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Citation |
Davies PT, Coe JL, Hentges RF, Sturge-Apple ML, Ripple MT. Dev. Psychol. 2018; 54(7): 1290-1303. |
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Affiliation |
Department of Clinical and Social Sciences in Psychology, Mt. Hope Family Center, University of Rochester. |
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Copyright |
(Copyright © 2018, American Psychological Association) |
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DOI |
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PMID |
29658741 |
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Abstract |
This study examined children's attention biases to negative emotional stimuli as mediators of associations between interparental hostility and children's externalizing symptoms. Participants included 243 children (Mage = 4.60 years) and their parents and teachers across three annual measurement occasions. Cross-lagged latent change analyses revealed that the association between interparental hostility and children's externalizing symptoms was mediated by children's attention to angry, but not sad or fearful, adult faces. Consistent with defensive exclusion models, the multimethod, multi-informant assessment of interparental hostility at Wave 1 specifically predicted decreases in children's attention to angry faces from Waves 1 to 2 in a visual search task. Declines in children's attention to anger, in turn, predicted increases in teacher reports of their externalizing problems across the three waves. Follow-up analyses further indicated that children's decreasing levels of emotional security in the interparental relationship were associated with the decreases in children's attention to angry stimuli. Language: en |