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The goal of this study was to advance understanding of how adolescent conflict appraisals contribute uniquely, and in combination with interparental conflict behavior, to individual differences in adolescent physiological reactivity. Saliva samples were collected from 153 adolescents (52% female; ages 10–17 years) before and after the Trier Social Stress Test. Saliva was assayed for cortisol and alpha‐amylase. Results revealed interactive effects between marital conflict and conflict appraisals. For youth who appraised parental conflict negatively (particularly as threatening), negative marital conflict predicted dampened reactivity; for youth who appraised parental conflict less negatively, negative marital conflict predicted heightened reactivity. These findings support the notion that the family context and youth appraisals of family relationships are linked with individual differences in biological sensitivity to context.

AbstractPredictable patterns in early parent–child interactions may help lay the foundation for how children learn to self‐regulate. The present study examined contingencies between maternal teaching and directives and child compliance in mother–child problem‐solving interactions at age 3.5 and whether they predicted children's behavioral regulation and dysregulation (inhibitory control and externalizing behaviors) as rated by mothers, fathers, and teachers at a four‐month follow‐up (N = 100). The predictive utility of mother‐ and child‐initiated contingencies was also compared with that of frequencies of individual mother and child behaviors. Structural equation models revealed that a higher probability that maternal directives were followed by child compliance predicted better child behavioral regulation, whereas the reverse pattern and the overall frequency of maternal directives did not. For teaching, stronger mother‐ and child‐initiated contingencies and the overall frequency of maternal teaching all showed evidence for predicting better behavioral regulation. Findings depended on which caregiver was rating child outcomes. We conclude that dyadic measures are useful for understanding how parent–child interactions impact children's burgeoning regulatory abilities in early childhood.

AbstractWe observed the positive emotion socialization practice of parental emotion coaching (EC) and the negative socialization practice of emotion dismissing (ED) during a family interaction task and examined their effects on children's emotion regulation and behavior problems in middle childhood. Participants were 87 sociodemographically diverse families (children aged 8–11 years; 46 girls). Outcome measures included mother, father and teacher reports of emotion regulation and behavior problems. ED was a risk factor, contributing to poorer emotion regulation and more behavioral problems. EC did not offer direct benefits for children's emotional and behavioral outcomes, but interacted with ED such that it protected children from the detrimental effects of ED. This protective effect was found for parents' coaching of negative but not positive emotions. Findings suggested that in family emotion conversation, EC and ED interact in complex ways as risk and protective dimensions of family process.

ObjectiveThe goal of this study was to provide the first empirical investigation of associations among interparental conflict, adolescents' attention to emotion in interpersonal interactions, and adolescents' anxiety.BackgroundPrevious research suggests that both interparental conflict and attention biases have implications for youth anxiety.MethodAdolescents (n = 60, aged 10–19 years) viewed neutral versus emotional (angry, happy) photo pairs of interpersonal interactions while gaze was measured using an eye‐tracking camera. Adolescents also reported their anxiety symptoms. Parents' self‐reported characteristics of their conflict were observed during an interparental conflict discussion.ResultsParents who displayed less positive conflict behavior had adolescents who spent more time attending to angry interpersonal interactions; more negative conflict behavior by parents predicted less time attending to happy interpersonal interactions by adolescents. Interparental conflict interacted with attention to angry interpersonal interactions in relation to adolescent anxiety: More negative marital conflict was related to increased anxiety symptoms only when adolescents also displayed an attention bias toward angry interactions.ConclusionInterparental conflict and attention to angry interpersonal interactions may be risk factors for adolescent anxiety and interact in predicting anxiety.ImplicationsEfforts aimed at improving the mental health of youth from poor‐quality family environments may benefit from considering strategies to modify attention to angry interpersonal interactions.

AbstractThe emergence of self‐regulation during the preschool years is due, in part, to children's development of cognitive resources that can regulate their behavior. However, there is little direct evidence that age influences the extent to which young children's strategies involve such resources. We investigated age differences in the extent that young children's strategies imply cognitive resources. A sample of 154 children (77 girls; M age 45.15 months, range 30–60 months) and mothers from middle‐class families (M income = $89,541) in a small mid‐Atlantic American city (94.2% White). They participated in a 9‐min delayed reward task in which mothers told children they must wait to open a gift; children were reminded every 3 min. The latency, frequency, and average duration of the extent to which children's strategies implied cognitive resources were examined in relation to task time and age. In line with Kopp's framework, results from multilevel models indicated older preschool‐age children engaged strategies implying higher‐level cognitive resources more quickly and frequently, but not longer than younger children. Regardless of age, children engaged cognitive resources more quickly, more often, and longer in the first 3 min of the task than later in the task, suggesting that such engagement was not sustained. The findings are discussed in terms of both the emergence and complexities of regulatory strategy development.