Children's Emotional Insecurity Research Articles

Local Influence and Robust Procedures for Mediation Analysis

Existing studies of mediation models have been limited to normal-theory maximum likelihood (ML). Because real data in the social and behavioral sciences are seldom normally distributed and often contain outliers, classical methods generally lead to inefficient or biased parameter estimates. Consequently, the conclusions from a mediation analysis can be misleading. In this article, we propose 2 approaches to alleviate these problems. One is to identify cases that strongly affect testing of mediation using local influence methods or robust methods. The other is to use robust methods for parameter estimation and subsequently test the mediated effect based on the robust estimates. The application of these 2 approaches is illustrated using 1 simulated and 2 real data examples. The interest in 1 real data set is the relationship among marital conflict, children's emotional insecurity, and children's internalizing problems. The other example is concerned with whether ethnic identity mediates the effect of family cohesion on Korean language fluency. Results show that local influence and robust methods rank the influence of cases similarly, but robust methods are more objective. Moreover, when the normality assumption is violated, robust methods give estimates with smaller standard errors and more reliable tests of the mediated effect compared with normal-theory ML. An R program that implements the local influence and robust procedures for mediation analysis is also provided.

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.

Children's Emotional Security in the Interparental Relationship

In response to the societal premium placed on understanding the difficulties faced by children from high-conflict homes, emotional security theory aims to understand precisely how and why interparental discord is associated with children's psychological problems. One of its main premises is that interparental discord increases children's vulnerability to mental illness by undermining their sense of safety or security in the context of the interparental relationship. In this article, we highlight the main assumptions of a new ethological formulation of emotional security theory and its predictions and findings regarding the organization, precursors, and consequences of individual differences in children's emotional insecurity. We conclude with a synopsis of the value of the new formulation for future work.

Marital Conflict and Children’s Emotional Security in the Context of Parental Depression

Evidence has emerged for emotional security as an explanatory variable linking marital conflict to children's adjustment. Further evidence suggests parental psychopathology is a key factor in child development. To advance understanding of the pathways by which these family risk factors impact children's development, the mediational role of emotional security for children with parents who have potentially clinical levels of depression compared to children whose parents have lower levels of symptomatology was examined (i.e., moderated mediation). Participants included 297 families assessed annually for 3 years. Paternal depression moderated pathways, such that marital conflict was associated with greater child emotional insecurity 2 years later in the context of paternal depression. Testing alternative pathways, emotional insecurity mediated relations between maternal depression and externalizing problems.

Marital psychological and physical aggression and children's mental and physical health: direct, mediated, and moderated effects.

Relations between marital aggression (psychological and physical) and children's health were examined. Children's emotional insecurity was assessed as a mediator of these relations, with distinctions made between marital aggression against mothers and fathers and ethnicity (African American or European American), socioeconomic status, and child gender examined as moderators of effects. Participants were 251 community-recruited families, with multiple reporters of each construct. Aggression against either parent yielded similar effects for children. Children's emotional insecurity mediated the relation between marital aggression and children's internalizing, externalizing, and posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms. No differences were found in these pathways for African American and European American families or as a function of socioeconomic status or child gender.

Editorial

Editorial

Child emotional insecurity and academic achievement: The role of sleep disruptions.

The authors examined children's sleep as an intervening variable in the connection between emotional insecurity in the family and academic achievement. The role of ethnicity (African American and European American) and socioeconomic status (SES) in moderating the examined relations was assessed. One hundred sixty-six children (8- and 9-year-olds) reported their emotional insecurity, and the quantity and quality of children's sleep were examined through actigraphy and self-report. Decreased amount and quality of sleep were intervening variables in the relations between insecurity in the marital relationship and children's achievement. The effects of disrupted sleep on achievement were more pronounced for both African American children and children of lower SES. Results highlight the importance of the contemporaneous examinations of family and sleep functioning in the prediction of child outcomes.

Sleep disruptions and emotional insecurity are pathways of risk for children

Sleep problems are prevalent in American children. A critical need is to identify sources and processes related to sleep disruptions and their sequelae. We examined a model linking parental marital conflict and children's emotional insecurity, sleep disruptions, and their adjustment and academic problems. One hundred and sixty-six elementary school children reported on marital conflict and their emotional insecurity, the quantity and quality of children's sleep were examined through actigraphy, and parents and teachers reported on child functioning. In the context of exposure to normative levels of marital conflict, children's emotional insecurity regarding their parents' marital relationship is an intervening variable in the marital conflict-sleep disruptions link. In turn, disruptions in the quality and duration of children's sleep have a negative effect on children's behavioral, emotional, and academic performance. Findings highlight the importance of marital conflict and children's emotional insecurity as variables that can affect a fundamental aspect of biological regulation, sleep, which consequently influences children's adjustment and academic performance.

Pathways between profiles of family functioning, child security in the interparental subsystem, and child psychological problems

This study was designed to delineate pathways between systems profiles of family functioning, children's emotional insecurity in the interparental relationship, and their psychological adjustment in a sample of 221 children and their parents. Consistent with family systems theory, cluster analyses conducted with assessments of marital, coparental, and parent-child functioning indicated that families fit into one of four profiles: (a) cohesive families, characterized by warmth, affection, and flexible well-defined boundaries in family relationships; (b) disengaged families, reflected in high levels of adversity and low levels of support across family subsystems; (c) enmeshed families, evidenced by high levels of discord and weak maintenance of relationship boundaries in the family unit; and (d) adequate families, defined by elevated parental psychological control within a larger family context of low discord and high warmth. In comparison to children in cohesive families, children in enmeshed and disengaged families exhibited greater signs of insecurity in the interparental relationship concurrently and internalizing and externalizing symptoms both concurrently and 1 year later. Structural equation models revealed that a latent, multimethod measure of insecurity in the interparental relationship partially mediated associations between family enmeshment and disengagement and children's psychological symptoms 1 year later. Results are discussed in relation to how they inform and refine a family-wide model of the emotional security hypothesis.

Does well‐being contribute to performance? Emotional security, teacher support and learning behaviour in kindergarten

AbstractIn this study, we examined relations between kindergartner's emotional security, task involvement and achievement and teacher's supportive presence in a cognitive training setting, in which the familiarity of the teacher was varied. Participants were 48 kindergarten children (mean age=51.65 months); 16 children were trained by their regular teacher (experimental group 1), 16 by a less familiar teacher (experimental group 2) and 16 received no training (control group). In three training sessions, children worked in pairs on a new categorization and recall task. Trained observers rated children's emotional insecurity and task involvement and teacher's supportive presence. Furthermore, spontaneous recall during the training was assessed. In addition, categorization and spontaneous recall was measured in various test sessions. Children's emotional insecurity during training negatively affected involvement. Involvement on its turn positively influenced spontaneous recall during training. In addition, emotional insecurity had a direct negative effect on spontaneous recall in a test situation. No effect of familiarity or supportive presence of the teacher on emotional security was found. Training conditions did not affect test performances. Findings suggest that children's involvement is important for learning and that experiences of emotional insecurity may negatively affect task involvement, test performance and eventually school achievement. Teachers in general seem capable of providing children with some sense of security. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.