Marital Conflict and Children's Emergent Negative Emotionality: A Genetically Informed Approach
Open AccessMarital Conflict and Children’s Emergent Negative Emotionality: A Genetically Informed Approach Previous research consistently demonstrates that exposure to marital hostility is associated with negative developmental outcomes for children. Few studies, however, have examined the processes through which marital hostility affects children’s outcomes. Guided by Emotional Security Theory (EST; Davies et al., 2002) the current study used a cross-lagged design to examine associations between marital hostility and the temperament trait of toddler negative emotionality in a longitudinal, adoption sample, with an additional focus on the moderating role of genetic influences. Adoption designs are well-suited to examine the main and interactive effects of genetic and environmental risks because the adoptees are not genetically related to their adoptive parents. As such, the children’s genetic and environmentally-based risks for heightened negative emotionality are independent of each other. Participants were drawn from the Early Development and Growth Study (EGDS). EGDS is a prospective adoption study that includes 561 adoptees placed at birth, along with their adoptive parents (APs) and birth parents (BPs). Child negative emotionality was assessed via APs’ reports at 9- and 27-months of child age. The emotional quality of the interparental relationship was included as an environmental predictor of child negative emotionality, and was assessed via AP report at 9- and 27-months of child age. Genetic influences included the birth mothers’ self-reported temperament characteristic of harm avoidance. Overall findings indicated that: 1) There is high stability in marital hostility over time; 2) there is moderate stability in child negative emotionality over time; and 3) change in temperament was partially accounted for by an interaction between genetic predisposition and marital hostility. Specifically, when using adoptive-mother reported temperament, the impact of marital hostility on children’s developing temperament trait of negative emotionality was greater for a subset of genetically vulnerable children. Collectively, these findings underscore the importance of both genetic and environmental contributions to developing temperament and the need for targeted intervention programs, as well as highlight differences between parents in their perception of their children’s temperament. Keywords: temperament, negative emotionality, marital hostility, adoption, gene by environment interactions
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Zappaterra_gwu_0075A_13230.pdf | 2018-01-16 | Open Access |
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