Children's patterns of preserving emotional security in the interparental subsystem.

Abstract

Guided by the emotional security hypothesis, this research identified (1) individual differences in children's strategies for preserving their emotional security in the interparental relationship, and (2) the psychosocial and family correlates of these individual differences. Study 1 assessed reactivity to parental conflict simulations among 56 school-age children, whereas Study 2 solicited child and mother reports of 170 young adolescents' reactions to actual marital conflict. Cluster analyses in both studies indicated that children fit three profiles: (1) secure children, who showed well-regulated concern and positive representations of interparental relationships; (2) insecure-preoccupied children, who evidenced heightened distress, involvement or avoidance, and negative representations of interparental relationships; and (3) insecure-dismissing children, who displayed overt signs of elevated distress, avoidance, and involvement and low levels of subjective distress, avoidance and intervention impulses, and negative internal representations. Results in both studies indicated that preoccupied and dismissing children experienced more interparental conflict than did secure children, and preoccupied children evidenced the highest levels of internalizing symptoms. Study 2 results indicated that dismissing children had the highest levels of externalizing symptoms and preoccupied and dismissing children reported more coping, family, and personality difficulties than did secure children.