting difficulties across different child-rearing contexts. Further, parenting process models (Belsky, 1984) highlight the influential nature o...

Guided primarily by life history theory, this study was designed to identify how and why early exposure to caregiver intimate relationship instability uniquely predicts children's externalizing symptoms in the context of other dimensions of unpredictability characterized by residential and parental job transitions. Participants included 243 prescho...

This study examined whether adolescents' behavior in a support-seeking context helped to explain associations between increases in mother-adolescent conflict during early adolescence and changes in adolescents' internalizing and externalizing symptoms. A sample of 194 adolescents aged 12 to 14 (51% female) and their mothers were followed over 1 yea...

Children's psychological and physiological responses to interparental conflict have received considerable attention due to their implications for later adjustment, yet limited research has investigated the interplay between these two response systems. This study investigates patterns of association between children's psychological responses (e.g.,...

The parent-child relationship undergoes substantial reorganization over the transition to adolescence. Navigating this change is a challenge for parents because teens desire more behavioral autonomy as well as input in decision-making processes. Although it has been demonstrated that changes in parental socialization approaches facilitates adolesce...

This study examined the mediating role of maternal unsupportive parenting in explaining associations between family instability and children's externalizing symptoms during the transition to formal schooling in early childhood. Participants included 243 preschool children (M age = 4.60 years) and their parents. Findings from cross-lagged autoregres...

Grounded in a conceptual model of family processes underlying socioemotional development and a contextual model of parenting style, the present study addresses the associations between parenting practices, mothers’ emotion socialization, and child adjustment in middle childhood. A total of 217 families involving mothers, fathers, and 8-year-old chi...

This study examined temperament dimensions of emotion as precursors of children's social information processing (SIP) of stressful peer events. Two hundred and forty‐three preschool children (M = 4.60 years) and their primary caregivers participated in two measurement occasions spaced 2 years apart. Observations of temperamental anger, fearful dist...

This study tested whether the strength of the mediational pathway involving interparental conflict, adolescent emotional insecurity, and their psychological problems depended on the quality of their sibling relationships. Using a multimethod approach, 236 adolescents (Mage = 12.6 years) and their parents participated in three annual measurement occ...

Parents’ frequent destructive conflicts may lead children to respond to these disputes in maladaptive ways and these distressing and maladaptive responses, in turn, may lead to psychopathology in children. Child behavioral dysregulation was examined as a mediator between marital conflict and child internalizing and externalizing symptoms as well as...

Objective To assess the effects of marital conflict on parenting practices for mothers and fathers and to examine whether these effects differ for within‐person and cross‐person links in parental dyads. Background Existing findings are mixed regarding the nature and magnitude of the association between marital conflict and childrearing behaviors....

This study examined children’s attention biases to negative emotional stimuli as mediators of associations between interparental hostility and children’s externalizing symptoms. Participants included 243 children (Mage = 4.60 years) and their parents and teachers across three annual measurement occasions. Cross-lagged latent change analyses reveale...

The Post Conflict Explanations (PCE) scale is a compilation of behaviors commonly seen in parent‐child postconflict communications. Following exploratory factor analysis, the PCE emerged as a four‐dimension scale with adequate subscale internal consistency and intercorrelations: Dismissive (α = 0.86), Emotion Dysregulation (α = 0.85), Constructive...

The present study examines adolescents' emotional insecurity and problem behaviors at school. Adolescents (n = 280; 136 boys, 144 girls, Median age = 13) and their parents reported on adolescents' emotional security and adjustment problems. Adolescents' teachers (n = 240) also reported on adolescents' school adjustment. Results support that emotion...

This study examined the moderating roles of 2 different types of family-level closeness (i.e., family cohesion and enmeshment) in associations between maternal relationship instability and children’s externalizing problems in early childhood. Participants in this longitudinal (i.e., 2 waves of data collection spaced 2 years apart), multimethod (i.e...

While no longer considered a period of unassailable ‘storm and stress,’ scientists today recognize adolescence as posing unique challenges for the family. Even as family members face changing roles and expectations, parents, siblings, and extended family remain important sources of support. This article provides a brief overview of current knowledg...

Although social difficulties have been identified as sequelae of children's experiences with interparental conflict and insecurity, little is known about the specific mechanisms underlying their vulnerability to social problems. Guided by emotional security theory, this study tested the hypothesis that children’s emotional insecurity mediates assoc...

Drawing on a two-wave, multimethod, multi-informant design, this study provides the first test of a process model of spillover specifying why and how disruptions in the coparenting relationship influence the parent–adolescent attachment relationship. One hundred ninety-four families with an adolescent aged 12–14 ( M age = 12.4) were followed for 1...

This study examined the consequences of negative change in mothers' implicit appraisals of their adolescents after engaging in a family disagreement. Participants included 194 mothers and their early adolescents (Mage = 12.4 at Wave 1; 50% female) followed over 1 year. Mothers' implicit appraisals of her child as "unlovable" were assessed using the...

This study tested a hypothesized cascade in which children's insecure representations of the interparental relationship increase their school problems by altering children's cortisol reactivity to stress and their executive functioning. Participants included 235 families. The first of five measurement occasions occurred when the children were in ki...

This study examined the mediating roles of children's callousness and negative internal representations of family relationships in associations between family instability and children's adjustment to school in early childhood. Participants in this multimethod (i.e., survey, observations), multiinformant (i.e., parent, teacher, observer), longitudin...

Background: Harsh environments are known to predict deficits in children's cognitive abilities. Life history theory approaches challenge this interpretation, proposing stressed children's cognition becomes specialized to solve problems in fitness-enhancing ways. The goal of this study was to examine associations between early environmental harshne...

This study was designed to test for specificity in the relationship between individual friendship provisions and adjustment across early adolescence. Using a narrative procedure, attachment (i.e., accessing care) and affiliation (i.e., forming cooperative partnerships) were found to be distinct functional themes organizing 293 adolescents’ (Mage =...

This study examined the transactional interplay among children's negative family representations, visual processing of negative emotions, and externalizing symptoms in a sample of 243 preschool children (Mage = 4.60 years). Children participated in three annual measurement occasions. Cross-lagged autoregressive models were conducted with multimetho...

Recognizing the significance of interacting family subsystems, the present study addresses how interparental conflict is linked to adolescent emotional security as a function of parental gender. A total of 272 families with a child at 12.60 years of age (133 boys, 139 girls) were invited to participate each year for three consecutive years. A multi...

Depressive symptoms are prevalent and rise during adolescence. The present study is a prospective investigation of environmental and genetic factors that contribute to the growth in depressive symptoms and the frequency of heightened symptoms during adolescence. Participants included 206 mother–father–adolescent triads (M age at Time 1 = 13.06 year...

Two studies tested hypotheses about the distinctive psychological consequences of children's patterns of responding to interparental conflict. In Study 1, 174 preschool children ( = 4.0 years) and their mothers participated in a cross-sectional design. In Study 2, 243 preschool children ( = 4.6 years) and their parents participated in 2 annual meas...

This study examined the transactional interplay among dimensions of destructive interparental conflict (i.e., hostility and dysphoria), children's emotional insecurity, and their psychological problems from middle childhood and adolescence. Participants were 232 families, with the first of five measurement occasions occurring when children were in...

Effortful control has been demonstrated to have important ramifications for children's self-regulation and social–emotional adjustment. However, there are wide socioeconomic disparities in children's effortful control, with impoverished children displaying heightened difficulties. The current study was designed to demonstrate how instability within...

Four distinct patterns of adolescents' behavioral, emotional, and physiological responses to family conflict were identified during mother-father-adolescent (M = 13.08 years) interactions. Most youth displayed adaptively regulated patterns comprised of low overt and subjective distress. Under-controlled adolescents exhibited elevated observable and...

This multistudy article examined the relative strength of mediational pathways involving hostile, disengaged, and uncooperative forms of interparental conflict, children's emotional insecurity, and their externalizing problems across 2 longitudinal studies. Participants in Study 1 consisted of 243 preschool children (M age = 4.60 years) and their p...

This study examined the moderating role of family instability in relations involving destructive interparental conflict, children’s internal representations of insecurity in the family system, and their early school maladjustment. Two hundred forty-three preschool children (M age = 4.60 years; 56 % girls) and their families participated in this mul...