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Poverty, household chaos, and interparental aggression predict children's ability to recognize and modulate negative emotions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 September 2014

C. Cybele Raver ,
Clancy Blair ,
Patricia Garrett-Peters  and
Family Life Project Key Investigators
C. Cybele Raver*
Affiliation:
New York University
Clancy Blair
Affiliation:
New York University
Patricia Garrett-Peters
Affiliation:
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Family Life Project Key Investigators
Affiliation:
New York University
*
Address correspondence and reprint requests to: C. Cybele Raver, Institute of Human Development and Social Change, New York University, 196 Mercer Street, 8th floor, New York, NY 10012; E-mail: [email protected].
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Abstract

The following prospective longitudinal study considers the ways that protracted exposure to verbal and physical aggression between parents may take a substantial toll on emotional adjustment for 1,025 children followed from 6 to 58 months of age. Exposure to chronic poverty from infancy to early childhood as well as multiple measures of household chaos were also included as predictors of children's ability to recognize and modulate negative emotions in order to disentangle the role of interparental conflict from the socioeconomic forces that sometimes accompany it. Analyses revealed that exposure to greater levels of interparental conflict, more chaos in the household, and a higher number of years in poverty can be empirically distinguished as key contributors to 58-month-olds' ability to recognize and modulate negative emotion. Implications for models of experiential canalization of emotional processes within the context of adversity are discussed.

Type
Regular Articles
Information
Development and Psychopathology , Volume 27 , Issue 3 , August 2015 , pp. 695 - 708
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

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