FAMILY PROCESS, EMOTIONAL SECURITY, AND CHILD ADJUSTMENT

虽然已知父母之间的关系直接影响儿童的功能(即，暴露在冲突中)，并通过育儿间接影响儿童的功能，但人们对这些途径的具体过程知之甚少。根据一种新的情绪安全理论，儿童的情绪安全被概念化为亲子关系对儿童适应的直接和间接影响的主要中介过程。目前的提案试图检验从这一理论的核心命题中得出的假设。首先，婚姻关系被认为在儿童问题的发展中起到直接的病因作用，因为它威胁到父母之间的子系统中儿童的情感安全感。第二，婚姻冲突通过其与父母教养方式的联系，间接导致儿童的情绪不安全感，从而为他们未来的心理风险奠定基础。第三，虽然建设性的婚姻关系(例如，解决冲突、亲密关系)被认为是为了促进健康的家庭环境以及儿童的安全和能力，但破坏性的婚姻关系(例如，敌意、养育子女的争斗)被认为对家庭和儿童的功能具有有害后果。第四，假设更广泛的家庭背景的特征(如父母抑郁、儿童气质)在影响父母养育和婚姻困扰以及改变其对儿童适应的影响的性质方面是突出的。160名小学生和他们的父母将参加一项两波纵向研究，测量时间间隔12个月。情绪安全的三方运作，具体定义为情绪调节、家庭关系表征和家庭情感暴露调节，使得它特别适合于跨越多个家庭子系统(例如，婚姻、亲子)的实证检验。所有关键因素(即婚姻关系、育儿、安全、子女适应)都将使用多种方法、代理人和背景进行评估。将测量家庭关系和儿童功能的适应性和非适应性方面，以确定一套广泛的发展机制，这些机制潜在着能力、复原力和早期上学期间的风险。结构的纵向设计和重复测量将允许描绘预期的调解人和调解人模型，以及分析家庭过程中的稳定性、变化和双向。

While interparental relations are known to affect children's functioning directly (i.e., exposure to conflict), and indirectly through parenting, little is known about the specific processes responsible for these pathways. According to a new theory of emotional security, children's emotional security is conceptualized as a primary mediating process of the direct and indirect effects of interparental relations on child adjustment. The current proposal seeks to test the hypotheses derived from the core proposition of this theory. First, marital relations are proposed to play a direct etiological role in the development of child problems by threatening children's sense of emotional security in the interparental subsystem. Second, marital conflict, through its link with parenting disturbances, is proffered to indirectly lead to children's emotional insecurity and thus lay the foundation for their future psychological risk. Third, whereas constructive marital relations (e.g., conflict resolution, intimacy) are hypothesized to foster healthy family contexts and children's security and competency, destructive marital relations (e.g., hostility, child-rearing fights) are thought to have deleterious consequences for family and child functioning. Fourth, characteristics of the wider family context (e.g., parental depression, child temperament) are hypothesized to be salient in shaping parenting and marital disturbances and changing the nature of their impact on child adjustment. One hundred and sixty elementary school children and their parents will participate in a two-wave longitudinal study, with measurement occasions spaced 12 months apart. The tripartite operationalization of emotional security, specifically defined as emotion regulation, representations of family relations, and regulation of exposure to family affect, makes it particularly amenable to empirical testing across multiple family subsystems (e.g., marital, parent-child). All key constructs (i.e., marital relations, parenting, security, child adjustment) will be assessed using multiple methods, agents, and contexts. Adaptive and maladaptive dimensions of family relations and child functioning will be measured to identify a broad set of developmental mechanisms underlying competency, resilience, and risk in the early school years. The longitudinal design and repeated measures of constructs will allow for the delineation of prospective mediator and moderator models as well as the analysis of stability, change, and bidirectionality among family processes.