TINA D. DU ROCHER SCHUDLICH, CLARE R. WHITE, EMILY A. FLEISCHHAUER, AND KELLY A. FITZGERALD Western Washington University
Observed Infant Reactions During Live Interparental Conflict
Associations between interparental conflict and infant reactions were examined. Infants’ history of exposure to interparental conflict and infant reactive temperament were examined as moderators. A community sample of 74 infants, aged 6 – 14 months, participated with their parents. Behavioral observations were made of parents’ marital conflict and their infants’ reactions. Parents reported on their emotional states during conflict, infants’ history of exposure to interparental conflict, and infant temperament. Multilevel modeling indicated that infants showed differential responses to marital conflict; destructive and depressive conflict were associated with increased infant discussion attending and negative reactions, whereas constructive conflict was associated with decreased discussion attending and negative reactions. Infants’ history of exposure to marital conflict and infant reactive temperament emerged as moderators. Exposure to destructive styles of marital conflict has been found to elicit a variety of negative reactions in children and is more broadly associated with increased risk for child adjustment difficulties and psychological problems (Cummings & Davies, 2010; Rhoades, 2008). Emotional
Department of Psychology, MS 9172, 516 High Street, Western Washington University, Bellingham, WA 98225-9172 (
[email protected]). This article was edited by Cheryl Buehler. Key Words: development or outcomes, family interaction, infancy, interparental conflict, observation, temperament.
security theory (Davies & Cummings, 1994) has underscored the importance of children’s responses to conflict as a mediator of the relationship between marital conflict exposure and children’s subsequent psychological and physiological well-being (Cummings & Davies, 2010). Although empirical support for these effects has been extensively documented among preschool- and school-aged children, little is known about how younger children, particularly infants, respond to marital conflict. The dearth of studies on this age period is especially striking given that the highest levels of marital conflict are thought to occur during the infant years (Belsky & Rovine, 1990) and that young children are especially likely to be exposed to interparental discord (Fantuzzo, Boruch, Beriama, & Atkins, 1997). Guided by emotional security theory, the following study addresses the aforementioned gaps in the research literature by studying infants’ reactions during interparental conflict in an effort to explicate empirical questions surrounding the effects of marital conflict on young children. Marital conflict has deleterious effects on children’s emotional well-being because of the negative emotional and physiological reactions it triggers (Davies & Cummings, 1994). The degree to which marital conflict is distressing to children depends on a variety of factors, including children’s previous history of interparental conflict exposure (Davies, Sturge-Apple, Winter, Cummings, & Farrell, 2006; Grych & Fincham, 1990), the emotional and informational content of the marital disagreement
Journal of Marriage and Family 73 (February 2011): 221 – 235 DOI:10.1111/j.1741-3737.2010.00800.x
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222 (Cummings, Goeke-Morey, & Papp, 2004), how appropriately and effectively the couples manage conflict (Cox, Paley, & Harter, 2001), and the degree of conflict resolution (Cummings, Ballard, El-Sheikh, & Lake, 1991). The importance of distinguishing destructive, depressive, and constructive conflict has been indicated for older children (Davis, Sheeber, Hops, & Tildesley, 2000; Du Rocher Schudlich & Cummings, 2003, 2007). Destructive marital conflict refers to hostile verbal and nonverbal behaviors, whereas depressive conflict refers to avoidance, emotional distress, or withdrawal from conflict and may be viewed as giving up (Du Rocher Schudlich & Cummings, 2003). Constructive conflict refers to conflict that is well modulated and that works toward a resolution (Du Rocher Schudlich & Cummings, 2003). The extent to which infants are capable of distinguishing between and differentially responding to these dimensions of marital conflict remains uncertain. Whereas the empirical literature has extensively examined older children’s reactions during marital conflict, less is known about how young children, particularly infants, respond during conflict. To date, no such studies have examined infants’ reactions during their parents’ actual marital conflict. Growing evidence suggests that emotional security theory is a way to contextualize infants’ reactions during interparental conflict. According to emotional security theory (Davies & Cummings, 1994), children react to the meaning of conflict, including the threat to the safety of their emotional life and the integrity of their family system. Children develop an internal working model of conflict based on their exposure history that influences their response to current conflict. Emotional security is posited to comprise separate but interrelated processes: emotional reactivity, regulation of exposure to conflict, and cognitive representations of marital conflict. Children’s heightened emotional and behavioral dysregulation in response to marital conflict provide bases for observationally assessing children’s emotional security (Davies, Forman, Rasi, & Stevens, 2002). Emotional security thus includes affect (A), behavior (B), and cognition (C) as components of the child’s regulatory processes, which can be described as the ABCs of emotional security theory (J. S. Cummings, personal communication, May 4, 2005).
Journal of Marriage and Family General support for the notion of emotional security can be found in literature pertaining to parent – infant relationships. Infants as young as 3 months have already developed expectations regarding parental behavior during social interactions and respond to changes in that behavior with meaningful emotional expressions; likewise, they communicate with their parents through a complex interaction of attempting to understand each other’s purpose and respond accordingly (Izard et al., 1995). Thus, in terms of the representational component, although infants are unlikely to have complex internal representations of the family, they may be capable of having negative expectations for their own emotional safety as a result of exposure to marital conflict. Support for the behavioral regulation component of emotional security theory requires modification of notions of behavioral regulation to be consistent with developmental capabilities of infants. Although infants are unlikely to interfere during marital conflict, as is common in older children, they are likely to try to avoid or attempt to ameliorate the impact of marital conflict by gaze aversion and self-soothing behaviors in response to emotional dysregulation. Finally, substantial support exists for the emotional reactivity component of emotional security theory. For example, Cummings, Iannotti, and Zahn-Waxler (1985) found that 2-year-olds readily distinguished between positive and angry interactions between experimenters and showed differential distress responses across both conditions. In addition, Cummings, Zahn-Waxler, and Radke-Yarrow (1981) examined mothers’ reports of 10- to 20-month old infants’ responses to naturally occurring and simulated expressions of anger and affection by others and found that infants differentially responded to affectionate versus angry demonstrations, with anger eliciting distress and other negative emotional reactions and affectionate interactions eliciting affectionate behaviors and pleasure in children. Infants’ levels of distress were subsequently amplified when exposed to higher levels of destructive marital conflict. Examinations of infants’ responses to their parents’ emotional expressions have also suggested that infants are able to distinguish between happy, sad, and angry expressions as young as 3.5 months (Montague & WalkerAndrews, 2002) and demonstrate particular sensitivity when emotions are displayed by individuals with whom infants are most
Marital Conflict and Infant Reactions familiar (Kahana-Kalman & Walker-Andrews, 2001; Montague & Walker-Andrews, 2002). Infants’ physiological reactions to the still-face paradigm, which involves maternal flat affect and withdrawal, may inform us about infant reactions to depressive conflict. Infants have been found to exhibit increased heart rate, decreased vagal tone, and increased negative affect after the still-face paradigm (Weinberg & Tronick, 1996). Taken together, these studies suggest that very young infants and older toddlers are emotionally responsive to conflict and discriminate between positive and negative components of conflictual discussions. These studies also suggest that infants may react negatively to both destructive and depressive marital conflict. Ecological validity has been limited in previous examinations of infants’ and toddlers’ reactions to simulated conflict between a stranger and a parent (Ingoldsby, Shaw, Owens, & Winslow, 1999) or between experimenters (Cummings, Iannotti et al., 1985). An additional limitation has been the use of potentially biased parental reports (Morsbach & Prinz, 2006) of child reactions to conflict (Cummings, ZahnWaxler et al., 1981). Failure to assess infants’ reactions in the context of actual disagreements with their parents is also problematic because parents who are engaged in marital conflict may not be aware of the full extent of infants’ reactions because of their own preoccupation with the marital disagreement. Furthermore, exposure to conflict between experimenters or an experimenter and a parent is not likely to elicit the same emotional responses from infants as exposure to conflict between both of their parents with whom they have stronger emotional ties (Kahana-Kalman & Walker-Andrews, 2001). Thus, the assessment of infants’ observed reactions to their parents’ actual marital conflict is a gap that warrants examination. An additional gap is the consideration of children’s history of interparental conflict exposure. The sensitization hypothesis suggests that differences in children’s responses to destructive conflict forge individual differences in children’s emotional regulatory capabilities and responses to interparental conflict (Crockenberg & Langrock, 2001; Grych & Fincham, 1990). In particular, destructive types of marital conflict are thought to undermine children’s emotional security, thus leaving children primed for increased reactivity with repeated exposure (Davies, Sturge-Apple et al., 2006;
223 Davies & Cummings, 1994). Empirical evidence has provided substantial support for sensitization hypothesis in older children, but less is known about infants. Cross-sectional work using maternal reports of marital relationship quality has suggested that there may be positive associations between marital conflict exposure and infants’ decreased emotional regulation abilities (Porter, Wouden-Miller, Silva, & Porter, 2003). Physiological data also has suggested that infants may become increasingly dysregulated when exposed to anger before exposure to a neutral stimulus (Moore, 2009). Children’s reactive temperament, specifically the degree to which children may be predisposed to react negatively and intensely to stimuli (Crockenberg, Leerkes, & Lekka, 2007), has also been hypothesized to be a distal risk factor that may increase children’s vulnerability to interparental conflict (Davies & Cummings, 1994; Gyrch & Fincham, 1990). Children who exhibit more reactive temperaments may display increased sensitivity and greater reactivity during marital conflict or rely on maladaptive ways of coping with the stress elicited by marital conflict exposure (Gyrch & Fincham, 1990). Previous research has elucidated adolescents’ temperament as a moderator between marital conflict and subsequent adjustment difficulties (Davies & Windle, 2001). Research examining associations between marital conflict and infant temperament, however, has yielded uncertain findings. Crockenberg et al. (2007) found that infant temperamental reactivity failed to interact with parent-reported marital aggression to predict infant withdrawal. Direct tests of temperament as a moderator of the relationship between marital conflict and infants’ observed distress responses have yet to be examined. The Present Study and Hypotheses The present study addressed these gaps in the literature by using observational and selfreport methods to capture a finer tuned analysis of the relationships surrounding marital conflict and infants’ reactions to it. Additional advances included considering infants’ history of interparental conflict exposure and infant temperament as moderators of infant reactivity during conflict. For Hypothesis 1, on the basis of previous work with older children, it was hypothesized that infants would show differential responses to conflict. Higher levels
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of constructive conflict were expected to be associated with more positive or neutral reactions by infants, whereas higher levels of destructive conflict were expected to be associated with an increase in negative reactions from infants, particularly frustration. Given that infants previously exhibited increased distress in response to maternal flat affect and withdrawal (Weinberg & Tronick, 1996), it was hypothesized that infants would respond to depressive conflict similarly, demonstrating increased negative reactions, particularly distress. For Hypothesis 2, guided by sensitization, infants with a history of higher exposure to conflict were predicted to react more negatively to negative forms of conflict than infants who have previously been exposed to lower levels of conflict. For Hypothesis 3, on the basis of theory suggesting that temperamentally reactive infants exhibit greater sensitivity and negative reactivity to stressful situations (Davies & Cummings, 1994; Gyrch & Fincham, 1990), it was hypothesized that infants with greater reactive temperament would react more negatively to negative forms of conflict than infants with lower reactive temperament. METHOD Participants We collected the data during the years 2007 – 2009. Participants were recruited by contacting families listed in the Whatcom County, Washington, birth records as having infants in this age range, as well as families recommended by previous participants. Families were required to have been living together since the birth of the child, regardless of marital status, to maximize the potential for families to describe accurately their current rather than previous family circumstances. Of the 75 families contacted who were interested in participating, one family (1%) did not meet inclusion criteria. Participants were 74 nuclear families (mothers’ M age = 29.56 years, standard deviation [SD] = 5.54; fathers’ M age = 31.62 years, SD = 5.87), with infants aged 6.20 to 14.48 months old (M age = 10.07 months, SD = 2.10). Demographic information for families was gathered using mothers’ reports. Sixty-four of the parent couples (85%) were married (M length of marriage = 4.83 years, SD = 3.15 years) and had been living together for an average
of 5.78 years (SD = 3.34). Mothers reported having an average of 1.66 children (SD = .75). In addition, 8.2% of mothers completed high school as their highest level of education, 38.3% attended some college or trade school, 37% held a bachelor’s degree, and 16.5% held a master’s degree or higher. For fathers, 1.4% did not complete high school, 15.1% completed high school as their highest level of education, 42.5% attended some college or trade school, 26% held a bachelor’s degree, and 15% held a master’s degree or higher. Mothers and fathers indicated a modal family income of $40,001 – $65,000 per year. Thirty-three male infants and 41 female infants participated in the study. In the sample, 78.4% of infants were Caucasian, 9.5% were biracial, 1.4% were Asian American or Pacific Islander, 5.4% were identified as ‘‘other,’’ and 5.3% did not report ethnicity. Procedures Parents consenting to participate were mailed packets containing consent forms and self-report questionnaires to be completed at home before the visit at the laboratory. On arrival at the laboratory, a brief overview of the project, consent, and procedures was again presented to the families. Parents then engaged in a marital interaction with their infant present. Measures Observation of marital interactions in the laboratory. Parents indicated separately the three topics that were most typically problematic for their relationship and were then asked to choose a topic that they would both be comfortable discussing. Because previous research has demonstrated that children are particularly sensitive to discussion about themselves or other child-related issues (Grych & Fincham, 1990), parents were asked to not discuss these during their interaction. Parents were instructed to attempt to reach a resolution to their problem and to share their feelings and perspectives on the issue. Parents were instructed to interact and tend their baby as needed as they normally would if they were at home discussing the issue. This resulted in some variation regarding infants’ placement (some were placed on the floor and others in their parents’ lap). In all cases, a standard set of developmentally appropriate toys was available for infants and spread out on the floor
Marital Conflict and Infant Reactions between the parents’ chairs. Families were left alone in the laboratory during their interaction, which was videotaped for later coding. After 7.5 minutes, the research assistant checked in with the parents to see whether they were finished with their discussion. Parents requesting additional time were given an additional 2.5 minutes to complete their discussion. Coding observations of the marital interaction (independent variables). An adapted version of the Marital Daily Records (MDR) protocol was used to code observations of marital interactions (Cummings, Goeke-Morey, Papp, & Dukewich, 2002). The MDR focuses on dimensions found to be important in theory and in past research on marital conflict’s effects on children (Cummings & Davies, 2010) and has good convergent validity with widely used self-report measures of marital conflict and marital relations (Du Rocher Schudlich & Cummings, 2003). It includes the following dimensions of marital conflict: specific negative and constructive conflict expressions, level of positive and negative emotional intensity, and degree of resolution. Interactions were coded on the basis of the entire interaction. Conflict expressions were defined as follows: (a) conflict—the level of tension, hostility, dissension, antagonism, or negative affect an individual displays; (b) defensiveness—trying to avoid blame or responsibility; (c) contempt— lack of respect, insult, mockery, sarcasm, or derision of the other person; (d) withdrawal—an avoidance of the interaction or of the problem discussion in some way; (e) demand—hounding or nagging partner; (f) communication skills—level of appropriate and positive expressive skills; (g) support validation—appropriate and positive listening skills, as well as speaking skills that convey supportiveness and understanding to the partner; (h) problem solving—the ability to constructively define a problem (in the relationship) and work toward a mutually satisfactory solution for the problem; and (i) humor—trying to make a joke, finding something funny about the situation, trying to lighten the mood, but not making fun of the other person. For each of the behaviors, frequency and degree of behavior intensity were considered and coded on a scale from 1 to 9, with 1 = absence of the expression, 5 = midrange levels, and 9 = most intense expressions. The degree of emotional intensity of each of four emotions (positivity, anger, sadness, and
225 anxiousness) and the overall degree (1 – 9) of conflict resolution were coded for each parent, on the same 1 – 9 scale. The primary adaptation to the coding system included coding behaviors on a 1 – 9 scale, based on the Couples’ Interaction Global Coding System, rather than the original 0 – 2 scale of the MDR (Julien, Markman, Lindahl, Johnson, & Van Widenfelt, 1987). Each discussion was coded once by one of five undergraduate research assistants. The coders received extensive training by the principal investigator. A subset of 25 interactions was used to assess the coders’ agreement with the principal investigator’s codes for couples’ tactics, emotions, and degree of conflict resolution using Intraclass Correlation Coefficient (ICC) (3,k), which is equivalent to Cronbach’s α (Shrout & Fleiss, 1979). Alphas for conflict expressions ranged from .60 to .98, with a mean alpha of .91. For the purposes of analyses, parents’ conflict tactics, emotions, and resolution were sorted into three categories according to conceptual criteria based on the research literature on marital conflict and child adjustment: constructive, destructive, and depressive conflict behavior. Constructive patterns of conflict included problem solving, communication skills, support validation, humor, positivity, resolution, and self-reported loving feelings and happiness. Destructive patterns of conflict included conflict, contempt, defensiveness, demand, and observed and self-reported anger. Finally, depressive conflict patterns included withdrawal; observed sadness and anxiousness; and self-reported feelings of worry, scaredness, sadness, helplessness, and hopelessness. Confirmatory factor analyses confirmed the existence of the three factors, with behaviors loading adequately on their respective factors (details of the factor analysis can be obtained from the first author). Each of the conflict composites had high internal consistency: α for mothers and fathers were .89 and .84 for destructive conflict, .73 and .64 for depressive conflict, and .85 and .85 for constructive conflict, respectively. These conflict dimensions derived from observed conflict have good convergent and predictive validity with widely used self-report measures of marital conflict, marital relations, and depressive symptoms (Du Rocher Schudlich et al., 2004) Children’s reactions during live marital conflict in the laboratory (dependent variables). To
226 assess infants’ reactions during actual marital interactions, infants were present during their parents’ marital disagreement and videotaped for later coding. The procedures used to assess infant reactions were conceptually based on emotional security theory and have strong face and content validity based on the direct correspondence between the affective and behavioral conceptual components of emotional security theory, which suggests that behavioral and emotion regulation and dysregulation are central and observable components of emotional security at all ages (Davies, Forman et al., 2002). Coding procedures were adapted from infants’ responses to angry social interactions and have previously been used to code infants’ behavior from a wide developmental spectrum, 10 months to 2.5 years of age (Cummings, Zahn-Waxler, et al., 1984). Both intensity and frequency of behaviors and emotions were considered. Codes were scored from 0 = absence of the behavior to 4 = strong intensity and frequency of the behavior, and included discussion attending (attention directed toward parents), frustration (undirected expressions of anger; frustration demonstrated by a scowl, furrowed brow, yelling, and screaming), self-soothing (sucking thumb, gaze aversion, rocking), sadness (fussiness, sad facial and vocal expressions, despondence), physical frustration (physical frustration directed at object or parent such as throwing objects, hitting, kicking, or biting), dysregulation (intense, multiple, and potentially contradictory emotions, behaviors, and strategies in attempts to cope with conflict), contentment (smiling, laughing, cooing, expressing happiness or positivity), and play/exploration (exploration of the environment, playing with toys). A binary code (infant location) reflecting where the infant spent the majority of the time during the interaction was also coded, with 1 = on floor and 2 = in a parent’s lap. Infants’ reactions during marital conflict were coded by raters blind to other study and coding information. Codes of two advanced graduate students and the principal investigator served as the standard to which the scoring of the other coders was compared for interrater reliability. A subset of 25 interactions was used to assess the coders’ agreement with the graduate students’ codes for infant reactions, using ICC (3, k), which is equivalent to Cronbach’s α (Shrout & Fleiss, 1979). Alphas for infants’ behaviors ranged from .84 to 1.0, with a mean alpha of
Journal of Marriage and Family .95. Before use in analyses, infant variables demonstrating moderate or severe kurtosis or skewness were transformed with log and square root functions, which successfully reduced skew and kurtosis to values within acceptable limits. To determine whether age was related to the type of reactions observed, we performed a median split on infant age and estimated frequencies of infant reactions by infant age, finding that all reactions were demonstrated by both older and younger groups of infants, except for physical frustration, which was observed only in older infants. Individual reaction codes were used for analyses pertaining to infant reactions during conflict. A global affect dysregulation composite was created for use in moderation analyses. Guided by a principal components analysis, scores from each of the negative infant reactions were summed and then scores from the positive reactions subtracted. This yielded a global infant affect dysregulation score, with higher scores reflecting greater dysregulation. Internal consistency results for the infant reaction composite were adequate (α = .77). Infant exposure to interparental conflict (moderator). Child exposure to interparental conflict was assessed using two items from the Conflicts and Problem-Solving Scale (CPS; Kerig, 1996). Parents rated often they ‘‘Argue in front of the child(ren)’’ and ‘‘Argue when the child(ren) might be able to overhear’’ on a scale from 0 = never to 3 = usually. These two items were averaged separately for mothers and fathers. Correlations between fathers’ and mothers’ scores were significant (r = .42, p < .001), and thus a composite conflict exposure history score was made by averaging their scores. Infant reactive temperament (moderator). Four subscales of the Infant Behavior QuestionnaireRevised (IBQ-R; Gartstein & Rothbart, 2003) were used to assess infant reactive temperament: recovery from distress rate, soothability, fear, and distress. The IBQ-R has been developed for use in infants between the ages of 3 and 12 months and is a well-established inventory designed to measure infant temperament. Both mothers and fathers completed the scales. Parents were presented with various descriptions of infant behavior and asked to describe how often their infant displayed the behavior during the previous 1 – 2 weeks on a 7-point scale,
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ranging from 1 = never to 7 = always. In this study, αs for the recovery from distress rate, soothability, fear, and distress scales were .75, .75, .87, and .55 for fathers and .75, .85, .85, and .75 for mothers, respectively. Mothers’ and fathers’ scores on each of the scales were significantly correlated (r = .57, .23, .38, and .27, respectively for recovery, distress, fear and self-soothe) and thus were averaged to create composite scores. Scores on positive subscales were reverse scored and scores on each of the subscales were then summed to create one global infant reactive temperament score, with higher values indicating greater levels of temperament reactivity. Internal consistency for the final composite was .61.
Correlational analyses examined the pattern of associations between infant reactions during conflict and interparental conflict, infant reactive temperament, and interparental conflict history. Results are presented in Table 2. Infant discussion preoccupation, dysregulation, and aggression during conflict were positively associated with mothers’ and fathers’ destructive and depressive conflict and negatively associated with constructive conflict. Few associations were found for the positive and neutral infant reactions. Infant play had significant negative associations with fathers’ destructive conflict, and contentment had negative associations with depressive conflict for fathers. History of interparental conflict exposure and infant reactive temperament were not significantly correlated with infant reactions to current conflict. Correlational analyses of observed current interparental conflict and parent report of child exposure to conflict were also conducted and revealed no significant correlations. Independent samples t-tests were conducted to determine whether location affected infants’ reactions. Results indicated three significant differences: infants who were primarily in a parent’s lap were more distressed (t(1,73) = 4.08, p < .001), self-soothed more (t(1,73) = 2.39, p < .05), and played less (t(1,73) = −4.56,
RESULTS Preliminary Analyses Table 1 presents the means and standard deviations for observed fathers’ and mothers’ conflict expressions, infant reactions during interparental conflict, parent-reported interparental conflict history, and infant reactive temperament. Infants showed a diversity of behaviors during interparental conflict, demonstrating higher means for more positive reactions than for negative reactions.
Table 1. Descriptive Statistics (N = 74) Variables Observed interparental conflict Father destructive Father depressive Father constructive Mother destructive Mother depressive Mother constructive Infant behaviors during conflict Discussion preoccupation Frustration Distress Dysregulation Physical frustration Self-soothing Contentment Play Infant affect dysregulation composite Interparental conflict exposure history Infant reactive temperament
M
SD
Range of Scores
15.74 13.24 42.83 17.25 14.53 41.73
8.64 6.51 11.33 7.93 6.18 11.51
6 – 50 8 – 40 12 – 64 6 – 36 8 – 40 17 – 62
1.81 .57 1.03 .52 .10 .79 2.24 3.03 −2.31 1.31 49.14
.96 .99 1.17 .70 .42 1.19 1.13 1.10 3.62 .63 4.72
0–4 0–4 0–4 0–4 0–2 0–4 0–4 0–4 −7 – 14 0 – 2.5 38.75 – 64.72
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Table 2. Intercorrelations Between Observed Infant Reactions, Parents’ Marital Conflict Expressions, Infant Reactive Temperament, and Interparental Conflict Exposure History Infant Behaviors During Marital Conflict (N = 74) Discussion Preoccupation Frustration Distress Dysregulation
Variables Father destructive Father depressive Father constructive Mother destructive Mother depressive Mother constructive Conflict exposure history Reactive temperament ∗p
Physical Frustration
SelfSoothing
Contentment Play
.24∗ .36∗∗ −.35∗∗ .30∗∗ .22 −.39∗∗∗ .00
.09 .16 −.30∗∗ .10 .32∗∗ −.16 .06
.21 .08 .04 .05 .02 .07 .18
.30∗∗ .21 −.30∗∗ .18 .15 −.17 .13
.19 .16 −.36∗∗ .16 .34∗∗ −.24∗ .09
−.06 −.15 .13 −.14 −.21 .18 −.19
−.10 −.24∗ .03 −.07 −.05 .07 −.14
−.23∗ −.15 .19 −.08 −.15 .09 .07
−.01
−.02
.06
.10
.08
−.07
−.02
−.13
< .05. ∗∗ p < .005. ∗∗∗ p < .001.
p < .001) than infants who were primarily on the floor. Finally, correlational analyses examining relations between infant age and infant reactions during conflict revealed no significant relations. Data Analysis Plan To account for the dependency of mothers’ and fathers’ conflict data, dyadic multilevel modeling (MLM) was used (SPSS v 16.0) to estimate (a) the associations between interparental conflict and infant behavior, (b) whether interparental conflict history moderated associations between current interparental conflict and infant behavior, and (c) whether infant reactive temperament moderated associations between current interparental conflict and infant behavior. We used a two-level model, with the dyad as the unit of analysis. Eight separate models were estimated for each of the infant behavior outcomes. We used the method of restricted maximum-likelihood estimation and the Satterwhite approximation to determine degrees of freedom. All predictors entered into the model were grand mean centered. We first compared unconstrained models, in which separate estimates were made for fathers and mothers in one model, with constrained models, in which the estimates for fathers and mothers for the intercept and predictors were set to be equal. This approach compares a full model allowing for parent gender differences with a simpler nested model constraining parent gender effects to be equal across equations. The deviances of the
two models can be compared, yielding a χ 2 statistic with degrees of freedom equal to the difference in parameters. A nonsignificant χ 2 is consistent with the null hypothesis that there are no significant parent gender differences in the conflict predictors. A nonsignificant χ 2 was found for each test; thus, all final models were estimated constraining the parent gender effects to be equal, using correlation compound symmetry for the covariance structure. Although both mother and father conflict predictors were entered in all final models, because values were equal for them, tables present one value per conflict predictor. We next examined infant age and location as potential moderators of effects. There were no significant moderation effects for age or location in any of the estimated models, and thus final retained models considered age and location as control variables rather than moderators. All significant interactions were probed using standard pick-a-point techniques, which have been validated in multilevel models (Preacher, Curran, & Bauer, 2006). Models for Associations Between Observed Interparental Conflict and Infant Reactions Multilevel modeling analyses revealed numerous significant associations between observed interparental conflict and infant behaviors (see Table 3). Greater levels of destructive conflict were significantly associated with more discussion preoccupation, distress, dysregulation, and physical frustration and less play by infants. Greater levels of depressive conflict
∗p
.00 −.73 −.00 −.02 .01
B
.00 .38 .02 .03 −.02
B
SE
.00 .213 .007 .009 .004
t
.02 2.25∗ 3.68∗∗∗ 3.83∗∗∗ −4.64∗∗∗
B .00 .37 −.00 .01 .00
t
.00 .39 .01 .03 −.01
B
−.01 −3.44∗∗∗ −.49 −2.18∗ .84
Self-Soothing
.00 .171 .005 .007 .003
SE
< .05. ∗∗ p < .01. ∗∗∗ p < .001.
Infant age Infant location Destructive conflict Depressive conflict Constructive conflict
Infant age Infant location Destructive conflict Depressive conflict Constructive conflict
Variable
Discussion Preoccupation
SE .00 .208 .006 .009 .004
t
.01 1.79 −.27 1.10 .98
t
.00 2.25∗ 1.17 3.83∗∗∗ −2.85∗∗
Contentment
.00 .171 .006 .007 .004
SE
Frustration
.00 1.42 −.02 −.02 .01
B
.00 −1.24 .02 .00 −.01
B
.00 .17 .006 .007 .003
SE
Play
.00 .180 .006 .008 .004
SE
Distress
.00 8.25∗∗∗ −3.16∗∗ −3.54∗∗ 3.84∗∗∗
t
.00 −6.91∗∗∗ 3.28∗∗ .99 −1.11
t .00 −.14 .02 .02 −.01
B .00 .14 .004 .006 .003
SE t .01 −.98 3.81∗∗∗ 3.35∗∗ −3.46∗∗
Dysregulation
Table 3. MLMS of the Associations Between Parents’ Marital Conflict Expressions and Infants’ Reactions (N = 74)
.00 .13 .01 .01 −.01
B
.00 .081 .002 .003 .001
SE
.01 1.61 2.01∗ 3.33∗∗ −3.42∗∗
t
Physical Frustration
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were significantly associated with more discussion preoccupation, frustration, dysregulation, and physical frustration and less self-soothing and play behaviors by infants. Finally, greater levels of constructive conflict were associated with less discussion preoccupation, frustration, physical frustration, and dysregulation and more play behavior by infants. Moderating Role of Interparental Conflict Exposure History To prevent Type I errors potentially resulting from a large number of models being estimated, analyses assessing the moderating role of interparental conflict exposure history were conducted using a global composite of infant affect dysregulation. Significant main effects were found for infant location (B = −2.04, SE = .675, t = −3.02, p < .01) and for both depressive (B = .12, SE = .031, t = 3.83, p < .001) and destructive (B = .08, SE = .022, t = 3.48, p < .01) conflict, thus predicting higher levels of infant affect dysregulation. No main effects were found for interparental conflict exposure history. The results were qualified
by a significant interaction for interparental conflict exposure history, with destructive conflict (B = .11, SE = .040, t = 2.52, p < .05). This interaction was probed by testing the simple slopes defining the relationship between destructive conflict expressions at levels of interparental conflict exposure history 1 SD below and 1 SD above the mean. Consistent with Hypothesis 2, the positive association between destructive conflict and infants’ affect dysregulation was significant only for infants with a history of higher levels of exposure to marital conflict (B = 1.81, SE = 0.66, p < .01; Figure 1). Moderating Role of Infant Reactive Temperament Multilevel modeling analyses examining the moderating role of infant reactive temperament also used the global infant affect dysregulation composite. Both destructive (B = .03, SE = .008, t = 4.45, p < .001) and depressive (B = .04, SE = .017, t = 2.47, p < .05) conflict demonstrated significant main effects in predicting infant affect dysregulation. Reactive
FIGURE 1. INTERPARENTAL CONFLICT EXPOSURE AS A MODERATOR OF THE ASSOCIATION BETWEEN INTERPARENTAL CONFLICT AND INFANT AFFECT DYSREGULATION.
1
Infant Affect Dysregulation
0.5 0
High Conflict Exposure +1 SD
–0.5 –1 –1.5
Low Conflict Exposure –1 SD
–2 –2.5 –3 –3.5 –8.22
–4.11
0
4.11
Destructive Conflict
8.22
Marital Conflict and Infant Reactions FIGURE 2. INFANT TEMPERAMENT AS A MODERATOR OF ASSOCIATION BETWEEN INTERPARENTAL CONFLICT AND INFANT AFFECT DYSREGULATION.
THE
1
Infant Affect Dysregulation
0 High Reactive Temperament +1 SD Low Reactive Temperament –1 SD
–1 –2 –3 –4 –5 –6 –7 –8 –8.22
–4.11 0 4.11 Destructive Conflict
8.22
0
Infant Affect Dysregulation
–1 –2
High Reactive Temperament +1 SD
–3 –4
Low Reactive Temperament –1 SD
–5 –6 –7 –6.35
–3.175 0 3.175 Depressive Conflict
6.35
temperament did not have significant main effects. Significant interactions emerged for reactive temperament, with both destructive (B = −.01, SE = .002, t = −5.01, p < .001) and depressive (B = −.001, SE = .000, t = −2.26, p < .05) conflict. These interactions were probed by testing the simple slopes defining the relationship between destructive and depressive conflict expressions at levels of infant reactive temperament 1 SD below and 1 SD above the mean. The positive association between destructive (B = .32, SE = 0.06, p < .05) and depressive (B = .33, SE = 0.08, p < .05) conflict and infants’ affect dysregulation was significant only for infants with lower levels of reactive temperament (Figure 2). DISCUSSION Breaking new ground with an understudied population and using a strong multimethod
231 approach, this study examined infants’ reactions during marital conflict to delineate specific conflict styles that may be most detrimental to their emotional security. Following previous work with older children (Du Rocher Schudlich & Cummings, 2003, 2007), multiple dimensions of conflict were assessed. Our findings revealed that infants showed differential responses to destructive, depressive, and constructive forms of marital conflict, such that destructive and depressive conflict resolution styles were associated with increased infant discussion attending and negative reactions, whereas constructive conflict was associated with decreased discussion attending and negative reactions and more infant play. Results are consistent with previous empirical examinations of marital conflict’s effects on older children, which suggests that the effect of conflict on infants largely depends on the way in which the conflict is handled (Cummings & Davies, 2010). In particular, the current results support previous examinations suggesting that destructive and depressive forms of marital conflict may both have detrimental impacts on infants’ emotional security (Cummings, Goeke-Morey, & Papp, 2004; Du Rocher Schudlich & Cummings, 2007), whereas constructive conflict may have benign effects and even foster infants’ emotional security (Easterbrooks, Cummings, & Emde, 1994). Infants’ responses were not moderated by parent gender, which is in contrast to previous work documenting infants’ increased sensitivity to maternal versus paternal emotional expressions (Montague & Walker-Andrews, 2002). Our findings suggest that mothers’ and fathers’ emotional expressions occurring in the same interaction may be equally important predictors of infants’ emerging emotional regulatory abilities. Although our general hypothesis that both destructive and depressive styles of conflict would be associated with negative infant reactions was supported, our hypothesis surrounding the nature of the specific reactions to each style was not. Depressive conflict was associated with greater frustration and not distress, whereas destructive conflict was associated with greater distress. Emotional contagion (Saarni, Mumme, & Campos, 1998) and behavioral modeling theories (Parke, 1994) would suggest that children are likely to express emotions similar to those of their parents. It is likely though that parents’ displays of each of these unique types of conflict did not occur in isolation; elements
232 of both types of conflict may have been present in the same interaction, eliciting a mix of reactions in infants. Previous findings linking greater destructive conflict to frustration also have not simultaneously examined depressive conflict as a distinct construct and elements of depressive conflict may partially explain greater frustration. Depressive conflict was also positively associated with infant dysregulation and negatively associated with infant self-soothing behaviors. The affective components of depressive marital conflict have been conceptualized as being suggestive of dysphoria (Davis et al., 2000; Du Rocher Schudlich & Cummings, 2003), which has been linked with less parental warmth and sensitivity (Owen & Cox, 1997). Depressive conflict may diminish parents’ abilities to provide warm, sensitive care to their children (Cox et al., 2001; Erel & Burman, 1995) or may lead parents to less effectively teach self-soothing or emotion regulation skills to their children. Children’s dysregulation and decreased self-soothing behaviors, therefore, may reflect the child’s inability to use parents as a source of comfort and security because of decreased parental warmth and responsiveness. One mechanism of affect transmission from parents to infants may be through physical tension and the quality of parents’ touch that infants feel when being held by their parents during conflict. This was supported by results indicating that infants who were held were more distressed and engaged in more self-soothing than infants who were on the floor. Furthermore, infants on the floor played more than infants who were held. Thus, infants who are nearby but not actually held by their parents may be able to better shift their attention from the conflict to other more positive alternatives, and thus be less distressed. Results also supported a sensitization hypothesis, in which history of conflict exposure predicted children’s current reactions during marital conflict (Crockenberg & Langrock, 2001). The positive association between destructive conflict and infant affect dysregulation was significant only for infants with a higher history of exposure to marital conflict. The history of greater exposure to interparental conflict may leave infants dysregulated and feeling insecure about their own safety and emotional needs being met and thus primed to react more negatively to future negative forms of conflict (Davies & Cummings, 1994). Significant moderation effects were not
Journal of Marriage and Family found for conflict exposure in relation to depressive conflict. The subtler behaviors exemplified by this type of conflict may not be represented in parents’ reports of child exposure to conflict; thus, these results may not be as representative of sensitization to depressive conflict. Finally, infant temperament moderated the relationship between infants’ reactions and negative forms of marital conflict. Contrary to hypotheses, depressive and destructive conflict were associated with greater infant affect dysregulation only among infants with lower temperamental reactivity. This relation was unexpected and requires further study and replication. One explanation may be that highly reactive temperamental attributes increase children’s risk for emotional dysregulation (Davies & Cummings, 1994; Gyrch & Fincham, 1990), and any level of negative conflict may pose a challenge to these particularly sensitive infants. The greater negativity these infants experience on a daily basis may tax their coping abilities to handle the additional stress of interparental conflict, thus placing them at greater risk for emotional insecurity and increased emotional dysregulation. In contrast, less temperamentally reactive infants responded with increased distress and emotional dysregulation when faced with higher levels of negative types of conflict, which suggests that even less temperamentally reactive infants are not immune to the negative effects of exposure to high levels of destructive and depressive forms of interparental conflict. Implications The current study has several implications with regard to children’s well-being stemming from exposure to marital conflict. The link between repeated exposure to conflict and adjustment difficulties in children has been well supported in the literature (Cummings & Davies, 2010; Rhoades, 2008). Children who repeatedly witness marital conflict often exhibit externalizing difficulties, such as heightened aggression and noncompliance (Cummings, Goeke-Morey, & Papp, 2004; Rhoades, 2008) and are more likely to also experience internalizing disorders, such as depression and somatic complaints (Davies & Cummings, 1998; Rhoades, 2008). Infants’ short-term, negative reactions during conflict, such as those seen in the current study, may lead to these long-term, problematic response patterns.
Marital Conflict and Infant Reactions Results of this study highlight the importance of disseminating to clinicians and the community the significance of managing interparental conflict in appropriate, well-modulated ways. Special emphasis should be placed on the implementation of effective conflict strategies. Although community programs currently exist that emphasize interparental conflict education for parents of older children (Cummings, Faircloth, Mitchell, Cummings, & Schermerhorn, 2008), programs aimed at much younger children are essential to prevent problems from developing at the time when children are at the highest risk (Fantuzzo et al., 1997). Such interventions may increase parents’ ability to warmly and sensitively respond to their infants, decrease infant distress and dysregulation, and possibly decrease long-term maladjustment. Limitations and Future Directions Although findings from this study suggest that specific infant behaviors may arise from certain marital conflict styles, the correlational nature of the data prohibits determination of causality in these relations. Further research is needed to better understand complex transactions between interparental conflict and infant reactions over time. Additional factors may play important roles in the relations between interparental conflict and infant reactions, such as parenting (Cox et al., 2001), parent – child attachment (Owen & Cox, 1997), and infant physiological and emotion regulation abilities (Porter et al., 2003). Different relations might be found for clinical samples seeking couple or family therapy. Thus, caution should be used in generalizing these findings. Confounders of associations such as parental depression should also be considered, as they may have influenced self-report on child temperament and conflict exposure history, as well as observed conflict. Limitations of using laboratory observational measures of interparental conflict and infant reactions were also considered. Although such approaches are generally highly correlated with family behaviors occurring at home and as reported by families, the laboratory setting may constrain the expression of negative behaviors that may occur more frequently or intensely at home. Therefore, replication of the findings in home settings would be useful. Emotional security comprises not only affect and behavior but also representations, which
233 we were not able to assess in such young infants. Thus, we assessed only two of the three components of emotional security theory. Although infant reactions during conflict may reflect underlying security, it is possible that observed reactions may simply reflect temporary responses to stressors. Longitudinal research is needed to examine the development of these processes over time. Finally, the use of a primarily White, middle-class sample may limit generalizability to broader samples of ethnically and economically diverse samples. NOTE This research was supported in part by internal grants from Western Washington University awarded to the first author. We thank our two teams of coders (Alyssa Hertel, Emily Smith, Clare White, Brittany Davenport, Clare White, Alicia Gleason, Kelly A. Fitzgerald, Emily Fleischhauer, Katie Russnogle, Kristen Stouder, Stacy Hotes, Angelica White, and Sherri Payne) for their invaluable assistance in coding the family interactions; we express our appreciation to Ryan Erps, who assisted with the CRIES coding manual; and we express our gratitude to all the families who contributed their time to make this project possible.
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