Child Emotional Security and Interparental Conflict [Paperback]

Child Emotional Security and Interparental Conflict tests a theory proposing that high levels of conflict between parents leads to an increased child risk for mental health difficulties by shaking the child's sense of security in the family. This insecurity was associated with greater mental health difficulties, even when considering the role of prior mental health, child perceptions of parental conflict, and parent-child relations.Abstract.

I. Introduction and Literature Review.

II. Study 1: Child Responses to Interparental Conflict: Comparing the Relative Roles Of Emotional Security and Social Learning Processes.

III. Study 2: Relations Between Interparental Conflict, Child Emotional Security, and Adjustment in the Context of Cognitive Appraisals.

IV. Study 3: Parental Conflict and Child Security in the Family System.

V. Study 4: Family Characteristics as Potentiating and Protective Factors in the Association Between Parental Conflict and Child Functioning.

VI. Conclusions, Implications, and Future Directions.

VII. References.

VIII. Acknowledgements.

IX. Commentary: Mechanisms in the Development of Emotional Organization.

X. Contributors.

xi. Statement of Editorial Policy.

Patrick T. Davies (Ph.D., West Virginia University, 1995) is an Associaite Professor of Psychology at the University of Rochester. His primary research interests relate to understanding children's normal and abnormal development in the context of family relationships and processes. He is a co-author (with Mark Cummings) of