The interplay among interparental conflict, children's emotional insecurity, neurophysiological correlates of processing interparental conflict cues, and externalizing symptoms.

Exposure to destructive interparental conflict consistently predicts children's externalizing symptoms. Research has identified children's emotional security as an explanatory mechanism underpinning this association, but little is known about the role of children's neurophysiology in this pathway. We aimed to address that gap using event-related potential (ERP) data from a sample of 86 children, ages 9-11 years. The P3 ERP was measured during an emotion categorization task involving photographs of a couple exhibiting facial expressions of emotion toward one another. Angry images were target stimuli, and happy and neutral images were nontarget stimuli. Children reported interparental conflict, and their mothers reported children's emotional security. Mothers also reported children's externalizing symptoms at two time points 1 year apart. Results indicated elevated interparental conflict predicted more behavioral dysregulation (an aspect of emotional insecurity), which predicted a smaller P3 on angry trials, which, in turn, predicted greater externalizing symptoms 1 year later, controlling for initial externalizing. Greater involvement in interparental conflict, another aspect of emotional insecurity, predicted a larger P3 on neutral trials. Further, both greater involvement and a larger P3 on happy trials predicted increases in externalizing. The results suggest differing associations between different elements of emotional insecurity and the P3.

Children's affective and arousal responses to live interparental conflict: Links with appraisals.

While previous research has consistently found that negative forms of interparental conflict predict poorer outcomes in children, less is known about children's immediate responses to conflict. In a sample of 101 children (9-11 years of age) and their parents, we used a novel methodological approach to examine children's affect and perceived arousal responses to a live conflict between their parents in the lab. In addition, we examined children's self-reported cognitions regarding interparental conflict as predictors of these affect and perceived arousal responses. Children reported their affect and perceived arousal responses at 3 time points: before the live interparental conflict, immediately following the conflict, and again immediately following a positive family conversation task. Mixed effects models indicated that children's positive affect decreased following the interparental conflict, and increased following the positive family conversation. Negative affect and perceived arousal decreased linearly across all 3 time points such that they were the lowest following the positive family conversation. Children's perceptions of interparental conflict predicted children's negative affect and perceived arousal scores, but not their degree of change from 1 time point to the next. Findings are discussed in terms of clinical intervention for families and directions for future research in this area. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Children's appraisals of interparental conflict predict event-related potential components.

Interparental conflict and neural correlates of children's emotion processing were examined. Event-related potential (ERP) data were collected from 87 children (9-11 years old) with stimuli depicting interpersonal anger, happiness, and neutrality. Three ERP components were modulated by child-reported measures of conflict, reflecting a progression from early sensory attention to cognitive control to stimulus categorization. Negative conflict predicted larger N1 and N2 amplitudes on happy than on angry trials. Greater self-blame for conflict predicted larger N2 amplitudes across emotions and larger P3 amplitudes on angry than on neutral or happy trials. Results suggest conflict-related experiences shape processing of interpersonal emotion.

Handling Missing Data in the Modeling of Intensive Longitudinal Data.

Myriad approaches for handling missing data exist in the literature. However, few studies have investigated the tenability and utility of these approaches when used with intensive longitudinal data. In this study, we compare and illustrate two multiple imputation (MI) approaches for coping with missingness in fitting multivariate time-series models under different missing data mechanisms. They include a full MI approach, in which all dependent variables and covariates are imputed simultaneously, and a partial MI approach, in which missing covariates are imputed with MI, whereas missingness in the dependent variables is handled via full information maximum likelihood estimation. We found that under correctly specified models, partial MI produces the best overall estimation results. We discuss the strengths and limitations of the two MI approaches, and demonstrate their use with an empirical data set in which children's influences on parental conflicts are modeled as covariates over the course of 15 days (Schermerhorn, Chow, & Cummings, 2010).

Socio-emotionally significant experience and children's processing of irrelevant auditory stimuli.

Theory and research indicate considerable influence of socio-emotionally significant experiences on children's functioning and adaptation. In the current study, we examined neurophysiological correlates of children's allocation of information processing resources to socio-emotionally significant events, specifically, simulated marital interactions. We presented 9- to 11-year-old children (n=24; 11 females) with 15 videos of interactions between two actors posing as a married couple. Task-irrelevant brief auditory probes were presented during the videos, and event-related potentials (ERPs) elicited to the auditory probes were measured. As hypothesized, exposure to higher levels of interparental conflict was associated with smaller P1, P2, and N2 ERPs to the probes. This finding is consistent with the idea that children who had been exposed to more interparental conflict attended more to the videos and diverted fewer cognitive resources to processing the probes, thereby producing smaller ERPs to the probes. In addition, smaller N2s were associated with more child behavior problems, suggesting that allocating fewer processing resources to the probes was associated with more problem behavior. Results are discussed in terms of implications of socio-emotionally significant experiences for children's processing of interpersonal interactions.

Neurophysiological Correlates of Children's Processing of Interparental Conflict Cues.

This study builds on the literature on child exposure to marital conflict by testing whether mother-reported marital conflict exposure predicts a child's P3 event-related potential (ERP) components generated in response to viewing quasi­marital conflict photos. We collected ERP data from 23 children (9­11 years of age) while presenting photos of actors pretending to be a couple depicting interpersonal anger, happiness, and neutrality. To elicit the P3 ERP, stimuli were presented using an oddball paradigm, with angry and happy photos presented on 20% of trials each and neutral photos presented on the remaining 60% of trials. Angry photos were the target in 1 block, and happy photos were the target in the other block. In the angry block, children from high-conflict homes had shorter reaction times (RTs) on happy trials than on neutral trials, and children from low-conflict homes had shorter RTs on angry trials than on happy trials. Also within the angry block, children generated larger P3s on angry trials than on happy trials, regardless of exposure to conflict. Further, children from high-conflict homes generated larger P3s on angry trials and on happy trials compared with neutral trials, but children from low-conflict homes did not. Results are discussed in terms of implications for children's processing of displays of interpersonal emotion.

Temperament moderates associations between exposure to stress and children's externalizing problems.

The interaction between a temperament profile (four groups determined by high vs. low resistance to control [unmanageability] and unadaptability [novelty distress]) and family stress in predicting externalizing problems at school in children followed from kindergarten through eighth grade (ages 5-13) was investigated. The sample consisted of 556 families (290 boys). At Time 1 just prior to kindergarten, mothers retrospectively reported on their child's temperament during infancy. Each year, mothers reported stress and teachers reported children's externalizing problems. Temperament profile was tested as a moderator of the stress-externalizing association for various time periods. Results indicated that the combination of high resistance to control and high unadaptability strengthens the stress-externalizing association. Findings are discussed in terms of possible underlying mechanisms.

Maternal Religiosity, Family Resources and Stressors, and Parent-Child Attachment Security in Northern Ireland.

This study explores the associations between mothers' religiosity, and families' and children's functioning in a stratified random sample of 695 Catholic and Protestant mother-child dyads in socially deprived areas in Belfast, Northern Ireland, a region which has experienced centuries of sectarian conflict between Protestant Unionists and Catholics Nationalists. Findings based on mother and child surveys indicated that even in this context of historical political violence associated with religious affiliation, mothers' religiosity played a consistently positive role, including associations with multiple indicators of better family functioning (i.e., more cohesion and behavioral control and less conflict, psychological distress, and adjustment problems) and greater parent-child attachment security. Mothers' religiosity also moderated the association between parent-child attachment security and family resources and family stressors, enhancing positive effects of cohesion and mother behavioral control on mother-child attachment security, and providing protection against risks associated with mothers' psychological distress. Findings are discussed in terms of implications for understanding the role of religiosity in serving as a protective or risk factor for children and families.

Offspring ADHD as a risk factor for parental marital problems: controls for genetic and environmental confounds.

BACKGROUND: Previous studies have found that child attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is associated with more parental marital problems. However, the reasons for this association are unclear. The association might be due to genetic or environmental confounds that contribute to both marital problems and ADHD. METHOD: Data were drawn from the Australian Twin Registry, including 1,296 individual twins, their spouses, and offspring. We studied adult twins who were discordant for offspring ADHD.Using a discordant twin pairs design, we examined the extent to which genetic and environmental confounds,as well as measured parental and offspring characteristics, explain the ADHD-marital problems association. RESULTS: Offspring ADHD predicted parental divorce and marital conflict. The associations were also robust when comparing differentially exposed identical twins to control for unmeasured genetic and environmental factors, when controlling for measured maternal and paternal psychopathology,when restricting the sample based on timing of parental divorce and ADHD onset, and when controlling for other forms of offspring psychopathology. Each of these controls rules out alternative explanations for the association. CONCLUSION: The results of the current study converge with those of prior research in suggesting that factors directly associated with offspring ADHD increase parental marital problems.

Political violence and child adjustment: longitudinal tests of sectarian antisocial behavior, family conflict, and insecurity as explanatory pathways.

Understanding the impact of political violence on child maladjustment is a matter of international concern. Recent research has advanced a social ecological explanation for relations between political violence and child adjustment. However, conclusions are qualified by the lack of longitudinal tests. Toward examining pathways longitudinally, mothers and their adolescents (M = 12.33, SD = 1.78, at Time 1) from 2-parent families in Catholic and Protestant working class neighborhoods in Belfast, Northern Ireland, completed measures assessing multiple levels of a social ecological model. Utilizing autoregressive controls, a 3-wave longitudinal model test (T1, n = 299; T2, n = 248; T3, n = 197) supported a specific pathway linking sectarian community violence, family conflict, children's insecurity about family relationships, and adjustment problems.

ASSOCIATIONS BETWEEN MOTHERS' EXPERIENCE WITH THE TROUBLES IN NORTHERN IRELAND AND MOTHERS' AND CHILDREN'S PSYCHOLOGICAL FUNCTIONING: THE MODERATING ROLE OF SOCIAL IDENTITY.

Relatively little research has examined the relations between growing up in a community with a history of protracted violent political conflict and subsequent generations' well-being. The current article examines relations between mothers' self-report of the impact that the historical political violence in Northern Ireland (known as the Troubles) has on her and her child's current mental health. These relations are framed within the social identity model of stress, which provides a framework for understanding coping responses within societies that have experienced intergroup conflict. Mother-child dyads (N = 695) living in Belfast completed interviews. Results suggest that the mother-reported impact of the Troubles continue to be associated with mothers' mental health, which, in turn, is associated with her child's adjustment. The strength of mothers' social identity moderated pathways between the impact of the Troubles and her mental health, consistent with the social identity model of stress.

Longitudinal pathways between political violence and child adjustment: the role of emotional security about the community in Northern Ireland.

Links between political violence and children's adjustment problems are well-documented. However, the mechanisms by which political tension and sectarian violence relate to children's well-being and development are little understood. This study longitudinally examined children's emotional security about community violence as a possible regulatory process in relations between community discord and children's adjustment problems. Families were selected from 18 working class neighborhoods in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Participants (695 mothers and children, M = 12.17, SD = 1.82) were interviewed in their homes over three consecutive years. Findings supported the notion that politically-motivated community violence has distinctive effects on children's externalizing and internalizing problems through the mechanism of increasing children's emotional insecurity about community. Implications are considered for understanding relations between political violence and child adjustment from a social ecological perspective.

Sectarian and Nonsectarian Violence: Mothers' Appraisals of Political Conflict in Northern Ireland.

Past research on peace and conflict in Northern Ireland has focused on politically-motivated violence. However, other types of crime (i.e., nonsectarian) also impact community members. To study the changing nature of violence since the signing of the Belfast Agreement in Northern Ireland the current study used qualitative methods to distinguish between nonsectarian and sectarian antisocial behavior. Analyses were conducted using the Constant Comparative Method to illuminate thematic patterns in focus groups with Catholic and Protestant mothers from segregated Belfast neighborhoods. Participants differentiated between nonsectarian and sectarian violence; the latter was further distinguished into two dimensions - overt acts and intergroup threat. Although both nonsectarian and sectarian antisocial behavior related to insecurity, participants described pulling together and increased ingroup social cohesion in response to sectarian threats. The findings have implications for the study of violence and insecurity as experienced in the everyday lives of mothers, youth, and families in settings of protracted conflict.

Parenting Control in Contexts of Political Violence: Testing Bi-directional Relations between Violence Exposure and Control in Post-Accord Belfast.

OBJECTIVE: The goal of the present study is to examine bi-directional relations between youth exposure to sectarian and nonsectarian antisocial behavior and mothers' efforts to control youth's exposure to community violence in Belfast, Northern Ireland. DESIGN: Mother-child dyads (N=773) were interviewed in their homes twice over 2 years regarding youth's exposure to sectarian (SAB) and nonsectarian (NAB) community antisocial behavior and mothers' use of control strategies, including behavioral and psychological control. RESULTS: Youth's exposure to NAB was related to increases in mothers' use of both behavioral and psychological control strategies over time, controlling for earlier levels of these constructs. Reflecting bi-directional relations, mothers' behavioral control strategies were associated with youth's reduced exposure to both NAB and SAB over time, whereas psychological control was not related to reduced exposure. CONCLUSION: Only nonsectarian community violence was associated longitudinally with mothers' increased use of control strategies, and only behavioral control strategies were effective in reducing youth's exposure to community antisocial behavior, including both sectarian and nonsectarian antisocial behavior.

A genetically informed study of associations between family functioning and child psychosocial adjustment.

Research has documented associations between family functioning and offspring psychosocial adjustment, but questions remain regarding whether these associations are partly due to confounding genetic factors and other environmental factors. The current study used a genetically informed approach, the Children of Twins design, to explore the associations between family functioning (family conflict, marital quality, and agreement about parenting) and offspring psychopathology. Participants were 867 twin pairs (388 monozygotic; 479 dizygotic) from the Twin and Offspring Study in Sweden, their spouses, and children (51.7% female; M = 15.75 years). The results suggested associations between exposure to family conflict (assessed by the mother, father, and child) and child adjustment were independent of genetic factors and other environmental factors. However, when family conflict was assessed using only children's reports, the results indicated that genetic factors also influenced these associations. In addition, the analyses indicated that exposure to low marital quality and agreement about parenting was associated with children's internalizing and externalizing problems and that genetic factors also contributed to the associations of marital quality and agreement about parenting with offspring externalizing problems.

Political violence and child adjustment in Northern Ireland: Testing pathways in a social-ecological model including single-and two-parent families.

Moving beyond simply documenting that political violence negatively impacts children, we tested a social-ecological hypothesis for relations between political violence and child outcomes. Participants were 700 mother-child (M = 12.1 years, SD = 1.8) dyads from 18 working-class, socially deprived areas in Belfast, Northern Ireland, including single- and two-parent families. Sectarian community violence was associated with elevated family conflict and children's reduced security about multiple aspects of their social environment (i.e., family, parent-child relations, and community), with links to child adjustment problems and reductions in prosocial behavior. By comparison, and consistent with expectations, links with negative family processes, child regulatory problems, and child outcomes were less consistent for nonsectarian community violence. Support was found for a social-ecological model for relations between political violence and child outcomes among both single- and two-parent families, with evidence that emotional security and adjustment problems were more negatively affected in single-parent families. The implications for understanding social ecologies of political violence and children's functioning are discussed.

Developmental family processes and interparental conflict: patterns of microlevel influences.

Although there are frequent calls for the study of effects of children on families and mutual influence processes within families, little empirical progress has been made. We address these questions at the level of microprocesses during marital conflict, including children's influence on marital conflict and parents' influence on each other. Participants were 111 cohabiting couples with a child (55 male, 56 female) age 8-16 years. Data were drawn from parents' diary reports of interparental conflict over 15 days and were analyzed with dynamic systems modeling tools. Child emotions and behavior during conflicts were associated with interparental positivity, negativity, and resolution at the end of the same conflicts. For example, children's agentic behavior was associated with more marital conflict resolution, whereas child negativity was linked with more marital negativity. Regarding parents' influence on each other, among the findings, husbands' and wives' influence on themselves from one conflict to the next was indicated, and total number of conflicts predicted greater influence of wives' positivity on husbands' positivity. Contributions of these findings to the understanding of developmental family processes are discussed, including implications for advanced understanding of interrelations between child and adult functioning and development.

Testing a social ecological model for relations between political violence and child adjustment in Northern Ireland.

Relations between political violence and child adjustment are matters of international concern. Past research demonstrates the significance of community, family, and child psychological processes in child adjustment, supporting study of interrelations between multiple social ecological factors and child adjustment in contexts of political violence. Testing a social ecological model, 300 mothers and their children (M = 12.28 years, SD = 1.77) from Catholic and Protestant working class neighborhoods in Belfast, Northern Ireland, completed measures of community discord, family relations, and children's regulatory processes (i.e., emotional security) and outcomes. Historical political violence in neighborhoods based on objective records (i.e., politically motivated deaths) were related to family members' reports of current sectarian antisocial behavior and nonsectarian antisocial behavior. Interparental conflict and parental monitoring and children's emotional security about both the community and family contributed to explanatory pathways for relations between sectarian antisocial behavior in communities and children's adjustment problems. The discussion evaluates support for social ecological models for relations between political violence and child adjustment and its implications for understanding relations in other parts of the world.

Children and political violence from a social ecological perspective: implications from research on children and families in Northern Ireland.

The effects on children of political violence are matters of international concern, with many negative effects well-documented. At the same time, relations between war, terrorism, or other forms of political violence and child development do not occur in a vacuum. The impact can be understood as related to changes in the communities, families and other social contexts in which children live, and in the psychological processes engaged by these social ecologies. To advance this process-oriented perspective, a social ecological model for the effects of political violence on children is advanced. This approach is illustrated by findings and methods from an ongoing research project on political violence and children in Northern Ireland. Aims of this project include both greater insight into this particular context for political violence and the provision of a template for study of the impact of children's exposure to violence in other regions of the world. Accordingly, the applicability of this approach is considered for other social contexts, including (a) another area in the world with histories of political violence and (b) a context of community violence in the US.

The Differential Impact on Children of Inter- and Intra-Community Violence in Northern Ireland.

This study explores distinctions in Northern Ireland between inter-community (i.e. sectarian) and intra-community (i.e. nonsectarian) violence and their respective impacts on children, and considers these forms of violence in relation to children's processes of emotional security about community conflict. Preliminary work was based on focus groups with mothers in Belfast, followed by a quantitative study involving mothers in Derry/Londonderry. Support emerged for a conceptually-based distinction between sectarian and nonsectarian violence and differential prediction of children's adjustment problems, which was more closely linked with sectarian than nonsectarian community violence. Pertinent to explanatory mechanisms, community violence, especially sectarian, related to mothers' perceptions of children's emotional insecurity about community. Findings are discussed in terms of future directions for understanding community violence and child development in cultural context.