Impact of the Early Family Emotional Climate on Preschooler Emotion Dysregulation - PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT In dual parenting households, a high degree of conflict and discord between parents poses unique and signifi- cant risk for child emotion dysregulation, largely by undermining a child’s sense of emotional security and safety in the family. Most research has linked interparental conflict to child dysregulation during middle child- hood or adolescence. What is less clear is if and how interparental conflict during the first two years of life— when children are heavily dependent on parents and highly sensitive to family dynamics—ultimately alters the development of healthy emotion regulation skills. Interparental conflict during infancy and toddler age is ex- pected to foster a negative emotional family climate and undermine responsive parenting, which is essential for building emotional awareness and adaptive emotion regulation skills in children. However, research demon- strates that deprivation (e.g., the absence of warmth) can be just as detrimental as exposure to threat and ad- versity. Thus, considering the degree to which parents have a warm, affectionate, and intimate bond with one another, and how this contributes to an enriching and secure family environment, has the potential to reveal another vital aspect of the early family system in addition to interparental conflict dynamics. Children also differ in their temperamental sensitivity to context, and attention should be paid to differences in susceptibility to early environments shaped by interparental dynamics. Our objective in the proposed research is to determine if and how qualities of the interparental relationship during the first two years of childhood ultimately impact the development of child emotion regulation. Our central hypothesis is that both maladaptive conflict management and (low) emotional intimacy in the interparental relationship spill over into parent-toddler interactions and un- dermine processes that are critical for healthy emotion socialization of children, setting the stage for child emo- tion dysregulation, particularly for children who are most sensitive to their environments. To achieve our objec- tive, we will collect rich, multimethod data (i.e., interviews, behavioral observations, surveys, responsive eco- logical momentary assessments in the home) across 4 waves spanning infancy (age 1 year) to preschool (age 3 years) in a large sample of 250 families. The expected outcome of this research is an unprecedented under- standing of early familial pathways impeding or promoting child emotion regulation. Given that emotion dysreg- ulation substantially increases risk for psychopathology and related adverse outcomes (e.g., poor physical health, social deficits) throughout the lifespan, it is critical that we understand the optimal early family condi- tions that support emotion regulation development for informing highly efficacious early childhood interven- tions.
