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Transactions of Child Emotional Insecurity 1
Transactional Cascades of Destructive Interparental Conflict, Children’s Emotional Insecurity,
and Psychological Problems Across Childhood and Adolescence
Patrick T. Davies
Meredith J. Martin
Jesse L. Coe
University of Rochester
E. Mark Cummings
University of Notre Dame
Published in: Development and Psychopathology (2016), Issue 28, pp. 653-671.
Patrick T. Davies, Meredith J. Martin, and Jesse L. Coe, Department of
Clinical and Social Sciences in Psychology, University of Rochester; E. Mark Cummings,
Department of Psychology, University of Notre Dame.
This research was supported by the National Institute of Mental Health awarded to
Patrick T. Davies and E. Mark Cummings (R01 MH57318 & 2R01 MH57318). We are grateful
to the children, parents, teachers, and school administrators who participated in this project. Our
gratitude is expressed to the staff on the project and the graduate and undergraduate students at
the Universities of Rochester and Notre Dame.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Patrick T. Davies,
Department of Clinical and Social Sciences in Psychology, University of Rochester, Rochester,
New York, 14627. E-mail: Patrick.davies@psych.rochester.edu.
Transactions of Child Emotional Insecurity 2
Abstract
This study examined the transactional interplay among dimensions of destructive
interparental conflict (i.e., hostility, 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 first grade (Mean
age = 7 years). Cross-lagged, autoregressive models were conducted with a multi-method, multi-
informant measurement approach to identify developmental cascades of interparental and child
cascades. Results indicated that emotional insecurity was a particularly powerful mediator of
prospective associations between interparental conflict (i.e., dysphoria, hostility) and child
adjustment during adolescence rather than childhood. In reflecting bidirectionality in
relationships between interparental and child functioning, children’s psychological problems
predicted increases in interparental dysphoria during childhood and adolescence. Although
emotional insecurity was not identified as a proximal predictor of interparental difficulties, an
indirect cascade was identified whereby insecurity in early adolescence was associated with
increases in teen psychological problems which, in turn, predicted greater interparental dysphoria
over time. Results are interpreted in the context of how they advance transactional formulation of
emotional security theory and its resulting translational implications for clinical initiatives.
Transactions of Child Emotional Insecurity 3
Interparental conflict has been shown to increase children’s vulnerability to a wide array
of psychological problems including depressive symptoms, anxiety, social withdrawal, and
aggression. Toward the goal of identifying the processes that give rise to these psychological
difficulties in high conflict homes, emotional security theory (EST) proposes that interparental
conflict increases children’s risk for poor health outcomes by undermining their sense of safety
or security in the interparental relationship (Cummings & Davies, 1996; Davies & Cummings,
1994). In the first part of the mediational cascade, EST posits that children experience substantial
difficulties in preserving a sense of emotional security in the interparental relationship following
repeated exposure to destructive interparental conflict characterized by hostility, escalating
distress, and detachment. Although emotional security is conceptualized as a latent goal, child
difficulties achieving this goal can be inferred from multiple, observable classes of responses.
Thus, signs of insecurity are theorized to be reflected in: (a) emotional reactivity, characterized
by intense, prolonged distress (e.g., fear) reactions to interparental conflict; (b) regulation of
exposure to parent affect evidenced by coercive forms of involvement (e.g., triangulation) and
intense avoidance (e.g., freezing, hiding); and (c) negative internal representations of
interparental relations, as indexed by children’s evaluation of the adverse consequences
interparental conflict has for the welfare of themselves and their families. In the second part of
the mediational chain, prolonged concerns about security in the interparental relationship are
theorized to intensify into broader and increasingly stable patterns of psychological problems.
In support of this hypothesized cascade, studies using rigorous methodological
approaches (i.e., multiple methods, informants, and measurement occasions) have repeatedly
identified children’s emotional insecurity as a mediator of associations between their exposure to
interparental conflict and their psychological problems (e.g., Buehler, Lange, & Franck, 2007;
Transactions of Child Emotional Insecurity 4
Cummings, George, McCoy, & Davies, 2012; Davies, Martin, & Cicchetti, 2012; Kelly & El-
Sheikh, 2013). According to a developmental psychopathology perspective, the mediational role
of emotional security in this pathway is part of a broader, reciprocal constellation of exchanges
between the active, dynamic child in a shifting context of interparental relations (Cicchetti &
Toth, 2009; Sameroff & MacKenzie, 2003). Thus, embedding emotional security theory within a
developmental psychopathology framework generates a broader consideration of how changes in
children’s coping (i.e., security) and psychological functioning (e.g., maladjustment) may be
products and predictors of each other and interparental conflict (Davies, Martin, & Sturge-Apple,
in press). However, there is a paucity of empirical tests of the reciprocal interplay between
interparental conflict, children’s emotional insecurity, and their psychological difficulties.
Accordingly, the goal of this paper was to examine the transactions among two forms of
destructive interparental conflict (i.e., interparental hostility versus dysphoria), children’s
emotional insecurity, and their psychological difficulties across five measurement occasions that
span the developmental periods of middle childhood through middle adolescence.
The Mediational Role of Child Insecurity in Associations among Interparental Conflict
Characteristics and Child Psychological Problems
As a template for organizing our research questions and hypotheses, Figure 1 provides
our transactional conceptualization of emotional security. Guided by EST, the “A” paths
illustrate our primary proposal that displays of hostility and dysphoria during interparental
conflict may increase children’s vulnerability to psychological problems by undermining their
sense of security. Prior work highlights the potential utility of dissecting forms of destructive
conflict in understanding children’s coping and adjustment. For example, daily diary research
with samples of families that are different from the present study has shown that parents exhibit a
Transactions of Child Emotional Insecurity 5
wide array of negative conflict tactics (Cummings, Goeke-Morey, Papp, & Dukewich, 2002).
Although angry and hostile displays are most commonly reported by parents, sadness and more
subtle forms of dysphoric behaviors (e.g., withdrawal) are also relatively common (Cummings,
Goeke-Morey, & Papp, 2003). In addition, EST proposes that children exhibit a natural
proclivity to detect and defend against parental expressions that serve as reliable markers of
interpersonal threat, struggle, or rejection within social hierarchies (Davies & Sturge-Apple,
2007; Davies et al., in press). Thus, both hostile and dysphoric displays during interparental
conflict are theorized to pose a threat to children’s sense of security. Consistent with this
hypothesis, assessments of interparental dysphoria and hostility have each been identified as
predictors of dimensions of children’s emotional insecurity (e.g., emotional reactivity, negative
internal representations) with different multiple samples of children in middle childhood through
adolescence (Cummings et al., 2002; Davies, Sturge-Apple, Winter, Cummings, & Farrell, 2006;
Du Rocher Schudlich & Cummings, 2007).
In spite of this growing body of work, little is known about whether emotional security
acts as a mediator between these specific parameters (i.e., parental hostility, dysphoria) of
destructive interparental conflict and children’s poor adjustment outcomes. According to a recent
literature review, sixteen of the seventeen existing studies examining emotional security as a
mediator assessed destructive interparental conflict within a single, unidimensional construct that
predominantly captured hostility, anger, and aggression (Davies et al., in press). As the only
empirical exception, Du Rocher Schudlich and Cummings (2007), using a separate sample than
the present study, reported that interparental dysphoria characterized by sadness and emotional
distress was associated with children’s psychological problems (i.e., a combination of
internalizing and externalizing symptoms) indirectly through children’s emotional insecurity.
Transactions of Child Emotional Insecurity 6
Therefore, based on prior theory and research on EST (e.g., Davies et al., in press; Du Rocher
Schudlich & Cummings, 2007), we specifically hypothesize that emotional insecurity will
mediate associations between both forms of interparental conflict (i.e., hostility and dysphoria)
and children’s psychological problems.
However, a plausible alternative hypothesis is that insecurity is an extraneous product of
other transactional pathways among interparental conflict and child adjustment rather than a risk
mechanism. Although the DuRocher Schudlich and Cummings (2007) study was an important
first step in disentangling forms of destructive conflict, the cross sectional design was unable to
definitively identify directionality in associations between interparental and child functioning.
Therefore, it is possible that the mediational role of emotional security is an artifact of the
etiological roles children’s insecurity and psychological problems play in increasing destructive
interparental conflict. In building on this finding, our inclusion of repeated measures of
interparental conflict, emotional insecurity, and child psychological adjustment across multiple
prospective waves provides a stringent test of the robustness of emotional security as a mediator.
Accordingly, our multivariate approach is designed to examine whether interparental hostility
and dysphoria each predict subsequent increases in children’s emotional insecurity, with
emotional insecurity, in turn, predicting downstream increases in psychological adjustment
problems while also specifying children’s prior histories of functioning (i.e., insecurity,
psychological problems) as alternative predictors in the proposed cascade.
Child Insecurity and Psychological Problems as Precursors of Interparental Conflict
Characteristics
As signified by the “B” Paths in Figure 1, a transactional conceptualization of
interparental conflict posits that children’s behaviors also shape interparental dynamics.
Transactions of Child Emotional Insecurity 7
Developmental psychopathology models have hypothesized that child effects may operate at
multiple levels of analysis, encompassing both children’s trait-like dispositions and their coping
within relationship contexts (e.g., Brock & Kochanska, 2015; Masten & Cicchetti, 2010). At a
trait level of analysis, there is emerging empirical evidence that children’s psychological
problems serve as precursors to interparental conflict. For example, Jenkins, Simpson, Dunn,
Rasbash, and O’Connor (2005) found that child externalizing problems subsequently led to
increased arguments between parents two years later. Likewise, Cui, Donnellan, and Conger
(2007) identified adolescent depressive and delinquency symptoms as both outcomes and
predictors of interparental conflict in a series of cross-lagged autoregressive analyses conducted
over three annual measurement occasions.
Children’s responses to interparental conflict have also been conceptualized as affecting
the nature and course of interparental problems. In his behavioral conceptualization of family
violence, Emery (1989) proposed a transactional cycle of effects between children’s reactivity to
interparental conflict and interparental relationship quality. In the initial series of unfolding
processes, interparental conflict is framed as an aversive event that produces distress in children.
In the subsequent series of interactions, children’s distress (e.g., temper tantrums, high distress,
and involvement) reduces their exposure to aversive interparental stimuli in the short-term by
distracting parents from engaging in ongoing conflicts. Although children’s reactivity may
temporarily reduce interparental conflict, questions remain as to whether signs of insecurity are
effective in reducing interparental conflict over broader developmental spans of months or years.
The only study to assess child responses indicative of insecurity, which used data from the same
project as the present paper, found that coercive forms of involvement (e.g., yelling, siding with
one parent) were associated with increases in interparental conflict over a two year span
Transactions of Child Emotional Insecurity 8
(Schermerhorn, Cummings, DeCarlo, & Davies, 2007). Thus, the proposed utility of
involvement in reducing contemporaneous bouts of interparental conflict was paradoxically
related to greater long-term disruptions in the interparental relationship. Although the
mechanisms for these differential associations have yet to be identified, transactional models
have posited that high levels of negative reactivity to interparental conflict are part of a coercive
family process that, while temporarily alleviating conflict, ultimately increase distress, hostility,
and ill-will in both the children and parents (Emery, 1989; Patterson, 1982; Schermerhorn et al.,
2007).
Given the sparse research on children’s effects on interparental conflict, our study is
designed to address several empirical gaps. Although EST proposes that children’s concerns
about safety and security are reflected in multiple domains of responding, research examining
children’s reactivity to conflict as precursors of interparental conflict has been limited to a single
sign of insecurity: levels of child involvement (Schermerhorn et al., 2007). To address this
barrier, the goal of the current paper is to examine whether a more complete assessment of
children’s insecurity, one that encompasses emotional reactivity, involvement, avoidance, and
negative internal representations predict subsequent changes in interparental conflict in
childhood and adolescence.
In addition, studies have yet to examine the nature of the interplay between children’s
psychological problems and insecurity in their putative roles as antecedents of interparental
difficulties (Cummings & Davies, 2010). In reflecting the possible operation of additive effects,
a plausible hypothesis is that each form of child functioning may place strain on the interparental
relationship and, as a result, serve as unique proximal predictors of conflict between parents. In
reflecting the possibility of more complex cascades, insecurity in the interparental relationship
Transactions of Child Emotional Insecurity 9
may serve as: (a) a distal predictor of interparental conflict through its association with
psychological problems that serve as more potent risk factors for interparental discord; and/or (b)
a more proximal mediator of prospective associations between children’s psychological
problems and interparental conflict (Davies et al., in press). Therefore, in the present study, we
test the relative viability of each of these three hypothesized pathways. Our simultaneous
inclusion of interparental conflict, children’s psychological problems, and their emotional
insecurity in the interparental relationship within a cross-lagged, autoregressive design provides
a seminal test of the possible interplay between different levels of child functioning as predictors
of interparental conflict. Moreover, because prior studies have treated interparental conflict as a
single unidimensional outcome in testing child effects models (e.g., Cui et al., 2007; Jenkins et
al., 2005; Schermerhorn et al., 2007), little is known about whether children’s difficulties
increase discord between parents in specific or diffuse ways. Therefore, as a first step toward
testing the generalizability or specificity of child antecedents of interparental conflict, we explore
whether children’s emotional insecurity and psychological problems predict subsequent
increases in interparental hostility and dysphoria.
Child Psychological Problems as Precursors of Insecurity
Although EST places emphasis on conceptualizing children’s insecurity as a precursor of
psychological difficulties, it also highlights the possibility that children’s pre-existing
psychological problems may operate in a reciprocal fashion to organize how they process and
respond to interparental conflict (Cummings & Davies, 2010). Thus, as the “C” Paths in Figure 1
denote, our transactional model also highlights the possibility that children’s psychological
difficulties may directly tax their ability to preserve their sense of security in the face of
subsequent parental discord by sensitizing them interpersonal threat cues (e.g., negative facial
Transactions of Child Emotional Insecurity 10
expressions or gestures) and limiting their enactment of effective coping strategies (e.g.,
distraction). Consistent with this hypothesis, Klaczynski and Cummings (1989) found that
children with histories of aggressive behavior responded with greater emotional arousal during a
live anger simulation involving two adults.
However, it is unclear whether these findings generalize to associations between
children’s broader psychological problems and their concerns about emotional security in actual
contexts of interparental conflict. In drawing on data from different projects than the current
paper, findings from the two empirical tests of this pathway are inconclusive. On the one hand,
results from a static longitudinal design indicated that adolescent internalizing and externalizing
symptoms predicted their emotional insecurity two years later (Davies, Harold, Goeke-Morey, &
Cummings, 2002). On the other hand, the only direct empirical test of children’s psychological
maladjustment (i.e., a combination of internalizing and externalizing symptoms) as a predictor of
change in their emotional insecurity yielded null results in a sample of preschool children
(Davies, Martin, & Cicchetti, 2012). Accordingly, our study more authoritatively examines
children’s psychological problems as antecedents of subsequent change in security across
childhood and adolescence. Given the inconclusive nature of previous research findings, we
hypothesized that child psychological problems would be relatively weak predictors of children’s
emotional insecurity, particularly relative to the mediational role of emotional insecurity in
predicting adjustment problems.
Developmental Differences in Insecurity Transactions across Childhood and Adolescence
Consistent with the “D” path in Figure 1, developmental conceptualizations highlight the
possibility that relationships between interparental conflict and children’s coping and adjustment
(i.e., “A”, “B” and “C” paths) may differ across childhood and adolescence. However, these
Transactions of Child Emotional Insecurity 11
models vary in their formulation of the nature and timing of developmental changes. For
example, stress autonomy and experiential canalization models posit that plasticity and change in
children’s social and emotional adjustment becomes increasingly circumscribed as longer
experiential histories give rise to progressively more stable, and automatic patterns of responding
to adversity, including family conflict (Gottlieb, 1991; Morris, Ciesla, & Garber, 2010; Sroufe,
1997). Similarly, indices of interparental functioning may become increasingly stable and
resistant to the influence of individuals or other subsystems of the family, as adults become
entrenched in automatic ways of relating to one another. Thus, within a transactional model of
EST, increasing stability of interparental conflict, emotional security, and child psychological
functioning may result in their weakening interdependence as children enter adolescence.
Alternatively, developmental processes unique to adolescence (e.g., the onset of puberty,
increased social-affective engagement) may make this a period of heightened sensitivity to
environmental stress, as reflected in the amplification of transactional relations between
interparental conflict and child functioning (Crone & Dahl, 2012). Significant life events within
challenging transitional periods may have a particularly profound impact on subsequent
development (Graber & Brooks-Gunn, 1996; Rutter, 1994). For example, school transitions,
increases in stressful life events, and pubertal development during early adolescence have been
posited to overtax children’s coping resources and magnify their vulnerability to family conflict
(Davies & Cummings, 2006; Graber & Brooks-Gunn, 1996). Accordingly, these transitions may
exacerbate: (a) the impact interparental conflict has on children’s difficulties preserving
emotional security, and (b) the deleterious implications of insecurity for adolescent
psychopathology. In complementary fashion, family systems theory postulates that the
pronounced developmental changes experienced by teens precipitate adjustments in broader
Transactions of Child Emotional Insecurity 12
family subsystems (Cox & Paley, 2003). By extension, the interparental relationship, as a
cornerstone of family dynamics, may be particularly susceptible to adolescent perturbations that
are expressed through heightened insecurity or psychological problems.
The concept of sensitive periods in developmental psychopathology adds another
conceptual layer to the diversity of possible shifts that may occur in the strength of insecurity
across childhood and adolescence (Cicchetti, 2013). On the one hand, disentangling parts of the
complex undercurrent of social, cognitive, emotional and physiological processes that organize
children’s coping and adjustment may provide bases for expecting that insecurity may be a
stronger mediator of interparental conflict in middle childhood. For example, evolutionary
models have posited that the juvenile period (i.e., middle childhood) is a sensitive period or
“switch point” for the translation of early stress experiences into heightened reactivity to threat
and conflict (Del Giudice, 2014; Del Giudice, Angeleri, & Manera, 2009). Supporting this
hypothesis, studies utilizing data independent of the current study have shown that children in
the early school period respond to conflict between adults with greater fear, distress, threat, and
coping difficulties than do older children (e.g., Cummings, Vogel, Cummings, & El-Sheikh,
1989; El-Sheikh & Cummings, 1995; Grych, 1998). On the other hand, it is also possible that the
strength of emotional security cascades may be particularly pronounced during adolescence. For
example, adolescents’ coping difficulties may be amplified by their greater awareness of subtle
interparental difficulties, stronger dispositions to mediate conflicts, and their longer histories of
exposure to interparental conflict (Cummings, Ballard, El-Sheikh, & Lake, 1991; Davies, Myers,
Cummings, & Heindel, 1999). As yet another possibility, the shifts in age-linked protective and
vulnerability processes may counteract each other in ways that render no one age group as being
uniformly more vulnerable to experiencing insecurity and adjustment problems in the face of
Transactions of Child Emotional Insecurity 13
interparental conflict. Accordingly, another aim of this study is to test whether the magnitude of
transactional pathways outlined in Paths A, B, and C differ across childhood and adolescence.
Given the variability in hypotheses derived from the various developmental conceptualizations
and the early stage of research in this area, we do not offer specific hypotheses about age as a
moderator.
Summary
In summary, our study is designed to break new ground by testing the reciprocal interplay
among interparental conflict, children’s emotional insecurity, and their psychological problems
across five measurement occasions. Our measurement of psychological problems encompassed
both internalizing and externalizing symptoms for several reasons. Research indicates that
emotional security is a consistent predictor of a wide array of psychological difficulties. For
example, in a recent review of EST research, nine of the ten studies that examined both
internalizing and externalizing symptoms as outcomes of the mediational role of insecurity
indicated the emotional insecurity was a predictor of both outcomes (Davies, Sturge-Apple, &
Martin, 2013). In addition, internalizing and externalizing symptoms have each been identified
as consistent antecedents of interparental conflict (Cui et al., 2007). Therefore, for the sake of
parsimony, we specifically examine overall psychological problems in transactional tests of
emotional security.
Within our transactional model of emotional security, the three primary pathways that are
specifically tested include: (1) an analysis of the mediational role of emotional security in
pathways between two dimensions of interparental conflict (i.e., hostility, dysphoria) and
children’s psychological problems; (2) delineation of the unique and conjoint operation of
children’s emotional insecurity and psychological problems in predicting interparental conflict;
Transactions of Child Emotional Insecurity 14
and (3) identification of children’s psychological problems as antecedents of their emotional
insecurity. As denoted by the Paths A, B, and C in Figure 1, the cross-panel design specifically
examines transactions between these constructs while also controlling for the stability of the
interparental and child functioning variables, their interrelationships within each measurement
occasion, and demographic characteristics that have been previously linked to family and child
functioning (i.e., child gender, parent education). In contextualizing the analysis of transactions
within a developmental framework, we further examine whether the transactional model of
interparental conflict and child functioning varies depending on age (i.e., 7, 8, 13, 14, and 15
years old). To increase the methodological rigor of our tests, we also employ a multi-method
(i.e., observation, interview, self-report) and multi-informant (i.e., child, mother, father, and
observer) battery to assess the primary constructs. Finally, we examine whether the transactions
of insecurity vary as a function of child gender across the childhood and adolescence. The
limited research comparing mediational pathways of insecurity for boys and girls have failed to
identify gender as a moderator (for a review, see Davies et al., in press). However, because much
of the existing research has been limited to narrow developmental periods that examine
unidirectional cascades of mediation, it is possible that the moderating role of child gender may
emerge in broader bidirectional models that encompass wider developmental spans. Therefore,
we compare applicability of our transactional interplay among interparental conflict, children’s
emotional insecurity, and their psychological problems for boys and girls across childhood and
adolescence.
Methods
Participants
Participants were drawn from a larger project that originally included 235 parents and
Transactions of Child Emotional Insecurity 15
children recruited through local school districts and community centers in a moderate-sized
metropolitan area in the Northeast and a small city in the Midwest. Interested families were
included in the project if they met the following eligibility criteria: (a) the primary caregivers had
a child in kindergarten; (b) the kindergarten child and two primary caregivers lived together for
at least the preceding 3 years; and (c) the primary caregivers and child were fluent in English.
The two-stage longitudinal design consisted of three annual measurement occasions beginning
when children were in kindergarten (M age = 6 years) followed by three additional annual
measurement occasions beginning when children were in 7th grade (M age = 13 years). Because
the child interview measures of emotional security were implemented after the first wave of data
collection, data from the second through sixth waves of data collection were used in the current
paper. For simplicity and clarity, the primary measurement occasions in the paper are referred
hereafter as Waves 1 through 5. Families were only included in this paper if they participated in
at least one of the five measurement occasions. Three families did not meet this criterion.
Therefore, the sample for this paper consisted of 232 1st grade children and their parents.
The average age children at Wave 1 was 7.0 years (SD = .48), with 55% of the sample
consisting of girls. Median household income of the families was between $40,000 and $54,999
per year. On average, mothers and fathers completed comparable years of education, 14.54 years
(SD = 2.33) and 14.68 years (SD = 2.69), respectively. Most parents (i.e., 92%) were married at
the outset of the study. The majority of the sample was White (77%), followed by smaller
percentages of African American (16%), Latino (4%), and family members of other races (3%).
Children lived with their biological mother in most cases (95%), with the remainder of the
sample living with either an adoptive mother (3%) or a stepmother or female guardian (2%). In
addition, children lived with their biological father in the majority of cases (87%), with the
Transactions of Child Emotional Insecurity 16
remainder of the sample living with either an adoptive father (4%) or a stepfather or male
guardian (9%). Retention rates across contiguous waves of data collection averaged 94% (range
90 - 97%) across the five waves.
Procedures
At each of the five waves, families visited the laboratory at one of the two research sites.
The laboratories were designed to be comparable in size and quality and included: (a) an
observation room that was designed to resemble a family living room and equipped with
audiovisual equipment to capture family interactions and (b) interview rooms for completing
confidential survey measures. All research procedures were approved by the Institutional Review
Board at the research site prior to conducting the study. Families were compensated monetarily
for their participation.
Interparental conflict task. Across all five waves, mothers and fathers participated in an
interparental conflict task in which they attempted to engage in two common disagreements that
they viewed as problematic in their relationship. Following similar procedures in previous
research (Du Rocher Schudlich, Papp, & Cummings, 2004), each parent was asked to
independently select the three most problematic topics of disagreement in their relationship that
they felt comfortable discussing. Couples were provided with a list of common disagreements to
use as a guide in the selection. After this procedure, partners conferred to select two topics from
their lists that they both felt comfortable discussing. The couples subsequently discussed each of
the two topics. Consistent with previous research (Davies et al., 2006; Du Rocher Schudlich et
al., 2004), the aim of the interparental interaction task was to assess parents’ characteristic ways
of managing conflict. To test the validity of this assumption, mothers and fathers completed post-
interaction interviews at each wave in which they individually responded to the question,
Transactions of Child Emotional Insecurity 17
“Overall, how much did the discussion resemble disagreements that usually occur between you
and your partner?” Response alternatives on a seven-point scale ranged from 1 (a lot more
negative) to 7 (a lot more positive). Supporting the comparability of the interactions to conflicts
that occur in the home, the means of mother and father responses fell between a 4 (about the
same) and 5 (a little more positive) across the waves: M = 4.54 (SD = .95) for mothers and M =
4.65 (SD = .93) for fathers. For Waves 1 and 2, the interaction task was 20 minutes in duration
(i.e., 10 min. for each topic). During Waves 3 through 5, the interaction task was reduced to 14
minutes in length (i.e., 7 minutes for each topic). Interactions were video recorded for subsequent
coding.
Post interparental conflict survey. Following the interparental conflict interaction task,
mothers and fathers confidentially completed a survey in separate rooms that was designed to
assess their subjective emotions and their appraisals of their partner’s emotions during the
conflict.
Questionnaire and interview assessments. At each wave, mothers and fathers also
completed survey assessments of children’s psychological problems and family demographic
characteristics. Children reported on their emotional insecurity in the interparental relationship in
a structured interview during Waves 1 and 2 and in a questionnaire format during Waves 3
through 5.
Revised MacArthur Story Stem Battery. Children completed the revised version of the
MacArthur Story Stem Battery (MSSB-R; Cummings, Schermerhorn, Keller, & Davies, 2008;
Davies et al., 2006) at Waves 1 and 2 to obtain assessments of insecure representations of the
interparental relationship. Consistent with the original MSSB (Bretherton, Ridgeway, & Cassidy,
1990), the MSSB-R consists of children completing narrative stories in response to
Transactions of Child Emotional Insecurity 18
experimenter-administered story stems describing various stressors or threats to different family
subsystems. Relative to survey assessments, narrative story stem techniques are regarded as
providing valid, developmentally appropriate assessments of children’s representations because
they capitalize on young children’s natural interest, engagement, and skill in story telling without
requiring developmentally advanced cognitive abilities (Bretherton et al., 1990; Robinson, 2007).
The MSSB-R is designed to provide a more extensive measurement of child representations of
the family system, including stories focusing on threats to the mother-father relationship. To
facilitate child engagement in the task, experimenters used dramatic, animated voices, various
toy props, and family action figures corresponding to the child’s sex and ethnicity. After each
story stem, children completed the story with the assistance of the action figures, props, and
various probes and prompts by the experimenter. Given our focus on children’s representations
of interparental relations, for this paper we utilized only the two stories depicting various levels
of threat or stress in the interparental relationship: (1) a mild interparental conflict regarding a
lost set of keys; and (2) an intense conflict regarding a messy kitchen. Videotaped records of the
children’s responses to the vignettes were obtained for later coding of children’s interparental
representations.
Measures
Interparental hostility. The assessment battery at each wave was designed to yield a
multi-method, multi-informant composite. For the observational component of the measurement,
trained coders rated interparental interactions using five dimensional scales from the System for
Coding Interactions in Dyads (SCID; Malik & Lindahl, 2004). Mothers and fathers were each
coded for: (1) Negativity and Conflict, characterized by the extent to which the individual in the
dyad displays anger, frustration, and tension; and (2) Verbal Aggression, defined as the level of
Transactions of Child Emotional Insecurity 19
hostile or aggressive behaviors and verbalizations displayed by each individual. At a dyadic level
of analysis, coders also rated Negative Escalation, reflecting the degree to which the couple as a
unit has a tendency to reciprocate or escalate expressions of anger, hostility, and negativity. Each
code is rated on a five-point scale ranging from: 1 (very low) to 5 (high).. Interrater reliability,
based on the intraclass correlation coefficients of coders’ independent ratings on at least 20% of
the interactions at each wave, ranged from .72 to .99 across five codes and measurement
occasions (Mean ICC = .86).
During the post-conflict survey at each wave, mothers and fathers also provided
subjective reports of interparental hostility by completing two questions: “How angry did you
feel during the discussion with your partner?” and “How angry did your partner feel during the
discussion?” Mothers and fathers rated each question along a five point scale ranging from 0 (not
at all) to 5 (a whole lot), yielding four indices assessing each parents’ appraisals of their own and
their partners’ anger during the conflict interaction task. To obtain a single multi-method, multi-
informant composite of interparental hostility, the five observational codes and four parental
survey ratings were standardized and averaged together. Alpha coefficients for the composite
ranged from .87 to .89.
Interparental dysphoria. In accord with the measurement approach for interparental
hostility, the interparental dysphoria composite consisted of an aggregate of observational and
parental ratings of interparental dejection and resignation. As part of the observational
assessment, trained coders rated mothers and fathers separately along the dimensional SCID
scales of: (a) Dysphoric Affect, defined by sadness, dejection, and hopelessness expressed
through tone of voice, posture, facial expressions, or verbalizations; and (b) Withdrawal,
characterized by displays of detachment, avoidance of conflict topics, flat affect, and
Transactions of Child Emotional Insecurity 20
unresponsiveness. Coders also provided a dyadic SCID rating of the Pursuit-Withdrawal Pattern,
indexing the degree to which one parent responds to the other partner’s complaints or demands
by avoiding the topic, shutting down, or disengaging from the interaction. Ratings for each code
ranged from 1 (very low) to 5 (high). Intraclass correlation coefficients assessing reliability based
on coders’ independent ratings of at least 20% of the interactions at each wave were between .66
and .99 (Mean ICC = .83) across the five codes and measurement occasions.
For comparability with the measurement of interparental hostility, mothers and fathers
independently completed two questions to assess their subjective appraisals of interparental
dysphoria in the post interparental conflict survey: “How sad did you feel during the discussion
with your partner?” and “How sad did you think your partner felt during the discussion?” As
with the questions assessing interparental hostility, response alternatives ranged from 0 (not at
all) to 5 (a whole lot). The four post-conflict survey assessments and the five observational
ratings were standardized and averaged together to create a single parsimonious composite of
interparental dysphoria at each wave. Internal consistencies for the composite across the
measurement occasions were between .68 and .81 (Mean α = .74).
Adolescent insecurity in the interparental relationship. Consistent with prior research
(e.g., Davies, Sturge-Apple, Bascoe, & Cummings, 2014), adolescents completed five scales
derived from the Security in the Interparental Subsystem (SIS; Davies, Forman, & Rasi, &
Stevens, 2002) scales to assess emotional insecurity at Waves 3, 4, and 5. As the first measure of
insecurity, the Emotional Reactivity scale assessed multiple, prolonged experiences of fear and
distress in response to interparental conflict (e.g., 9 items; “When my parents argue, I feel
scared”). As the second measure, the Avoidance scale consists of seven items that capture efforts
to reduce their exposure to the conflict (e.g., “I try to get away from them”). As a third measure,
Transactions of Child Emotional Insecurity 21
the newer, longer version of the SIS contains a Coerciveness scale that is designed to assess
forms of involvement that are theorized to be particularly potent signs of insecurity (Shelton &
Harold, 2008; Davies, Coe, Martin, Sturge-Apple, & Cummings, 2015). The five-item scale
indexes bossy, aversive, and domineering approaches to interrupting parental conflicts (e.g., “I
argue with one or both of them,” “I end up taking sides with one of them,” “I tell one of my
parents that he or she is wrong”). As a final measure, insecure interparental representations were
assessed by the Insecure Representations scale (Davies et al., 2014), a measure consisting of an
aggregation of adolescent appraisals of the deleterious impact of interparental conflict for the self
(4 items; “When my parents have an argument, I feel like they are upset at me”) and family (4
items; “When my parents have an argument, I wonder if they will divorce or separate”).
Response alternatives for the items on the SIS scales were as follows: 1 = Not at All True of Me;
2 = A Little True of Me; 3 = Somewhat True of Me; and 4 = Very True of Me. Across the three
waves, alpha coefficients ranged from .61 to .72 (M = .67) for Coerciveness; .87 to .90 (M = .88)
for Emotional Reactivity; .83 to .85 (M = .84) for Avoidance; and .79 to .83 (M = .82). The SIS
Coerciveness, Emotional Reactivity, Avoidance, and Insecure Representations scales were
standardized and averaged to create a parsimonious composite of children’s emotional insecurity
at each of the waves. Scale-level internal consistency coefficients for the insecurity composites
ranged from .76 to .80 (M = .79) across Waves 3 through 5.
Child insecurity in the interparental relationship. Because the original SIS
questionnaire was designed for older children, our measurement approach was modified for use
with younger children at Waves 1 and 2 to maximize measurement equivalence across
measurement occasions. Consistent with our previous methods of assessing children’s emotional
reactivity, involvement, and avoidance (Davies et al., 2014), we utilized the younger child
Transactions of Child Emotional Insecurity 22
version of the SIS (SIS-YC). To increase comprehensibility, the SIS-YC was administered in
interview format and response alternatives for items were reduced from five to three (i.e., 0 =
No; 1 = Sometimes; 2 = Yes). In addition, complexity in wording of the original items was
simplified and original items assessing abstract, cognitive items (e.g., “I can’t stop thinking
about their problems”) were replaced with more concrete, physical forms of reactivity (e.g., “Do
you feel sick when your parents argue?”). To maximize comparability with the SIS scales at
Waves 3, 4, and 5, three SIS-YC scales were selected for this paper. First, the Emotional
Reactivity scale consisted of nine items capturing children’s frequent and prolonged negative
emotional arousal in response to conflict (e.g., “When your parents have an argument, do you get
scared?). Second, the Coerciveness scale contained six items measuring children’s attempts to
directly mediate interparental conflicts in aversive, controlling ways (e.g., “When your parents
argue, do you tell your dad that he is wrong about the argument?”). Third, five items comprising
the Avoidance scale were designed to index children’s attempts to reduce their exposure to the
interparental conflicts (e.g., “Do you try to get away from your parents when they argue”).
Internal consistencies for the scales ranged from .72 to .80 (Mean α = .76).
Finally, because the SIS-YC does not contain a measure of insecure representations of
interparental conflict that is comparable to the SIS, we measured children’s interparental
representations at Waves 1 and 2 based on their narratives from the more developmentally
appropriate MSSB-R. To maximize construct equivalence with the SIS Insecure Representations
scale (Davies et al., 2014), coders assessed children’s representations of the implications of
interparental conflict for the welfare of themselves and their family using two scales for each
story. First, the Poor Relationship Quality code assesses the child’s appraisals of the emotional
impact of conflict in the interparental relationship. The rating of the dyadic relationship ranged
Transactions of Child Emotional Insecurity 23
from 1 (intense harmony), indicating portrayals of supportive interparental relations, to 5 (intense
discord), describing representations consisting of signs of intense, prolonged problems between
parents. Second, coders rated each story along a five-point scale of Overall Felt Insecurity
ranging from 1 (strong security) in which the parents are depicted as resolving challenges in a
manner that fosters family harmony and the welfare of the child, to 5 (strong insecurity), in
which the interparental disagreement is portrayed as a severe threat to the child’s safety and
welfare. To evaluate interrater reliabilities, all coders on the team rated the same subsample
(20%) of tapes. Intraclass correlation coefficients, which examined interrater reliabilities of the
team of judges, ranged from .90 to .95 for the codes across the two waves. To obtain a single
index of insecure internal representations at each wave, the four ratings (i.e., two codes x two
stories) were averaged together. Internal consistencies for the internal representations scale were
.83 at Wave 1 and .86 at Wave 2.
To achieve correspondence between childhood and adolescent insecurity assessments, we
utilized a comparable approach to the adolescent measurement battery in creating composites of
child insecurity at Waves 1 and 2. Thus, at each wave, the four measures of insecurity (i.e.,
emotional reactivity, coercive involvement, avoidance, insecure representations) were
standardized and averaged together. Internal consistencies of the four-indicator composite were
.67 at Wave 1 and .66 at Wave 2.
Child psychological maladjustment. At each wave, mothers and fathers completed the
Anxious/Depressed, Withdrawal, Aggressive Behavior, and Delinquency Scales of the Child
Behavior Checklist (CBCL; Achenbach, 1991). Items from the five CBCL Scales were summed
together at each wave to assess psychological maladjustment. Internal consistencies were
excellent for maternal (αs ranging from .91 to .93) and paternal (αs ranging from .91 to .93)
Transactions of Child Emotional Insecurity 24
CBCL reports of child psychological adjustment. Mother and father assessments of child
psychological problems were moderately to highly correlated within each wave, with rs ranging
from .41 to .61, ps < .001. Therefore, mother and father reports were subsequently averaged
together within each measurement occasion to obtain more rigorous and parsimonious multi-
informant composites of psychological problems.
Sociodemographic covariates. Two covariates were derived from parent reports of
demographic characteristics: (1) children’s gender (1 = boys; 2 = girls) and (2) Wave 1 parental
educational level, calculated as the average of maternal and paternal years of education.
Results
Table 1 shows the means, standard deviations, and correlations for the two demographic
characteristics and the primary variables across the five measurement occasions. Inspection of
the average level of parental reports of their children’s psychological problems revealed that
sample levels of symptomatology were stable across the first two measurement occasions in the
sample as a whole. In contrast, there was a substantial drop in parent reports of psychological
maladjustment from childhood (Wave 2) to adolescence (Wave 3), Cohen’s d = .41. Parental
reports of child maladjustment dropped more modestly across the three measurement occasions
during adolescence: Cohen’s d = .12 and .02 from Waves 4 to 5 and Waves 5 to 6, respectively.
Consistent with their conceptualization as relational constructs that evidence both stability and
change, examination of the correlations in Table 1 further indicated that interparental conflict
dimensions and children’s emotional insecurity evidenced moderate differential stability.
Correlations across contiguous measurement occasions ranged from: .41 to .54 for interparental
hostility, all ps < .001; .26 to .40 for interparental dysphoria all ps < .01; and .22 to .66 for
children’s insecurity, all ps < .01. In accord with trait-like conceptualizations of psychological
Transactions of Child Emotional Insecurity 25
maladjustment as evidencing higher differential stability, correlations between parental reports of
psychological adjustment were strong in magnitude, ranging from r = .74 to .70, all ps < .001.
Analytic Plan
To address our primary objective of examining the nature and directionality of
associations between interparental conflict, children’s emotional insecurity, and their
psychological adjustment, we used path analyses with Amos 22.0 statistical software program to
specify cross-lagged, autoregressive models across the five time points spanning childhood and
adolescence. To increase parsimony in the complex transactional analyses, separate models were
specified for interparental hostility and dysphoria. For each model, all stability and cross-lagged
paths between contiguous measurement occasions were freely estimated. As the two covariates,
child gender and parental education level were specified as predictors of all endogenous
variables in the model (i.e., the interparental conflict dimension, emotional insecurity, and child
maladjustment at Waves 2 through 6). Correlations were also specified between: (a) the residuals
of the three variables within measurement occasions; and (b) all Wave 1 predictors and
covariates. Path models were estimated using full-information maximum likelihood (FIML) to
estimate missing data (i.e., data were missing for 21.1% of the values) and retain the full sample
for primary analyses (Enders, 2001).
Primary Analyses: Transactional Model for Interparental Hostility
Figure 2 provides the results of the cross panel analyses for interparental hostility. The
model provided an adequate representation of the data, χ2 (54, N = 232) = 142.57, p < .001,
RMSEA = .08, CFI = .92, and χ2/df ratio = 2.64. For clarity, only significant structural paths and
correlations are depicted in the Figure. Because both gender and parent education levels were
significant predictors of at least one endogenous variable in the analyses, all of their predictive
Transactions of Child Emotional Insecurity 26
paths were retained in the final model. Specifically, adolescent girls experienced higher levels of
interparental hostility at Wave 4 (β = .15, p < .05), while parent education level was associated
with lower levels of children’s emotional insecurity at Wave 2 (β = .15, p < .01) and decreases in
psychological problems (β = -.23, p < .001) at Wave 3.
In accord with prior research, stability coefficients across contiguous waves were
uniformly strong in magnitude for children’s psychological maladjustment (βs ranging from .70
to .84, all ps < .001) and consistently moderate in strength for interparental hostility (βs ranging
from .42 to .54, all ps < .001). Pairwise parameter comparison tests examining differences in the
strength of the autoregressive paths across temporal periods (e.g., Wave 1 to Wave 2; Wave 2 to
Wave 3, etc.) for each of the constructs yielded nonsignificant findings. Thus, the stability
coefficients for both interparental hostility and child maladjustment were statistically comparable
in magnitude across waves. The strengths of the autoregressive paths for emotional security were
more variable. As expected, the five year lag between the middle childhood assessment of
security at Wave 2 and the adolescent assessment at Wave 3 yielded the lowest (i.e., modest)
stability coefficient, β = .15, p = .05. Conversely, the autoregressive coefficient was highest
between Waves 4 (14 years old) and 5 (15 years old), β = .67, p < .001. Stability coefficients for
the other annual spans during childhood (Wave 1 to Wave 2) and early adolescence (Wave 3 to
4) fell within the moderate range (βs = .43 and .49, respectively, ps < .001). Pairwise parameter
comparisons testing the differences in the strengths of these path coefficients indicated that the
stability of emotional insecurity between Waves 4 and 5 was significantly stronger than the
autoregressive path between: (a) Waves 1 and 2, z = 2.65, p < .01; (b) Waves 2 and 3, z = 4.84, p
< .01; and (c) Waves 3 and 4, z = 1.93, p = .05.
Evaluation of the cross-lagged tests of linkages among interparental hostility, insecurity,
Transactions of Child Emotional Insecurity 27
and child maladjustment revealed several findings. First, interparental hostility at Wave 3 (13
years old) predicted subsequent changes in children’s emotional insecurity one year later, β =
.22, p = .001, even after controlling for the children’s prior emotional insecurity and
psychological maladjustment, parental education, and child gender. Pairwise parameter
comparison tests designed to examine whether this pathway was significantly different from the
other three cross-lagged associations between interparental hostility and emotional insecurity
revealed that Wave 3 interparental hostility was a stronger predictor of subsequent insecurity
than Wave 4 interparental hostility (β = .03, p = .63), z = 2.05, p < .05. Second, as hypothesized,
changes in children’s psychological symptoms over the course of a year were predicted by their
emotional insecurity at Waves 3 (13 years old), β = .14, p < .01, and 4 (14 years old), β = .11, p =
.01. Pairwise parameter tests comparing the relative strength of these pathways with each other
and the nonsignificant paths for Waves 1 and 2 indicated that Wave 3 insecurity was a
significantly stronger predictor of subsequent child problems than insecurity at Wave 1 (7 years
old), z = 1.99, p < .05, and Wave 2 (8 years old), z = 2.38, p < .05. Likewise Wave 4 insecurity
predicted subsequent child problems significantly more strongly than Wave 2 insecurity, z =
2.23, p < .05, and marginally more strongly than Wave 1 insecurity, z = 1.88, p < .07. Taken
together, the results in Figure 2 support the hypothesis that children’s emotional insecurity at
Wave 4 is an explanatory mechanism in the association between Wave 3 interparental hostility
and their psychological problems. Therefore, we conducted bootstrapping tests using the
PRODCLIN software program to more authoritatively test the mediational cascade (MacKinnon,
Lockwood, Hoffman, West, & Sheets, 2002; Preacher & Hayes, 2008). In support of the
mediational pathway, the results indicated that the indirect path involving Wave 3 interparental
hostility, Wave 4 emotional insecurity, and Wave 5 child psychological problems was
Transactions of Child Emotional Insecurity 28
significantly different from zero, 95% CI = .07 to .82.
In contrast, the findings did not readily support a child effects model on the functioning
of the interparental dyad. Specifically, children’s emotional insecurity and their psychological
problems failed to predict subsequent levels of interparental hostility. However, the results did
support a negative transactional cycle in which an early history of psychological problems
increased children’s subsequent levels of psychological problems through its association with
higher emotional insecurity in the interparental relationship. Children’s psychological problems
at Wave 2 (8 years of age) specifically predicted higher levels of emotional insecurity five years
later at Wave 3 (13 years of age), β = .16, p < .05. Wave 3 insecurity, in turn, predicted greater
psychological problems one year later when children were 14 years old, β = .14, p = .01.
Primary Analyses: Transactional Model for Interparental Dysphoria
The transactional model for interparental dysphoria, which is shown in Figure 3, provided
a good representation of the data, χ2 (54, N = 232) = 96.88, p < .001, RMSEA = .06, CFI = .96,
and χ2/df ratio = 1.79. The autoregressive path coefficients for child emotional insecurity and
psychological problems were virtually identical (i.e., standardized path coefficients within .01) in
the interparental dysphoria and hostility models. Consistent with the stability coefficients for
interparental hostility, autoregressive paths for interparental dysphoria were generally moderate
in magnitude, with βs ranging from .22 to .42, all ps < .01. As with the interparental hostility
model, pairwise parameter comparison analyses further revealed that the stability paths were
statistically comparable for most comparisons, with two exceptions. The stability of interparental
dysphoria during the five year span between Wave 2 and Wave 3 (β = .22, p < .01) was
significantly lower than the autoregressive paths for dysphoria from: Waves 1 to 2 (β = .40, p <
.001), z = 2.40, p < .05; and Waves 3 to 4 (β = .42, p < .001), z = 2.10, p < .05.
Transactions of Child Emotional Insecurity 29
Analysis of the cross-lagged paths in Figure 3 revealed that interparental dysphoria
consistently predicted children’s emotional insecurity. Emotional insecurity was predicted by
prior interparental dysphoria when children were 7 years old at Wave 1 (β = .12, p < .05), 8 years
old at Wave 2 (β = .18, p < .05), and 13 years old at Wave 3 (β = .19, p < .01). Pairwise
parameter comparisons indicated that the cross-lagged associations between interparental
dysphoria and insecurity did not differ significantly from each other in magnitude (all zs < 1.79).
Consistent with the interparental hostility findings, increases in children’s psychological
maladjustment were predicted by their emotional insecurity one year earlier at Waves 3, β = .15,
p < .01, and 4, β = .09, p = .05. Pairwise parameter comparisons of cross-lagged paths between
children’s emotional insecurity and their subsequent psychological problems yielded two
significant findings. Wave 3 emotional insecurity was a significantly stronger predictor of Wave
4 psychological problems than comparable prospective associations between: (a) Wave 1
emotional insecurity and Wave 2 psychological problems (β = .00, p = .99), z = 2.18, p < .05;
and (b) Wave 2 emotional insecurity and Wave 3 psychological problems (β = -.04, p = .45), z =
2.56, p = .01. Taken together, these results provide some initial support for the mediational role
of emotional insecurity at Waves 3 (13 years old) and 4 (14 years old). In further support of the
mediating role of emotional insecurity, PRODCLIN bootstrapping tests indicated that the
indirect paths involving (a) Wave 2 interparental dysphoria, W3 emotional insecurity, and Wave
4 psychological problems and (b) Wave 3 interparental dysphoria, W4 emotional insecurity, and
Wave 5 psychological problems were each significantly different from zero, 95% CI = .06 to .97
and .01 to .82, respectively.
In contrast to the interparental hostility model, children’s psychological problems were
significant predictors of subsequent increases in interparental dysphoria. Even after controlling
Transactions of Child Emotional Insecurity 30
for autoregressive effects, the two demographic covariates, and children’s emotional security as
predictors, Wave 1 child psychological problems predicted greater interparental dysphoria at
Wave 2, β = .17, p = .01, and Wave 4 child psychological problems were also prospectively
associated with increases in Wave 5 interparental dysphoria, β = .19, p < .05. None of the
pairwise parameter comparisons examining the relative strength of child psychological problems
as predictors of interparental dysphoria were significant. Thus, the significant paths identified
were not stronger in magnitude than the comparable paths that were non-significant.
Finally, although children’s emotional insecurity was unrelated to downstream levels of
interparental dysphoria, the findings in Figure 3 support an indirect pathway of insecurity as a
predictor. Wave 3 emotional insecurity when teens were 13 years old predicted subsequent
increases in their psychological problems at age 14 which, in turn, predicted higher levels of
Wave 5 interparental dysphoria one year later. PRODCLIN bootstrapping tests further revealed a
significant indirect pathway involving Wave 4 psychological problems as an intervening
mechanism between Wave 3 emotional insecurity and Wave 5 interparental dysphoria, 0, 95%
CI = .002 to .05.
Tests of Child Gender as a Moderator
To test the generalizability of the associations in our two transactional models, we also
examined whether the results of the cross-lagged paths varied as a function of child gender. To
test the moderating role of child gender, we conducted multiple group comparisons in which the
data were split into subsamples of boys and girls. Separate multigroup analyses were conducted
for each form (i.e., hostility and dysphoria) of interparental conflict. Each multiple group
comparison for the structural paths in Figures 2 and 3 consisted of comparing a model in which
all cross-lagged parameters were allowed to vary freely with a model in which comparable paths
Transactions of Child Emotional Insecurity 31
across the male and female groups were constrained to equality. Comparisons of the fully
constrained and free-to-vary models revealed no significant difference in fit for the interparental
hostility, χ2 diff (20) = 17.52, p = .62, or interparental dysphoria, χ2 diff (20) = 30.46, p = .06,
models. Therefore, gender did not moderate the cross-lagged paths for the two transactional
models of interparental conflict.
Discussion
Developmental psychopathology has long advanced the notion of understanding
psychopathology as an evolving interplay between the developing child in an ever changing
socialization context (Cicchetti & Lynch, 1993; Sameroff & MacKenzie, 2003). However, this
conceptualization has yet to be systematically integrated into empirical tests of interparental
conflict, children’s coping, and adjustment. To address this issue, the goal of this paper was to
embed EST into a broader transactional model by examining reciprocal relationships between
interparental conflict, children’s insecurity in the interparental relationship, and their
psychological problems across five measurement occasions spanning middle childhood through
middle adolescence. Consistent with hypotheses derived from EST (Davies & Cummings, 1994),
cross-panel, autoregressive analyses indicated that emotional insecurity mediated associations
between interparental hostility and dysphoria and children’s psychological problems, particularly
during adolescence. In further supporting the value of advancing a transactional model, the
results also indicated that children’s psychological problems predicted subsequent increases in
interparental dysphoria in childhood and adolescence. Although children’s concerns about their
emotional insecurity were not directly associated with changes in interparental conflict, it was
identified as both a mediator of increases in children’s psychological problems over time and as
a distal process that was indirectly related to greater interparental dysphoria through its
Transactions of Child Emotional Insecurity 32
association with psychological problems.
Although prior studies have examined pathways involving hostile interparental conflict,
children’s emotional insecurity, and psychological adjustment, empirical studies that distinguish
between dimensions of destructive conflict in tests of emotional insecurity as a mediator are very
rare (Davies et al., in press). According to EST, interparental dysphoria may confer some of the
same risks as interparental hostility in increasing children’s insecurity and their subsequent
adjustment problems. In accord with this hypothesis, findings from the only study to directly
examine this research question showed that emotional insecurity mediated concurrent links
between interparental dysphoria and children’s psychological maladjustment (Du Rocher
Schudlich & Cummings, 2007). Following statistical recommendations for authoritatively
identifying mediational cascades, our aim was to build on these cross-sectional findings through
the employment of cross-lagged models. In support of the hypothesized mediational pathways,
our results indicated that interparental hostility and dysphoria were each predictors of subsequent
increases in emotional insecurity in adolescence. Teen emotional insecurity, in turn, predicted
greater increases in psychological problems over a one-year period. In fact, interparental
dysphoria was a more consistent predictor of the mediational cascade of insecurity (i.e., two of
the three mediational pathways tested were significant) in comparison to interparental hostility
(i.e., one of the three mediational pathways were significant). In keeping with our findings,
marital theorists have posited that apathy, helplessness, and detachment reflect particularly dire
prognoses for the long-term stability of the interparental relationship and the family (e.g.,
Gottman, 1993). Previous research has also shown interparental dysphoria (e.g., withdrawal,
apathy) to predict children’s negative reaction patterns to interparental conflict, parenting
problems, and broader disturbances in the family (e.g., Cox, Paley, Payne, & Burchinal, 1999;
Transactions of Child Emotional Insecurity 33
Davies et al., 2006; Katz & Woodin, 2002).
Our analysis of the sequelae of interparental hostility and dysphoria across childhood and
adolescence also support the notion that early adolescence may be a sensitive period for the
operation of emotional security as a mediator. Emotional insecurity in adolescence, but not
middle childhood, was found to be a significant mediator in the prospective paths between
interparental hostility and dysphoria and children’s psychological problems. In interpreting these
findings, it may be tempting to conclude that interparental conflict is more likely to sensitize
children’s concerns about security during adolescence than childhood by virtue of their stronger
dispositions to mediate conflicts, greater awareness of interparental emotional displays, or their
longer histories of exposure to interparental conflict (Cummings, Schermerhorn, Davies, Goeke-
Morey, & Cummings, 2006; Davies & Cummings, 2006). However, if heightened emotional
sensitivity to interparental conflict was the primary explanation for the findings, then
associations between dimensions of interparental conflict should be more consistent and stronger
in magnitude during adolescence. Our results failed to support these conditions. For example,
associations between interparental conflict (i.e., dysphoria, hostility) and emotional insecurity
were statistically indistinguishable in strength across childhood and adolescence.
What might more readily explain our findings? One interpretation is that concerns about
insecurity in early adolescence confer greater risk for adjustment problems than insecurity during
middle childhood. In support of this explanation, most of the longitudinal associations between
insecurity at ages 13 and 14 and psychological problems were significantly stronger than
predictive paths between childhood insecurity and psychological maladjustment. Although
moderator tests of age in models of emotional insecurity are rare, confidence in our results are
bolstered by meta-analytic findings indicating that proxies of emotional insecurity (e.g., negative
Transactions of Child Emotional Insecurity 34
affect) more strongly predicted internalizing and externalizing symptoms for older aged children
in participants ranging in age from five to nineteen (Rhoades, 2008).
Questions still remain as to why difficulties preserving emotional security may confer
disproportionate mental health burdens in early adolescence. Consideration of transition-linked
turning points may offer insights into the underlying pathogenic processes (Graber & Brooks-
Gunn, 1996). During early adolescence, children must face a high density of potentially life
altering challenges, including transitions to a larger, less personal, and more complex school, the
socio-emotional ramifications of pubertal changes, and increases in stressful life events
(Castellanos-Ryan, Parent, Vitaro, Tremblay, & Seguin, 2013; Ge, Conger, & Elder, 2001;
Mendle, Harden, Brooks-Gunn & Graber, 2010; 2012; Roeser, Eccles, & Sameroff, 1998;
Seidman, Allen, Aber, Mitchell, & Feinman, 1994). Increases in the prevalence and scope of
challenging and novel events in biological, social, emotional, and academic domains are
significant risk factors in themselves. Consistent with diathesis-stress models, increasing
challenges in these domains during early adolescence may serve as diatheses that not only
directly increase children’s vulnerability to psychological problems but also intensify the
negative health consequences of their concerns about insecurity (e.g., Davies & Cummings,
2006). Thus, future studies may benefit from examining whether these transitions account for the
stronger association between insecurity and psychological problems during early adolescence.
By the same token, our findings do not necessarily imply that age moderates the
mediational role of emotional insecurity in a linear fashion. Whereas interparental hostility and
dysphoria when children were 13 years old were significant predictors of insecurity one year
later, these same conflict dimensions at 14 years of age failed to predict subsequent insecurity.
Moreover, interparental hostility at age 13 was a significantly stronger predictor of insecurity
Transactions of Child Emotional Insecurity 35
than the comparable assessment at age 14. If these findings are replicated, they may signify a
trend for destructive forms of interparental conflict to progressively weaken in strength as
predictors of insecurity as children traverse through middle and late adolescence. For example,
middle adolescence may not only be accompanied by reductions in some normative stressors
(e.g., pubertal-linked biological changes, adaptation to school structure and climate) but growth
in a wider repertoire of effective coping strategies (Compas, Connor-Smith, Saltzman, Thomsen,
& Wadsworth, 2001; Grych & Fincham, 1990), autonomy (Oudekerk, Allen, Hessel, & Molloy,
2015), and support networks outside of the family (Wrzus, Hanel, Wangner, & Neyer, 2013).
Therefore, these changes may buffer children from the vulnerability associated with exposure to
destructive conflict. As a complementary explanation, the findings may be a product of the
canalization characterized by progressive constraints in the plasticity of the goal-corrected
system of emotional security (Cicchetti & Cohen, 1995; Sroufe, 1997). The narrowing or
deepening of individual pathways through the canalization process may be evidenced by
substantial increases in the stability of individual differences in emotional security. Consistent
with this interpretation, our findings indicated that the stability of emotional insecurity was
strong in magnitude during middle adolescence (i.e., the 14 to 15 year-old period) and
significantly higher than the other stability coefficients in childhood and early adolescence.
Partial empirical support was also found for “child effects” paths in the transactional
model (B paths in Figure 1). Although children’s psychological maladjustment was negligibly
associated with subsequent interparental hostility in all cross-lagged paths, it did significantly
predict increases in interparental dysphoria in childhood and adolescence. Our findings are
broadly consistent with previous studies identifying children’s psychological problems as
precursors of interparental discord using a variety of designs (e.g., longitudinal, autoregressive
Transactions of Child Emotional Insecurity 36
analyses of naturalistic designs, experimental manipulation of children’s behavior) (Jenkins et
al., 2005; Schermerhorn et al., 2007; Wymbs et al., 2008; Wymbs, & Pelham, 2010).
Accordingly, the findings can be interpreted as supporting the family systems notion of
interdependency between subsystems in the family and, more specifically, the hypothesis that
children’s difficulties may place significant stress and strain on interparental relationship quality
(Minuchin, 1985).
What is less clear is why interparental stress is specifically expressed through dysphoria.
In this context, it is important to note that prior research has relied on broad indices of
interparental adjustment (e.g., dissatisfaction, dissolution) or discord (e.g., global positivity and
negativity, conflict frequency, child-rearing disagreements) that commonly encompass both
dysphoria and hostility during conflicts (e.g., Cui et al., 2007; Jenkins et al., 2005;
Schermerhorn, Cummings, & Davies, 2005; Wymbs, 2011; Wymbs et al., 2008). Because these
measures do not distinguish between interparental displays of dysphoria and hostility, they are
unable to address whether the documented burden of parental coping with children’s
psychological problems may be manifested in hostility, vulnerability, or both. Although more
research is needed to replicate our results before drawing any definitive conclusions, our finding
that children’s psychological problems are precursors to interparental dysphoria may offer a new
level of insight into the negative implications of children’s adjustment problems. For example,
cascade theories of marital conflict have posited that indices of interparental dysphoria (e.g.,
withdrawal) evolve in the wake of mismanaged bouts of hostility and, as a result, serve as more
proximal forerunners to divorce and family instability (Christensen & Heavey, 1990; Gottman,
1993). If interparental dysphoria is part of this toxic cascade, our findings suggest that children’s
problems may be taxing the interparental relationship in significant and, in some cases,
Transactions of Child Emotional Insecurity 37
irreparable ways.
In contrast to the evidence found for children’s psychological problems as antecedent to
interparental dysphoria, emotional insecurity was a negligible predictor of both interparental
conflict dimensions across all five waves. On the surface, this may appear to be inconsistent with
earlier findings showing that coercive involvement increases interparental conflict over a two-
year period (Schermerhorn et al., 2007). However, high levels of involvement are conceptualized
as a particularly evocative, bold response to conflict within a larger constellation of signs of
insecurity that are more discreet in their expression (e.g., freezing, negative internal
representations, avoidance). EST specifically posits that coercive involvement distracts parents
from effectively addressing ongoing disagreements, resulting in a progressive accumulation of
unresolved discord, distress, and animosity over time (Davies et al., in press). In contrast, other
insecure responses are commonly expressed in more subtle or covert ways during interparental
conflicts and, thus, may not be salient to parents while they are embroiled in interparental
conflict. By the same token, it is also important to note that emotional insecurity may play a
more insidious, indirect role in increasing interparental problems. More specifically, our findings
indicated that emotional insecurity when children were 13 years old was associated with
increases in their psychological problems one year later. These resulting psychological problems,
in turn, predicted greater interparental dysphoria over the course of the subsequent year.
Examining the relative power of specific parameters of insecurity as distal and proximal
precursors to interparental conflict may be an important next step toward in identifying the
sources of variability in transactions between child and interparental functioning.
As the final component of our transactional model, we tested the possibility that
children’s psychological problems may sensitize them to concerns about security in the
Transactions of Child Emotional Insecurity 38
interparental relationship (i.e., “C” Paths in Figure 1). In comparison to other components of the
transactional conceptualization, support for this pathway was more limited. In the ten structural
paths examined across the two analytic models, psychological problems only predicted
subsequent insecurity in a single cross-lag (i.e., from 8 to 13 years old) and the finding was not
replicated for the interparental dysphoria analyses. Previous longitudinal documentation of links
between psychological problems and subsequent emotional insecurity has failed to control for
the stability of emotional insecurity over time (e.g., Cummings et al., 2006; Davies, Harold, et
al., 2002). To our knowledge, only one previous study of preschool children has rigorously tested
directionality by modeling change in emotional insecurity (i.e., Davies et al., 2012). Consistent
with our findings, emotional insecurity was identified as a predictor but not an outcome of
children’s psychological problems. Taken together, these findings highlight the importance of
not simply assuming that all factors and processes in an open system will evidence uniformly
potent bidirectional associations across time. The specificity in the directionality of our findings
is actually consistent with multiple family process models in developmental psychopathology.
For example, risky family process models cast children’s short-term responses to family stressors
as intermediary mechanisms in pathways between their exposure to family conflict and their
psychological problems (Repetti, Robles, & Reynolds, 2011; Repetti, Taylor, & Seeman, 2002).
Likewise, EST emphasizes how emotional insecurity may serve as a carrier of risk in pathways
between interparental conflict and subsequent child maladjustment (Cummings & Miller-Graff,
2015; Davies et al., in press).
Interpretation of our results should also be balanced by a consideration of the study
limitations. First, although there was some diversity in the racial and socioeconomic
backgrounds of the families in our study, our study consisted of a community sample of
Transactions of Child Emotional Insecurity 39
predominantly White and middle class families. Thus, our findings may not generalize to
families experiencing other demographic or risk conditions (e.g., interparental violence).
Moreover, although our findings support the notion that the transactional pathways of security
were comparable for boys and girls, more empirical tests of child gender as a moderator are
needed before drawing definitive conclusions. For example, even though our sample size has
been interpreted as being sufficiently powered to identify gender differences in the cascades of
interparental conflict (Davies et al., in press), use of large sample sizes would provide more
definitive and powerful tests of moderation. Second, even though our nine-year transactional
study from childhood to adolescence may be an advance over previous studies, it does not
eliminate all effects of possible contextual (e.g., parenting) or genetic (e.g., shared genes
between parents and children) confounds (e.g., Harden, Turkheimer, Emery, D’Onofrio, Slutske,
Heath, & Martin, 2007; Nikolas, Klump, & Burt, 2013). For example, although behavioral
genetics studies support the notion that environmental processes partially account for many of
the associations between interparental and child functioning, genetic risks shared by the
biological parents and children in our sample may give rise to both higher discord between
parents and greater child coping and psychological problems (e.g., Amato & Cheadle, 2008;
Nikolas et al., 2013). Third, although the strength of the effects in our path models were
comparable to or higher than previous studies (Cui et al., 2007), the prospective associations
identified were still modest to moderate in magnitude.
Finally, the use of different measures to assess insecurity in childhood and adolescence
raises questions about the measurement equivalence across the two developmental periods.
However, to allay these concerns, we made concerted efforts to implement strategies, derived
from developmental psychopathology, for maximizing construct equivalence across time (e.g.,
Transactions of Child Emotional Insecurity 40
Carlson, Sroufe, & Egeland, 2004; Sroufe, Egeland, Carlson, & Collins, 2005). Thus, we were
careful to utilize psychometrically sound measures that captured comparable indices of
emotional insecurity (i.e., emotional reactivity, avoidance, involvement, negative
representations) across childhood and adolescence using procedures tailored to the
developmental levels of the children (see Measures section for details). Finally, given that
parents may offer important complementary data on children’s emotional insecurity, future
research may benefit from incorporating parental reports in tests of transactional processes. For
example, parental appraisals of children’s insecure reactions to interparental conflict may be
more potent predictors of subsequent interparental conflict.
Because the ultimate goal of EST is to facilitate the translation of theoretically-informed
empirical findings into practice (Cummings & Schatz, 2012), we conclude our paper by
highlighting how our results might guide, at least in rough form, clinical and public policy
initiatives. Our empirical documentation of the central role of children’s emotional insecurity as
mediator of children’s vulnerability to interparental conflict in a transactional framework
highlights the importance of developing treatment plans that are designed to stop the pathogenic
cascade of insecurity. Directly reducing expressions of children’s insecurity (e.g., reframing
negative appraisals, coping skills) may appear, on the surface, to be a logical point of
intervention. However, because our findings indicate that insecurity is inextricably linked with
previous experiences with interparental conflict, any gains in security are likely to be lost as
children revert back to their previously formed ways of responding within an unchanged context
of interparental conflict and threat (Davies, Winter, & Cicchetti, 2006). Thus, one tentative
implication of our findings is that any program designed to reduce children’s reactivity to
interparental conflict would benefit from a comparable effort to improve interparental
Transactions of Child Emotional Insecurity 41
relationship quality. In the context of our empirical delineation of interparental hostility and
dysphoria as precursors of children’s insecurity, family or interparental invention components
that are designed to reduce a wide array of destructive conflict tactics (i.e., anger, hostility,
sadness, withdrawal) may be particularly effective in fostering children’s well-being (e.g.,
Cowan & Cowan, 2002; Faircloth, Schermerhorn, Mitchell, Cummings, & Cummings, 2011).
However, family interventions may not always be feasible to implement by virtue of their
expense or the inability or unwillingness of families to participate in treatment (Davies et al.,
2006). Under these circumstances, our empirical identification of consistent links between
insecurity and psychological problems in the context of multiple transactional pathways may
offer a more flexible and efficient target for intervention. Complementary research has
delineated several downstream mechanisms that account for why insecurity poses a risk for
children, including the proliferation of negative representations to other interpersonal (e.g., peer)
contexts (Bascoe, Davies, Sturge-Apple, & Cummings, 2009), disruption of biological processes
(e.g., sleep activity; Kelly & El-Sheikh, 2013), difficulties sustaining attention and executive
functions (e.g., Martin, Davies, Cummings, & Cicchetti, 2015), and failure to resolve stage
salient tasks (e.g., Davies, Manning, & Cicchetti, 2013). Thus, taken together, interventions that
are designed to address these cascade mechanisms may provide a feasible way to disrupt the
pathogenic cascades of insecurity (e.g., DuPaul, Helwig, & Slay, 2011; Johnston, Roseby, &
Kuehnler, 2009; Schulz & Kerig, 2012).
As a potentially hopeful developmental message for practitioners, the moderate levels of
differential stability in interparental conflict and children’s emotional insecurity through middle
adolescence suggests that plasticity in interparental processes is still evident during the early teen
years. Coupled with our evidence that children’s emotional insecurity mediates associations
Transactions of Child Emotional Insecurity 42
between interparental hostility and dysphoria and their psychological problems during early to
middle adolescence, the findings collectively highlight the potential efficacy of interventions in
reducing children’s vulnerability to interparental conflict well into adolescence. By the same
token, it is important to note that adolescence may not necessarily be the most opportune period
for intervening. First, developmental plasticity in the emotional security system may reach a
limit in the latter part of adolescence. For example, the significant increase in the stability of
emotional insecurity from 14 to 15 years of age could indicate that individual differences are
becoming increasingly entrenched during middle adolescence. Thus, substantially more clinical
resources may need to be devoted to improve child well-being during middle adolescence and
beyond. Second, earlier periods in childhood have also been identified as possible sensitive
periods for the operation of family antecedents and sequelae of children’s emotional insecurity
(Davies et al., 2006). Third, our empirical identification of the childhood roots of negative,
bidirectional cycles involving interparental and child distress also highlights the clinical
significance of earlier developmental periods. For example, Figure 3 denotes a long, reciprocal
amplification process whereby: (1) children’s psychological problems at 7 years of age predicted
greater interparental dysphoria one year later (Wave 2); (2) interparental dysphoria, in turn, was
linked with greater insecurity during early adolescence (Wave 3); (3) the resulting insecurity was
related to greater psychological problems one year later (Wave 4); (4) which, ultimately,
predicted further increases their interparental dysphoria at Wave 5. Thus, in highlighting the
translational implications of transactional models (e.g., Brock & Kochanska, 2015; Masten &
Cicchetti, 2010; McClain, Wolchik, Winslow, Tein, Sandler, & Millsap, 2010), interventions
designed to reduce child psychopathology may ultimately disrupt the reciprocal amplification of
interparental and child distress.
Transactions of Child Emotional Insecurity 43
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Transactions of Child Emotional Insecurity 55
Table 1
Means, Standard deviations, and Correlations for the Primary Variables in the Analyses.
M
SD
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
1. Child Gender
1.55
0.49
--
2. Parent Education
14.54
2.18
-.09
--
3. W1 Interparental Hostility
-0.01
0.71
.02
-.02
--
4. W2 Interparental Hostility
0.00
0.70
-.04
-.13
.44*
--
5. W3 Interparental Hostility
0.06
0.73
-.03
-.15
.38*
.45*
--
6. W4 Interparental Hostility
0.04
0.77
.14
-.22*
.51*
.38*
.54*
--
7. W5 Interparental Hostility
0.00
0.71
.05
-.09
.46*
.29*
.46*
.41*
--
8. W1 Interparental Dysphoria
0.00
0.57
-.01
.00
.36*
.11
.13
.09
.17
--
9. W2 Interparental Dysphoria
0.00
0.63
.07
-.05
.13
.54*
.21*
.13
.12
.40*
--
10. W3 Interparental Dysphoria
-0.01
0.56
.02
-.04
.11
.16*
.42*
.25*
.17
.28*
.26*
--
11. W4 Interparental Dysphoria
0.06
0.56
.01
-.17
.01
.05
.11
.31*
.07
.19*
.28*
.38*
--
12. W5 Interparental Dysphoria
-0.03
0.57
.02
-.08
.09
.02
.11
.16
.48*
.23*
.25*
.18*
.37*
--
13. W1 Child Emotional Insecurity
0.00
0.71
-.01
-.20*
.04
.07
.08
.04
-.07
.04
.04
.06
-.01
-.05
--
14. W2 Child Emotional Insecurity
0.00
0.71
-.04
-.29*
.07
.13
.10
.12
-.03
.13
.09
.11
.09
-.10
.47*
--
15. W3 Child Emotional Insecurity
0.03
0.80
.02
-.18*
.07
.14
.21*
.11
.17
.19*
.18*
.18*
.09
.17
.30*
. 22*
--
16. W4 Child Emotional Insecurity
0.01
0.80
.04
-.08
-.08
.28*
.33*
.08
.11
.03
.31*
.29*
.17
.13
.12
.14
.52*
17. W5 Child Emotional Insecurity
0.04
0.78
.03
-.13
-.01
.10
.30*
.15
.19*
.02
.05
.15
.13
.17
.05
.01
.43*
18. W1 Child Psych. Problems
15.28
10.32
-.11
-.13
.01
.07
.06
.10
.21*
.10
.21*
.18*
.13
.27*
.15*
.09
.18*
19. W2 Child Psych. Problems
15.41
9.56
-.09
-.07
.04
.00
.07
.15
.16
.15*
.11
.14
.14
.26*
.13
.10
.17*
20. W3 Child Psych. Problems
11.53
9.56
-.04
-.18*
.10
.02
.08
.18*
.12
.14
.14
.08
.09
.18*
.13
.06
.17*
21. W4 Child Psych. Problems
10.34
9.79
-.12
-.22*
.16*
.08
.14
.14
.20*
.22*
.14
.10
.04
.20*
.14
.01
.26*
22. W5 Child Psych. Problems
9.80
10.41
-.04
-.13
.02
.08
.15
.12
.08
.07
.14
.15
.13
.15
.07
-.01
.25*
Note. Child gender: 1= boys; 2 = girls. W1 = Wave 1; W2 = Wave 2; W3 = Wave 3; W4 = Wave 4; W5 = Wave 5; W6 = Wave 6.
p < .05
Transactions of Child Emotional Insecurity 56
Table 1 (continued)
16
17
18
19
20
21
17. W5 Child Emotional Insecurity
.66*
--
18. W1 Child Psych. Problems
.17*
.22*
--
19. W2 Child Psych. Problems
.10
.17*
.79*
--
20. W3 Child Psych. Problems
.03
.06
.62*
.74*
--
21. W4 Child Psych. Problems
.05
.06
.51*
.56*
.74*
--
22. W5 Child Psych. Problems
.20*
.16*
.43*
.49*
.67*
.76*
Note. Child gender: 1= boys; 2 = girls. W1 = Wave 1; W2 = Wave 2; W3 = Wave 3; W4 = Wave 4; W5 = Wave 5; W6 = Wave 6.
p < .05.
Transactions of Child Emotional Insecurity 57
Interparental
Conflict:
Hostility or
Dysphoria
Child
Emotional
Insecurity
Dysphoria
Child
Psychological
Problems
Demographic Covariates:
1. Parent Education
2. Child Gender
Child
Emotional
Insecurity
Dysphoria
Child
Psychological
Problems
Child
Emotional
Insecurity
Dysphoria
Child
Psychological
Problems
Child
Emotional
Insecurity
Dysphoria
Child
Psychological
Problems
Child
Emotional
Insecurity
Dysphoria
Child
Psychological
Problems
A
Wave 1: 7 yrs.
Wave 2: 8 yrs.
Wave 3: 13 yrs.
Wave 4: 14 yrs.
Wave 5: 15 yrs.
Interparental
Conflict:
Hostility or
Dysphoria
Interparental
Conflict:
Hostility or
Dysphoria
Interparental
Conflict:
Hostility or
Dysphoria
Interparental
Conflict:
Hostility or
Dysphoria
Middle Childhood
Adolescence
A
A
A
A
A
A
A
B
B
B
B
B
B
B
B
C
C
C
C
D
Figure 1. A conceptual model depicting transactional associations among interparental conflict dimensions, children’s emotional
insecurity in the interparental relationship, and their psychological problems across childhood and adolescence. “A”, “B”, “C”,
and “D” paths reflect key hypotheses in the transactional analysis of emotional security.
Transactions of Child Emotional Insecurity 58
Interparental
Hostility
Child
Emotional
Insecurity
Dysphoria
Child
Psychological
Problems
Parental
Education
Interparental
Hostility
Child
Emotional
Insecurity
Dysphoria
Child
Psychological
Problems
Interparental
Hostility
Child
Emotional
Insecurity
Dysphoria
Child
Psychological
Problems
Interparental
Hostility
Child
Emotional
Insecurity
Dysphoria
Child
Psychological
Problems
Interparental
Hostility
Child
Emotional
Insecurity
Dysphoria
Child
Psychological
Problems
Wave 1: 7 yrs.
Wave 2: 8 yrs.
Wave 3: 13 yrs.
Wave 4: 14 yrs.
Wave 5: 15 yrs.
.44*
.42*
.54*
.42*
.43*
.80*
.15*
.74*
.70*
.83*
.49*
.67*
.15*
.22*
.14*
.11*
-.23*
-.13*
15*
-.13*
-.19*
Child Gender
.16*
Figure 2. A cross-lagged path model examining transactional associations among interparental hostility, children’s emotional
insecurity in the interparental relationship, and their psychological problems across childhood and adolescence. For clarity, only
significant structural pathways and correlations are depicted in the model. * p < .05.
Transactions of Child Emotional Insecurity 59
Interparental
Dysphoria
Child
Emotional
Insecurity
Dysphoria
Child
Psychological
Problems
Child Gender
Parental
Education
Interparental
Dysphoria
Child
Emotional
Insecurity
Dysphoria
Child
Psychological
Problems
Interparental
Dysphoria
Child
Emotional
Insecurity
Dysphoria
Child
Psychological
Problems
Interparental
Dysphoria
Child
Emotional
Insecurity
Dysphoria
Child
Psychological
Problems
Interparental
Dysphoria
Child
Emotional
Insecurity
Dysphoria
Child
Psychological
Problems
.40*
.22*
.42*
.39*
.43*
.80*
.14†
.73*
.70*
.83*
.49*
.67*
.12*
.18*
.19*
.17*
.15*
.09*
-.23*
-.13*
.19*
.15*
-.13*
-.19*
Wave 1: 7 yrs.
Wave 2: 8 yrs.
Wave 3: 13 yrs.
Wave 4: 14 yrs.
Wave 5: 15 yrs.
Figure 3. A cross-lagged path model examining transactional associations among interparental dysphoria, children’s emotional
insecurity in the interparental relationship, and their psychological problems across childhood and adolescence. For clarity, only
significant structural pathways and correlations are depicted in the model. * p < .05. † p = .06.
