Siblings: Social Adjustments, Interaction and Family Dynamics : Social Adjustments, Interaction and Family Dynamics [1 ed.] 9781622570645, 9781622570577

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Copyright © 2012. Nova Science Publishers, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Siblings: Social Adjustments, Interaction and Family Dynamics : Social Adjustments, Interaction and Family Dynamics, edited by

Copyright © 2012. Nova Science Publishers, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Siblings: Social Adjustments, Interaction and Family Dynamics : Social Adjustments, Interaction and Family Dynamics, edited

CHILDREN'S ISSUES, LAWS AND PROGRAMS

SIBLINGS

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SOCIAL ADJUSTMENTS, INTERACTION AND FAMILY DYNAMICS

No part of this digital document may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means. The publisher has taken reasonable care in the preparation of this digital document, but makes no expressed or implied warranty of any kind and assumes no responsibility for any errors or omissions. No liability is assumed for incidental or consequential damages in connection with or arising out of information contained herein. This digital document is sold with the clear understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering legal, medical or any other professional services.

Siblings: Social Adjustments, Interaction and Family Dynamics : Social Adjustments, Interaction and Family Dynamics, edited

CHILDREN'S ISSUES, LAWS AND PROGRAMS Additional books in this series can be found on Nova‘s website under the Series tab.

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FAMILY ISSUES IN THE 21ST CENTURY

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Additional books in this series can be found on Nova‘s website under the Series tab.

Additional e-books in this series can be found on Nova‘s website under the e-book tab.

Siblings: Social Adjustments, Interaction and Family Dynamics : Social Adjustments, Interaction and Family Dynamics, edited

CHILDREN'S ISSUES, LAWS AND PROGRAMS

SIBLINGS

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SOCIAL ADJUSTMENTS, INTERACTION AND FAMILY DYNAMICS MAISON DUPONT AND JEAN-PIERRE RENAUD

EDITORS

Nova Science Publishers, Inc. New York

Siblings: Social Adjustments, Interaction and Family Dynamics : Social Adjustments, Interaction and Family Dynamics, edited

Copyright © 2012 by Nova Science Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means: electronic, electrostatic, magnetic, tape, mechanical photocopying, recording or otherwise without the written permission of the Publisher. For permission to use material from this book please contact us: Telephone 631-231-7269; Fax 631-231-8175 Web Site: http://www.novapublishers.com NOTICE TO THE READER The Publisher has taken reasonable care in the preparation of this book, but makes no expressed or implied warranty of any kind and assumes no responsibility for any errors or omissions. No liability is assumed for incidental or consequential damages in connection with or arising out of information contained in this book. The Publisher shall not be liable for any special, consequential, or exemplary damages resulting, in whole or in part, from the readers‘ use of, or reliance upon, this material. Any parts of this book based on government reports are so indicated and copyright is claimed for those parts to the extent applicable to compilations of such works.

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Independent verification should be sought for any data, advice or recommendations contained in this book. In addition, no responsibility is assumed by the publisher for any injury and/or damage to persons or property arising from any methods, products, instructions, ideas or otherwise contained in this publication. This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information with regard to the subject matter covered herein. It is sold with the clear understanding that the Publisher is not engaged in rendering legal or any other professional services. If legal or any other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent person should be sought. FROM A DECLARATION OF PARTICIPANTS JOINTLY ADOPTED BY A COMMITTEE OF THE AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION AND A COMMITTEE OF PUBLISHERS. Additional color graphics may be available in the e-book version of this book. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA Siblings : social adjustments, interaction, and family dynamics / editors, Maison Dupont and Jean-Pierre Renaud. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:  (eBook)

1. Brothers and sisters. 2. Brothers and sisters--Family relationships. 3. Social adjustment in children. 4. Interpersonal relations. I. Dupont, Maison. II. Renaud, Jean-Pierre. HQ759.96.S543 2012 306.875'3--dc23 2012018475

Published by Nova Science Publishers, Inc. † New York

Siblings: Social Adjustments, Interaction and Family Dynamics : Social Adjustments, Interaction and Family Dynamics, edited

CONTENTS Preface Chapter 1

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Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

vii Siblings: Parent-Child Attachments, Perceptions, Interaction and Family Dynamics S. Pinel-Jacquemin and C. Zaouche Gaudron Siblings Exposed to Intimate Partner Violence: Family Predictors of Child Trauma Symptoms Ashley Stewart-Tufescu and Caroline C. Piotrowski Parent-Child Interaction Therapy for Severe Sibling Conflict in Young Children Karishma Chengappa, Jocelyn O. Stokes, Amanda H. Costello, Meredith A. Norman, Ria M. Travers and Cheryl B. McNeil Risk-Taking Middle-Borns: A Study on Risk Preferences and Birth Order Elina Lampi and Katarina Nordblom Effectiveness of Slovenian Health Insurance Reimbursement Policy in Twins‘ Rate Reduction in Medically Assisted Reproduction Jure Knez, Borut Kovačič and Veljko Vlaisavljević

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75

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vi Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Contents How to Support Siblings of Children with Intellectual Disabilities? A Brief Outline of a Longitudinal, MultiPerspective Study on Siblings of Children with Intellectual Disabilities R. Steel, S. Vandevelde, L. Poppe and T. Moyson Communicative Functions of Emotions in Sibling Relationships Nazan Aksan, H. H. Goldsmith, Marilyn J. Essex and Deborah Lowe Vandell

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Index

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149

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PREFACE This book provides a look at the social adjustments, interaction and family dynamics of siblings. The authors present current research including parentchild attachments; the influence of familial factors on child trauma symptoms in children exposed to intimate partner violence; sibling interactions and prosocial skills and antisocial behaviors during different stages of child development; birth order and risk preferences; twin and higher order multiple pregnancies in medically assisted reproduction; support for siblings of children with intellectual disabilities; and communicative functions of emotions in sibling relationships. Chapter 1 - Ever since its development by the British psychiatrist John Bowlby in 1973, the theory of parent-child attachment has elicited a great deal of research. According to this theory, a child is born with a behavioral system which enables the child, when in a situation of distress, to seek protection with an attachment figure, typically the mother. For nearly forty years, Bowlby‘s theory has attempted to define the role and the characteristics of both the child and the attachment figure, while also showing that children who are secure in their relationship with a parent spend more time exploring their environment and demonstrate better social adjustment that children considered insecure. Research has also shown that, in addition to the mother, other people, especially within the family, can serve as attachment figures for children. Parallel to this, the family system theory has developed. This theory introduces the idea that the family, with all its different members, functions as a system comprised of multiple sub-systems (intergenerational, marital, coparental, parent-child and sibling) which are both autonomous and interdependent. In the study, authors chose to associate these two theories so as to reveal, for each member of the family (father, mother, oldest and youngest children), the

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perception of the different types of parent-child attachment existing within the family (mother-oldest child attachment, mother-youngest child attachment and father-oldest child attachment, father-youngest child attachment). This is a novel approach in that it makes it possible to demonstrate that perceptions vary from person to person and that certain variables carry more weight than others in family dynamics. This approach also helps to explain why a brother and sister from the same sibling group may each have a different type of attachment to the same caregiver and why a child may have a different type of attachment to each parent. Chapter 2 - The purpose of the present chapter was to investigate the influence of familial factors on child trauma symptoms in children exposed to intimate partner violence (IPV). Building upon past research, the trauma symptoms of siblings were compared, and the role of these symptoms, maternal stress and the quality of mother-child interactions in relation to children‘s trauma symptoms was explored. Results indicated sibling trauma symptoms were significantly related, and that older siblings demonstrated significantly more trauma symptoms than younger siblings. Sibling trauma symptoms, maternal stress and the quality of mother-child interactions accounted for a significant amount of variance in trauma symptoms for both older and younger siblings. An exploration of maternal differential treatment indicated mothers directed significantly more positive behaviours towards older than younger siblings. Findings indicate that sibling trauma symptoms are mutually influential, and that some mothers may compensate for stressful life circumstances with positive parent-child interactions. Chapter 3 - Research indicates that sibling relationships have important implications in the acquisition of pro-social skills and the development of antisocial behavior from early to middle childhood. Although most sibling conflict is normal, prolonged aggressive sibling conflict has been related to behavior problems, may be an indicator of coercive family processes, and may escalate into sibling abuse. Additionally, research has demonstrated a relation between sibling aggression and subsequent conduct problems, even when prior conduct problems and punitive parenting are controlled. Because aggressive children experience fewer positive peer interactions and have limited opportunity to learn social skills, siblings play an important role in their social development. Successful approaches to reducing sibling conflict have used techniques such as timeout, reinforcement for inhibiting aggression and, social skills training. Furthermore, research has indicated a relationship between negative parenting, sibling conflict, and behavior problems. In addition, Olson and

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Roberts (1987) showed that discipline was more effective than social skills training for sibling conflict and advocated for a discipline component in interventions to reduce sibling aggression. Taken together, these results argue for a parent-training approach to decreasing sibling conflict. Some parent training approaches that target behavior problems have demonstrated generalization of treatment gains to untreated siblings. These gains include decreased sibling conflict and behavior problems, increased compliance, and improved parenting. One such intervention that may be useful with this population is Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT). PCIT is an empirically supported parent training program for preschoolers with behavior problems. It consists of two phases: Child Directed Interaction that is focused on skills to improve the parent-child relationship, and Parent Directed Interaction that teaches the parent consistent discipline. PCIT entails the use of immediate feedback in the form of coaching and criteria for mastery to determine progression through treatment. PCIT has been related to decreased parenting stress and maintenance of treatment gains. It also has demonstrated efficacy with populations such as physically abusive parents, children with separation anxiety, and children with autism spectrum disorders. Prior research has demonstrated that PCIT generalizes to untreated siblings. During CDI sessions in the clinic, parents are coached while interacting with the referred child only. However, parents are strongly encouraged to practice positive skills with all young siblings in the home. During PDI, siblings are brought into the clinic and parents are coached in discipline strategies for handling sibling conflict. Parents are encouraged to implement PDI skills consistently with all siblings at home. When children present with poor social skills, social skills may be incorporated in coaching during sibling interactions. In addition, additional treatment strategies may be incorporated to increase cooperative sibling behaviors and decrease conflict. A case example of the use of PCIT to improve sibling interactions in young children will be described. Chapter 4 - Analyzes risk preferences across various domains among more than 2,200 individuals. Focus especially on the relationship between risk preferences and birth order. The most pronounced result is that middle-borns consistently seem to be less risk-averse than others, while there is no such persistent pattern for any other birth-order category. Thus, this study shows that birth order actually seems to partly explain risk preferences, shedding some new light on why some people tend to be consistently more risk-seeking than others. Also investigated is time preferences, and analysis again shows

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that middle-borns stand out; they are more likely to be less patient than all other birth-order categories. Chapter 5 - Multiple pregnancies are the most frequent complication of medically assisted reproduction (MAR) and present a serious perinatal risk for mother and child. Half of all babies born after MAR are the result of multiple pregnancies. High multiple pregnancy rates were acceptable in the past since satisfactory success rates have been achieved only after transferring three or four early cleavage stage embryos. By improving the culture conditions, developing extended embryo cultivation media and introducing blastocyst culture, the reduction of the number of embryos for transfer was enabled. Moreover, it has been proved in many studies that the transfer of only one blastocyst in a group of patients with the highest probability for conception can result in similar pregnancy rates as the transfer of two blastocysts, but the proportion of multiple pregnancies is significantly reduced. In the last decade, selected countries have implemented regulations that stimulate elective single embryo transfer (eSET). In Slovenia, eSET favorizing policy was accepted in 2008. It widened the rights of patients by reimbursing them for two additional MAR cycles. However, only one top quality embryo must be transferred in the first or second MAR attempt in women younger than 36 years. Single-centre analysis of 2,072 consecutive IVF/ICSI embryo transfer cycles undergoing extended, blastocyst stage embryo cultivation was performed. Only couples eligible for eSET were included in the study. Single (SBT) or double blastocyst transfer (DBT) was performed after the consultation with the patients. Clinical outcomes were compared between the groups of Slovenian patients that were under the influence of implemented eSET stimulating reimbursement policy and the self-funding group of crossborder patients. In spite of equal approach to patient consultation about the number of embryos for transfer, cross-border patients opted for DBT more frequently than domestic patients. The imposition of insurance policy contributed to additional plummeting of twin rate deliveries in domestic patients to 7-8 %, while the rate remained high in cross-border patients. In spite of this, clinical pregnancy and delivery rates were comparable in both groups of patients. Chapter 6 - This short paper reports on an ongoing field study (20062009) into young and adolescent siblings of people with intellectual disabilities (ID). By developing support strategies for siblings, the project aims to improve the quality of life of the sibling and his/her family as a whole.Growing up in a family with a brother or sister with ID is something unique. The influence siblings with a disability have on their family members

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is difficult to describe and is characterized by its variable, dynamic and complex nature. Each family is unique, which also means that each typically evolving sibling in each family has a different story to tell. Chapter 7 - Intrapersonal functions ascribed to emotions are varied. Arguments and evidence abound showing that individual differences in emotionality at the behavioral level of analysis, correlates at the cognitive and physiological levels of analysis not only form defining features of manifest pathology but also constitute risk factors to psychopathology. However, interpersonal functions of emotions remain under-examined, although most emotion theorists would agree that emotions carry signal value and must therefore serve communicative functions during social interactions, and despite the central role emotions play in many theoretical frameworks that seek to understand relationships. The only exception to this trend is research on marital interaction. This body work has relied on sequential analytic methods to examine the communicative functions of emotions and have linked those patters to long-term relationship outcomes such as divorce. In the current study, authors applied this methodology to the verbal content and nonverbal affective tone of young children‘s interactions with their siblings at home in a free play context. As a first step, permission obtained in order to identify lawful communication chains using only children‘s non-affective verbal behavioral exchanges, amidst apparently random streams of transactions and conversational turns characteristic of young children‘s play. Second step, asked whether young children utilized the information in their siblings‘ nonverbal affective tone over and above the information contained in the verbal-behavioral channel to alter their subsequent responses in free-flowing interactions. Findings supported the hypothesis that young children do utilize the emotional, affective tone of their siblings‘ verbal messages and that those emotional expressions play a key role in the regulation of sibling conflict.

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In: Siblings Editors: M. Dupont and J. Renaud

ISBN: 978-1-62257-057-7 © 2012 Nova Science Publishers, Inc.

Chapter 1

SIBLINGS: PARENT-CHILD ATTACHMENTS, PERCEPTIONS, INTERACTION AND FAMILY DYNAMICS S. Pinel-Jacquemin and C. Zaouche Gaudron1

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Université de Toulouse II-Le Mirail, Université de Toulouse, France

ABSTRACT Ever since its development by the British psychiatrist John Bowlby in 1973, the theory of parent-child attachment has elicited a great deal of research. According to this theory, a child is born with a behavioral system which enables the child, when in a situation of distress, to seek protection with an attachment figure, typically the mother. For nearly forty years, Bowlby‘s theory has attempted to define the role and the characteristics of both the child and the attachment figure, while also showing that children who are secure in their relationship with a parent spend more time exploring their environment and demonstrate better social adjustment that children considered insecure. Research has also shown that, in addition to the mother, other people, especially within the family, can serve as attachment figures for children. Parallel to this, the family system theory has developed. This theory introduces the idea that the family, with all its different members, functions as a system comprised of multiple sub-systems (intergenerational, marital, coparental, parent-child and sibling) which are both autonomous and interdependent. 1

'Translation from French to English: Martha R. Randy.

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S. Pinel-Jacquemin and C. Zaouche Gaudron In our study, we chose to associate these two theories so as to reveal, for each member of the family (father, mother, oldest and youngest children), the perception of the different types of parent-child attachment existing within the family (mother-oldest child attachment, mother-youngest child attachment and father-oldest child attachment, father-youngest child attachment). This is a novel approach in that it makes it possible to demonstrate that perceptions vary from person to person and that certain variables carry more weight than others in family dynamics. This approach also helps to explain why a brother and sister from the same sibling group may each have a different type of attachment to the same caregiver and why a child may have a different type of attachment to each parent.

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INTRODUCTION Bowlby (1969) defined attachment as a system of in-born behaviors in a child, which, by aiming to ensure the child‘s bond with a key person in times of need, ensures the child‘s protection. This key person, also called an attachment figure, typically belongs to the child‘s nuclear family—mother, father, grandparent, etc.—and regularly cares for the child. Therefore, children progressively internalize their relationships with others based on this primary relationship. If the primary relationship is secure, the child knows that other people can make themselves available and provide help for the child if necessary. Should the primary relationship be insecure, the child could think that other people cannot be counted upon (ambivalence) or that it is unnecessary to call upon a third party in case of need (avoidance). Whether in developmental psychology or clinical psychology, researchers have spent a great deal of time focusing on the child-attachment figure dyad. After having studied the type of attachment (secure vs. insecure), they defined the principal characteristics of the protagonists. At this stage, however, it had to be acknowledged that two siblings from the same family could not have the same type of attachment to the same parent. Today, in order to explain this, it would appear indispensible to place this dyadic relationship in a larger context: the family. Indeed, the perceptions held by each person of relationships within a family could explain these differences in attachment to the same figure. While the existing research has taken interest in the influence of certain family relationships (marital, parent-child, etc.) on the quality of the attachment bond, it has not yet focused on these relationships‘ combined influence.

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Moreover, we will review the broad outline as well as the importance of attachment theory and define the family as a system of interacting elements. We will then be able to see how family relationships can indeed, due to the perceptions of each member of the family, have different influences on the quality of the existing link between a parent and child.

1. ATTACHMENT THEORY

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1.1. Definition 1.1.1. Two Complementary and Interdependent Systems One important element which should be immediately highlighted is the correlative dimension of the security/protection with the exploration/autonomy of a child. Bowlby (1969) developed the idea that attachment and exploratory behavior were two functionally different developmental systems which were put in a dynamic balance: attachment behaviors guarantee a close mother-child bond and therefore protection, while exploratory behaviors ensure an understanding of the environment and the ability to adapt to its variations. Ainsworth, Bell and Stayton (1972) clearly showed that attachment also provides a secure base for exploration, confirming the role played by the ―security/insecurity‖ dimension in this dynamic. It is important to remember that, thanks to the famous ―strange situation‖ experimental paradigm, Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters, and Wall (1978)2 were able to identify eight behavior patterns from which they described three main typologies. At the very beginning of his hypotheses, Bowlby (1969) stressed a child‘s ability to 2

The experimental protocol of the ―strange situation‖ was conceived by Ainsworth (1968; 1974) and enabled the definition of three typologies of children: Group B represents the secure group of children, in other words those who react positively to separation, accept to be separated for a time and react positively upon being reunited with their attachment figure (2/3 of them, according to Ainsworth and al., 1978). Group A is called the ―anxiousavoidant‖ group: These children do not seem to be affected by separation and tend to avoid or complete ignore their mother —instead of wanting to be with her--upon being reunited (22% according to Ainsworth and al., 1978). Group C is called the ―anxious-resistant or ambivalent‖ group: Upon their mother‘s return, these children want to be near her even though they are angry with her, and partially resent her, for having left, (12% according to Ainsworth and al., 1978). Finally, group D, the last group, was given the name ―disorganized-disoriented‖ by Main and Salomon (1986) and was attributed to babies considered ―impossible to categorize‖: These children displayed category B or C behavior by calling for their mother when she was absent or trying to open the door but who, when their mother returned, became silent and avoided or ignored her (behavior typical of category A).

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explore the environment, to play and to participate in a variety of activities with other children. Since then, numerous studies have mentioned that a secure attachment is necessary in order for children to be free to explore the world around them. These conclusions are differentiated by the gender variable. The security/exploration balance varies across the situations that children experience (with regard to stress, and to its intensity, duration and frequency) and depending on the child‘s age. If the exploratory system becomes more broadly active as the child matures (especially starting at age 3) the attachment system can be activated as soon as the ideal conditions present themselves (Guedeney and Guedeney, 2010). The socialization and exploration systems each have their own adaptative objectives to ensure the survival of the species (cf. the Darwinian perspective upheld by Bowlby).

1.1.2. Internal Working Models ―From the very first months of life, a baby begins to create models representing the world around him and himself as an agent in this world‖ (Bowlby, 1974, 207) and seeks to ensure, through these Internal Working Models (I.W.M., Bowlby, 1973), closeness with one (or more) people. On the one hand, Bowlby‘s perspective on these I.W.M. stressed the mental representation of the other, of the self, but also of the ―self-other‖ relationship as defined by Sroufe (1988). The operationalism of the internal working model which has been carried out over the past twenty or so years has undoubtedly brought about one of the most important steps forward in the development of our knowledge. Indeed, from a methodological standpoint, real progress has been achieved thanks to the ―story completion‖ task developed by Bretherton, Oppenheim, Buchsbaum, Emde, and The MacArthur Narrative Group in the 1990s. In addition, three other tools have specifically aimed to operationalize the internal working model notion by basing themselves on attachment narratives produced by children. Since then, these procedures have elicited a great deal of research, proving helpful both in developmental psychology and in the clinical field (Zaouche Gaudron and Pierrehumbert, 2008). Together, these tools have made it possible to access the mental representations of attachment which have been built by young children, and from them, to analyze the creation and internalization of attachment relationships across a variety of life contexts (Euillet, 2007; Spencer, 2006, Fresno, 2007; Zaouche Gaudron, 2005; Savard and Zaouche Gaudron, 2011; Euillet, Spencer, Troupel-Cremel, Fresno and Zaouche Gaudron, 2008).

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Many studies have pointed out the stability of I.W.M. over time in the absence of critical life events (Egeland and Farber, 1984; Main, Kaplan and Cassidy, 1985; Grossmann, Grossmann and Zimmerman, 1999; Bernier, Larose and Boivin, 2000). However, if an attachment behavior is considered to be the reflection of an I.W.M. which was constructed during a specific relationship with a caregiver (Sroufe, 1985), these I.W.M. will certainly change and/or multiply in accordance with new relationships.

1.1.3. Transmission and Predictability From a transgenerational perspective, Main (1998) created the ―Adult Attachment Interview‖ (A.A.I.) in order to study the question of the transmission of the mother‘s psyche to the child. This procedure enables the evaluation of the individual‘s ability to elaborate a collaborative and coherent discourse about the individual‘s childhood relationships and their possible influence. Four main classifications (called ―attachment states of mind‖) were identified and have been correlated with corresponding types of child behavior in the strange situation. Pierrehumbert (1998, 7) thus showed that ―a 70% correspondence exists between the maternal categories and those of the child out of the 661 mother-child dyads studies‖. Gauthier (2011) refers to the study carried out by Benoit and Parker in 1994 in which ―the transmission of attachment patterns can even lead all the way back to the grandmother‖ (op. cit., 292). Recently, the work of Hautamäki, Neuvonen and MaliniemiPiispanen (2010) reached the same conclusions with slightly weaker corresponddences that those obtained by the tri-generational study which preceded it. Gauthier (2011) also mentioned the four major studies published in 2005 which made it possible to highlight the appearance of externalized disorders, anxiety issues in adolescents and young adults, as well as serious issues such as dissociative disorders following a case of disorganization during childhood. More recently, a study carried out by Zayas, Mischel, Shoda and Aber (2011) indicated that the quality of early maternal care is a predictor or the adult attachment dynamic with peers and other partners; Dubois-Comtois and Moss (2011) go even further, saying that attachment behaviors mediated by mother-child conversations are predictive of the representations of attachment held by school age children. The same point of view is shared by Apetroiaia (2010) who concluded that a transgenerational transmission of secure scripts throughout the mother-child dialog acts as an important mediator in the intergenerational transmission of attachment representations. However, this transgenerational perspective could lead to a reductive scheme coming dangerously close to deterministic aspects (such as insecure

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children-insecure parents), and, as pointed out by K.E. Grossmann and K. Grossmann (1998, 56), ―this hope hides a paradox, for it presupposes a determinism which would deny the benefits of subsequent or current care relationships.‖

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1.2. Various Attachment Figures 1.2.1. The Father as Attachment Figure The fact that the child becomes attached to the child‘s father at nearly the same moment as the construction of the mother-child attachment is a reality which has brought about drastic change in this area of research. Lamb‘s emblematic studies from the 1970s showed that, from eight months of age, young children demonstrate an attachment bond with both the father and the mother, and display even more distal affiliative behaviors towards their father (such as smiling, vocalizing and watching) (Lamb, 1977). However, when a strange person is introduced, these children tend to exhibit more attachment behaviors towards their mother. Throughout their second year, these children show a preference for their father, with more frequent attachment behaviors in his presence, especially in boys. A dozen years later, another observation emerges, with several studies supporting the hypothesis that the father represents a different social context from the mother. For example, Main and Weston (1982) pointed out in particular that some children can end up feeling secure with their mother yet insecure with their father, and vice versa. Miljkovitch (2011) reaffirmed this result two decades later. In the 1990s, Kromelow et al. (1990) confirmed the existence of a different social context: the paternal presence stimulates the sociability of the young child towards an unfamiliar person, which could be interpreted as evidence of novelty and openness towards the outside world, especially for little boys. These precious studies suggest that the mother-child and father-child attachment bonds cannot be thought of as redundant relationships, and that they are based on particular styles of interaction. 1.2.2. Fraternal Attachment If the father figure is the object of diverse research both from the theoretical standpoint (to go beyond the maternal monotropy), taking into account the age and gender of the children, and in terms of the methodological register (modification of the initial protocol of the strange situation, for example), the fraternal question has been a bit neglected, even in Anglo-Saxon

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countries. Some studies have stated that as early as 3 years of age, a brother is capable of reassuring, caring for and making his younger sibling feel safe (Howe and Ross, 1990; Stewart 1983; Stewart and Marvin, 1984), while another study reports that a brother is capable of stimulating a younger sibling so as to explore the external world (Samuels, 1980). Troupel-Cremel (2006), in a recent study on a population of 40 French siblings with the youngest between the ages of 3 and 4 (M = 3.56) and the oldest between the ages of 4 and 9 (M = 6.44) living in the same household since birth with both their biological parents, used an adaptation of the story completion task procedure (Troupel and Zaouche-Gaudron, 2004). The main results indicated that the majority of youngest children are attached to their siblings, and that oldest children are able to act as a secure base for youngest children so that they can develop increased autonomy and explore the external world. It should be noted, however, that the oldest child can serve as an attachment figure in everyday moments of minimal stress but would be less dependable in the case of a more serious situation. Still, if the oldest children who are perspectivetakers turn out to be capable of reassuring their younger siblings, those oldest children who cannot do so because of their lacking maturity could represent an insecure type of attachment figure. Furthermore, sibling attachment is influenced by the representation of the quality of sibling relationships and by certain sibling characteristics such as gender, age and age gap. In conclusion, Troupel-Cremel (2006) puts forward the hypothesis that a sibling can serve as a competent attachment figure with the ability to take over should the principal attachment figure be unavailable, and that this is more effective with regard to exploration than to reassurance. Seen from this angle, the sibling would be a ―step-in attachment figure‖ and the attachment relationship which is established between the child and the child‘s sibling could be qualified as an ―exploratory relationship of proximity‖. We will now present the family systems theory (Minuchin, 1974), which developed alongside attachment theory.

2. FAMILY AS A SYSTEM Studies of systems and their increasingly precise definition have been of great use to therapists, enabling them to apply the results to the family and its members, considered to be an interacting set of elements bringing together the properties of the said system. No longer considered the sum of the individuals within it, the family itself becomes a different ―whole‖.

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2.1. Definition and Family System Make-up A system can be defined as a ―set of elements in interaction such that the modification of one of them brings about a modification in all the others‖ (Van Bertalanffy, 1973). These elements are linked to each other by relationships, with the term ―interaction‖ signifying that the behavior of one of the elements in one of these relationships can be different in another relationship of the same system. The system is organized in accordance with both its environment and its purpose, evolving over time (Ausloos, 1995). It presents a structure composed of a limit separating the system from its environment, together with elements having certain properties and linked by a network of communication permitting the circulation of energy, matter and information between elements (Marc and Picar, 2000). The family, as a child‘s first life space and place of socialization, constitutes a veritable relational environment with all the qualities of a system (Cox and Paley, 1997). This family system is an organized whole, with interdependent components and a hierarchical structure. The child must adapt to the family, the elements of which vary in number and complexity, influencing the child both directly, through their interactions with the child, and indirectly, through their interactions with each other (Lewis, 2005). The four principals of the General System Theory (Van Bertalanffy, 1973) can therefore be applied to the family (Cox and Paley, 1997). The principle of totality and order refers to the idea that ―a whole is not the same as the sum of its parts‖ and has properties that cannot simply be understood as the combined characteristics of each part. If we are to fully understand the group dynamic, it is at this level that we must situate ourselves, and not at the level of the individual (Marc and Picard, 2000). The principle of a hierarchical structure implies that systems are composed of subsystems alone. The subsystems are defined by family ties. In order for the family to function harmoniously, these ties must remain clear and flexible. In other words, while the family members must be able to function within these subsystems without an interface with the other members, they must also be able to access the resources of the family unit (Minuchin, 1974). Within the family, several subsystems exist: the parental subsystem (transgenerational), the spouse subsystem (intragenerational), the coparental subsystem (intergenerational), and the sibling subsystem (intragenerational). The adaptive self-stabilization principle refers to the systems‘ homeostasis which compensates for changing environmental conditions by making coordinated changes in their own operating models. One of the most important

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tasks of the family system is to regulate the transactions with the environment and, at the same time, preserve the integrity of the family ties (Broderick, 1993). Finally, the adaptive self-organization principle, complementary to the notion of self-stabilization, is related to the openness of the living system which is the family, and its ability to adapt to changes or to defy the existing system. The two final points—stability and family organization—reflect the adaptability of the family system, and its flexibility. According to Van Bertalanffy (1973), it is necessary to understand not only the elements within a system, but most importantly, their interrelations.

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2.2. Various Subsystems (Intergenerational, Marital, Coparental, Parent-Child and Sibling) The family system is composed of numerous subsystems, each of which can be considered both autonomous and dependent of the other subsystems in its presence. The fact that the family system is part of a larger context leads to interactions of the family with its environment. We will remain at a microsystemic level here and consider the first subsystem as being intergenerational. It is composed of the relationships between the parents and their own parents. Each person has a personal history and the parental influence which they each have on the personal development of the children, and later on the adults that they become, cannot be refuted. We will address these influences in the chapter regarding the systemic approach to attachment. At the marital level, the couple consisting of the parents constitutes a second subsystem. The couple‘s relationships are dyadic, only concerning the father and the mother, without any ties to their child(ren). Then there is the coparental subsystem. The term coparental relationship arose in the United States at the end of the 1970s when numerous Americans were beginning to raise their children in families of divorce or separation. The behavioral difficulties exhibited by some of these children made it possible to better understand the importance of continuity in the parental relationship even after a divorce or separation. This subsystem is characterized by a group dynamic including the father, the mother and the child. It is through this relationship that the parents negotiate their roles, their responsibilities and their respective contributions towards each child (Margolin, Gordis and John, 2001). The term parental alliance was proposed by Weissman and Cohen (1985) and refers to the degree to which parents cooperate in their parental

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roles, a degree ranging from unwavering support (positive or supporting parental alliance) to the systematic destruction of the partner‘s initiative and the destabilizing of the partner (negative or denigrating parental alliance). According to the authors, the coparental relationship is situated either at the dyadic level (Van Egeren and Hawkins, 2004), or the triadic level, or even the polyadic level, depending on the number of children in the family, as long as the relationship continues to concern one or more children for which the caregiving parents share the responsibility (McConnell, Lauretti, Khazan and McHale, 2003). It is often impossible to qualify the parental alliance as either cooperative or competitive without referring back to which one of the children is ―coparented‖. The following subsystem is the parent-child subsystem. It is intergenerational and takes into consideration the relationships of each of the parents with each of the children, independently of the others. Relationship examples would include the father-oldest child relationship or mother-oldest child relationship or the father-youngest child or mother-youngest child, no matter the gender of the child. Finally, emphasis should be put on the sibling subsystem, which has, to date, been only sparsely represented in the research literature. First perceived as a subordinate of the marital couple due to the rivalry engendered by the intrusion of the youngest child in the experience of the oedipal complex of the oldest child, it has now clearly been accepted as a subsystem that is both autonomous, with specific relationships developing among siblings, and interdependent of the other subsystems (cf. for example the studies establishing a link between marital conflict and sibling opposition, Margolin, 1981). We have seen that the family, due to the interactions that occur within it, can be defined as a system made up of several subsystems. We will now consider how the entirety of these relationships together influence the original dyadic relationship upon which the parent-child attachment theorists have concentrated up until now.

3. ATTACHMENT WITHIN THE FAMILY SYSTEM Most studies have examined the impact of the relational quality of one or two participants on one relationship and few studies have examined the impact of combined relationships (O‘Connor, Deater-Deckard, Fulker, Rutter, and Plomin, 1998). To begin, we will present the main results of the so-called

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analytical studies, after which we will examine the systemic approach to attachment itself. We feel it important to specify here that our understanding of analytic is not ―the investigation of the unconscious‖ but rather the approach which takes into consideration interactions and psychological processes in an isolated manner, focusing on each of the different elements of which they are composed.

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3.1. Main Findings of Past Analytical Research 3.1.1. Attachment and the Transgenerational Subsystem Having both come from their own family systems, the parents have created a representation of attachment, an internal working model, of their relationships with their own parents during their childhood. Earlier, we saw that Main et al. (1985) made possible the operationalizing of these representations at the adult stage through the Adult Attachment Interview (A.A.I.). Research concerning attachment representations has suggested that not only is this transmitted from mother to child, but also has an impact on a person‘s behavioral choices. The attachment representation, therefore, has a strong effect on the quality of a child‘s attachment. This transmission mechanism could be explained—at least partially—by the influence of the parent‘s attachment models on their sensitivity towards the child. This sensitivity could influence the quality of the interactions and encourage, or not encourage, the child‘s feeling of security. In general, studies have revealed that parents who have an insecure I.W.M. are more susceptible to interacting in a non-supportive and negative manner with their own children and, in return, to having children who react in the same ways (Cohn, Cowan, Cowan and Pearson, 1992; Grusec and Mammone, 1995). Steele, Steele and Fonagy (1996) spoke of a ―primary effect of maternal attachment‖ and showed that this intergenerational transmission is linked to the mother (Miljkovitch, Pierrehumbert, Bretherton and Halfon, 2004) and not to the father or to the two parents. The father-child attachment, according to these authors, is influenced by the attachment representation of the mother, but the influence of the father on the child‘s attachment categorization is instead at the semantic level, principally through language. Where these authors are concerned, however, it must be noted that the possibility exists of a bias: the instruments used to measure the parental and parent-child attachment were apparently more sensitive to feminine characteristics, and the requests were made, for the most part, from thoughts and feelings regarding relationships

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which could be seen as being more familiar to women (Van Ijzendoorn and Bakermans-Kranenburg, 2004). Beyond this intergenerational transmission, an association between the adult attachment style and marital satisfaction has, moreover, been clearly established (Kobak and Hazan, 1991). Secure spouses report a better regulation of their emotions and are more satisfied with their marital relationship. Crowell, Treboux, Gao, Fyffe, Pan and Waters (2002) found that spouses with a secure operating model are less rejecting and more supportive with their partner. It is therefore possible that couples containing one secure partner might protect an insecure partner from the negative effects of an insecure attachment (Cohn, Silver, Cowan, Cowan and Pearson, 1992; Feeney, 2002). Studies have also looked into the influence of the adult attachment representation on the parental sphere through the childrearing styles which are used as well as the link with parental depression and the perception of child‘s temperament thereafter. The parenting experience highlights the quality of the parenting which has been received, with parents often running the risk of behaving with their own children according to the representation of themselves which they experienced as children (Hazan and Shaver, 1994). Adam, Gunnar and Tanaka (2004) found, for example, that ―preoccupied‖ mothers are significantly more intrusive—hindering their children‘s autonomy more than the ―detached‖ and ―autonomous‖ mothers. The ―autonomous‖ parents are also more sensitive to their relationships to their children than insecure parents (Ward and Carlson, 1995). The attachment representation of insecure parents brings with it less sensitive and less coherent parenting than for secure parents (Cohn and al., 1992; Slade, Belsky, Aber and Phelps, 2002). Cohn and al. (1992) pointed out that an attachment representation is not linked to the warmth of the mother, but that insecure mothers provide significantly less structure than do secure mothers to their preschool-age children. Furthermore, Pesonen, Räikkönen, Strandberg, Keltikangas-Järvinen and Järvenpää (2004) showed that the insecure attachment style of mothers or fathers and the symptoms of depression were linked to the perceptions of the infant as having a positive or negative temperament. Multivarite analyses of symptoms of depression and attachment styles with the perceived temperament suggested that symptoms of depression and the perceived temperament remain strongly linked, while the associations between attachment style and perceived temperament were, in most cases, reduced to nearly nothing. The work of Adam et al. (2004) concluded however that a link exists between ―detached‖ mothers and feelings of sadness, fatigue, disinterest and disen-

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gagement. Other research has established a link between these ―detached‖ representations and a high level of anxiety and depression (Dozier, Stovall, and Albus, 1999). The representations of attachment held by parents, therefore, play a direct role in the quality of attachment forged with a child, but also an indirect role through the style of parenting that is adopted or, further still, the perception of the child‘s temperament which these representations arouse in the parents, in particular those which present a psychopathology of depression. We will now examine both the links between the marital subsystem and attachment but also other family subsystems.

3.1.2. Attachment and Marital Subsystem In the same way as for the subsystem which was just presented, the marital subsystem presents numerous connections, both with parent-child attachment and also with other family subsystems. Marital satisfaction is an element which not only plays a role in predicting the attachment quality but is also linked to attachment representation, coparental relationships, parent-child relationships, and parental characteristics themselves, and to sibling relationships. Indeed, Lundy (2002) found that marital satisfaction predicts the quality of father-child attachment, but not that of mother-child attachment. For this author, this synchrony acts as a mediator between marital satisfaction and father-child attachment and between a mother‘s symptoms of depression and mother-child attachment. In a general sense, marital distress is positively linked to hostile and competitive coparenting and negatively linked to warm and cooperative coparenting (McHale, 1995). Furthermore, regarding the link between marital satisfaction and parentchild relationships, a large consensus exists within the literature supporting the idea whether or not marital relationships are satisfying has an influence on parental relationships and thereby on parent-child attachment (Shaver and Hazan, 1987). Davies and Cummings (1994) suggest that a child‘s emotional security stems from the quality of the marital relationship. This then predicts the quality of the emotional relationships between the parents and the children (acceptance, emotional availability and security of attachment). The parents‘ ability to furnish the regulation that the child demands seems also to be conditioned by the support which the marital relationship provides (Cox, Owen, Lewis and Henderson, 1989). When the two parents have an intimate, trusting relationship, mothers are warmer and more sensitive with their

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children, while fathers, on the other hand, have more positive attitudes towards their children and their roles as parents (Abidin and Brunner, 1995). The quality of the marital relationship both before and after the birth of the child, is highly linked to the child‘s functioning—especially to the child‘s model of attachment and sociability (Howes and Markman, 1989). According to Van Egeren and Hawkins (2004), ―couples in which mothers engage in triadic play interactions simultaneously with fathers exhibited more positive marital behaviors, suggesting a style of mutuality that crossed the ―boundaries‖ between the coparenting and marital constructs‖ (op. cit., 177). In the same way, a decrease in marital satisfaction can have repercussions on parenting style (Rollins and Galligan, 1978) and, as a result, on the quality of attachment bond as well.

3.1.3. Attachment and the Coparental Subsystem Although the coparental subsystem is one of the least-explored family subsystems, results have been reached concerning not only the link between coparental relationships and parent-child attachment, but also between coparental relationships and the other marital, parent-child and sibling relationships. The individual characteristics of the children on the one hand (gender, temperament) and of the parents (depression, level of education, etc.) have also been investigated from this angle. As far as attachment is concerned, a significant link has been found between problematic family alliances during the first year of life and insecure mother-child attachment and a clinical symptomology at the preschool age (Fivaz-Depeursinge and Corboz-Warnery, 1999; McHale, Lauretti, Talbot and Pouquette, 2002). Caldera and Lindsey (2006) emphasized that competitive coparenting is associated with the father‘s and mother‘s perception of having a less secure parent-child attachment relationship (the attachment was assessed using the attachment Q-sort of Waters and Deane, 1985), even through the support of the father and mother was associated to a more secure mother-child attachment relationship. Numerous studies have demonstrated the close bond that exists within marital and coparental relationships (Abidin and Brunner, 1995; Floyd and Zmich, 1991; Katz and Gottman, 1996; Kerig, 1995; Lewis, 1989; Lindahl, Clements and Markman, 1997; McHale, 1995, 1997; McHale, KuerstenHogan, Lauretti, and Rasmussen, 2000). Couples who succeed in coparenting evolve together as a ―team‖, supporting each other in their interactions with the child. They do not contradict the instructions given to the child by the other parent, and do not enter into competition for the love or attention of the

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child. It is therefore not surprising that the quality of marital relationships is positively linked to the quality of coparenting (Floyd, Gilliom and Costigan, 1998). Unhappiness within marital relationships predicts a hostile and competitive coparenting and, inversely, happy marital relationships predict a cooperative and warm coparenting in the family interactions with the children (McHale, 1995). According to Margolin et al. (2001), the coparental relationship mediates the relationship between the marital conflicts and the parenting. Hence, a supporting and respectful coparental relationship could serve to reduce the indirect effects of marital conflicts on the quality of the parent-child relationship and thereby guarantee a secure attachment even in the case of marital discord (Abidin and Brunner, 1995). Such a relationship could also mediate the impact of economic difficulties on the parenting quality (Simons, Lorenz, Wu and Conger, 1993) and could have a protecting effect in particular for mothers whose depression did not affect the parenting quality. The gender of the child also plays a role: Indeed, Stevens (2002) showed that positive coparenting protects boys from the negative effects of marital conflict while the protective effects are more nuanced for girls. The coparental relationship is also more strongly linked to the marital satisfaction of father and mothers, with fathers finding themselves more attached to their child if they feel supported by their spouse in their role as father (Abidin and Brunner, 1995; Belsky, Youngblade, Rovine, and Volling, 1991). Fathers who are not satisfied in their marriage are more likely than satisfied fathers to reject the critiques of their spouses, as they are more sensitive to this criticism and less confident in their parental abilities (Floyd and al., 1998). In a general sense, we can say that the parents‘ agreement on the way in which to raise their child, in other words, the coparental subsystem, constitutes an important link between the marital subsystem and the parent-child subsystem (Jouriles, Murphy, Farris, Smith, Ritchers and Waters, 1991). Moreover, it would seem that a greater independence exists for mothers than for fathers between, on the one hand, their relationships with their child and their marital relationships, and, on the other hand, their relationships with their child and their coparental relationships. As for the link between coparental relationships and parent-child relationships, Abidin and Brunner (1995) found a positive correlation, both for the mother and for the father, between a warm coparenting relationship and an ―authoritative‖ (or democratic) parenting style on the part of the parents. Coparental relationships are also linked to characteristics of the child. For example, it would appear that the period of development plays a role in the

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degree of parental cooperation (but not in the degree of coparental conflict), with a higher level of parental cooperation during the preschool age than with children between the ages of 8 and 11 (Margolin and al., 2001). Mothers of boys seem to be more susceptible to forming a coalition against the father, with their son, than mothers of girls, even though this distinction does not appear to be the case for fathers (Margolin and al., 2001). Parents of boys who are having marital difficulties are more susceptible to be engaged in hostile and competitive coparenting interactions, while parents of girls, in the same marital situations, have different levels of parental involvement (the mother is more involved) (McHale, 1995). As far as temperament is concerned, Stright and Bales (2003) hypothesized, yet were unable to demonstrate it due to an insufficient sample size, that there were two distinct possibilities: Either more solidarity was present in the coparenting of a child with a difficult temperament, or the stress created by the difficult temperament rubbed off on the coparental relationship, bringing with it hostility and competitiveness. In the first case, more positive coparenting was the result, as if the situation put into place a kind of compensation and that the parents created a unified front with regard to the child. Gable, Crnic and Belsky (1994) showed that the expression of negative emotions during the strange situation procedure at 12 and 13 months of age predicted a more supportive coparenting throughout family interactions at home at 15, 21, 27, and 33 months of age. The links between the coparental subsystem and the sibling subsystem reveal that the repeated observation of solidarity in coparenting can transmit to the child a set of prosocial norms which can then be used to handle the child‘s behavior towards the child‘s siblings (Brody, Stoneman, Smith and Gibson, 1999). Finally, among the links that have not been established, due to our being unaware of any available research on this subject, we find the link between coparental relationships and differential parental treatment on the one hand, and coparental relationships and depression in one or both of the parents. Where the first one is concerned, one could hypothesize that a hostile or competitive parental relationship could favor differential parental treatment. To summarize, the coparental subsystem is, in fact, the least-studied family subsystem. In those studies which have chosen to examine it, coparental relationships clearly play both a direct and an indirect role in the quality of parent-child attachment: directly through the support or hostility exhibited by the parents with regard to each of their children, and indirectly by the numerous ramifications on the entire set of family subsystems. It embodies

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an important link between the marital subsystem and the parent-child subsystem, although different for the father and the mother.

3.1.4. Attachment and the Parent-child Subsystem The parent-child subsystem is the only intergenerational subsystem of the family. Many components come into play here. Indeed, the personal history of each parent, as well as each parent‘s individual characteristics, shapes their interaction with their child. Each parent has a personal parenting style which stems from the values they have inherited together with the values they have developed throughout their lives. The child‘s characteristics, just as the child‘s gender and temperament, end up intervening in this interaction and, depending on the manner in which the parent ―receives‖ these characteristics, the interaction will end up being influenced in one way or another, which explains the differential parental treatment of children. With regard to parent-child attachment, in their study of 59 mother-child dyads in which the child was between 3 and 6 years of age, Nair and Murray (2005) showed that parenting style has a direct effect (independent) on attachment (assessed with the Q-sort, Waters, 1995) and that it is a better mediator between the psychological health of the mother (stress, depression, conflict) and the security of the attachment. Karavasilis, Doyle and Markiewicz (2003) found a positive association, in their study of 202 children between 0 and 11 years of age and 212 children between 10 and 14 years of age, between an ―authoritative‖ parenting style and a secure attachment whereas a permissive style predicted an avoidant attachment. Parental involvement, the guarantee of psychological autonomy, and the child‘s behavioral control are associated with the child‘s security of attachment during the school years and pre-adolescence (Doyle, Moretti, Brendgen and Bukowski, 2004). The most toxic kind of relationship upon a child‘s attachment system (assessed using the Kerns Security Scale, Kerns, Keplac and Cole, 1996) is extreme autonomy, or lack of interest, on the part of the father and parenting style accounts for 56% of the variance in attachment for boys and 48% for girls (1.019 children between the ages of 8 and 12; Richaud de Minzi, 2006). As far as the link with coparental relationships is concerned, families in which the mother is strict and the parents have a competitive coparental relationship are less susceptible to having father and mother who have similar representations of the quality of the parent-child attachment (Caldera and Lindsey, 2006).

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Brody and al. (1999) found an indirect link between family relationships and parental practices on the one hand, and the quality of sibling relationships on the other hand, through the child‘s self-regulation, i.e., the child‘s ability to organize his or her behavior and deal with his or her emotions. In their study of preschool-age twins, Lemery and Goldsmith (2002) found that negative parenting was a bigger predictor of conflict between children, even when controlling for the effects of their difficult temperament. Yu and Gamble (2008) confirmed that a direct, bi-directional link between parenting style and the quality of sibling relationships of preschool children (n = 130; youngest: M= 4.6 years old, oldest: M= 7.6 years old) measured using the PEPC-SRQ (Kramer and Baron, 1995). The same results were found by Cui, Conger, Bryant and Elder (2002) within an adolescent population. Aside from parenting style, studies focusing on differential parenting treatment, i.e., the fact that parents consciously or unconsciously treat their children differently, also revealed an influence on the quality of parent-child attachment. A study carried out by Rauer and Volling (2007) on 200 young adults mentioned that the individuals who had received ―equal‖ affection from their parents had more secure attachment styles in comparison to their siblings, thereby giving rise to a reciprocal jealousy between their siblings and them. In the same way, Ferring, Boll and Sigrun-Heide (2003) emphasizing that children who feel ―disadvantaged‖ compared to their siblings say that they are less attached and less close to their parents than those who feel they are treated fairly or ―favored‖. In terms of the coparental subsystem, it has been shown that in the case of marital conflict, the coparental alliance is disrupted to the point that the parents give less support to the parenting efforts of the other parent (Gable, Belsky, and Crnic, 1992). Several studies have lent support to the hypothesis that differential parenting treatment increases in parallel to marital conflict (Deal, 1996; McHale, Crouter, McGuire, and Updegraff, 2001; Volling and Elins, 1998). In order to satisfy his or her emotional needs in a conflictual marriage, the parent can create an alliance with a specific child, thereby excluding the other members of the family. In addition to revealing this influence on coparental relationships, the literature notes that a more frequent differential parental treatment is associated with more detached and more hostile parent-child relationships (Kowal, Krull and Kramer, 2004). Specific characteristics of the parents, such as the stress they are experiencing, can also come into play to explain the quality of attachment. The relationship between parental stress and less satisfying parenting has, indeed,

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been well established (Wahler and Dumas, 1989). The link existing between parental stress and the increase in differential parental treatment of children has been highlighted by Henderson, Hetherington, Mekos and Reiss (1996): ―Parents have a specific amount of resources in terms of time, attention, patience and support to give to their children. In families confronted with economic stress, depression and marital conflict, parents may become less attentive and intentionally less fair, behaving more in accordance to their preferences, or to the characteristics of their children, in their attempts to parent their children‖ (op. cit., 47). Finally, a child‘s temperament is known to play a role in the quality of the parent-child relationship. The more the child exhibits negative emotionality, the more the child receives less-than-adequate parenting (Pike, McGuire, Hetherington, Reiss and Plomin, 1996; Jenkins and al., 2003). It is important to note that it is the perception, even more than the actual differential parenting treatment itself, and its legitimacy as seen by the children, which gives rise to certain repercussions. In their study of 135 children (M= 14.64 years of age—oldest children—and M= 11.74 years of age—youngest children) Kowall, Kramer, Krull, and Crick (2002) found that 38% of the children perceived the affection and control of their parents as differential. In this study, 78% of the children who perceived differential affection towards their sibling found it justified and 45% of them also found the differential control which they received justified. This ―justified‖ perception is more linked to socio-emotional well-being than to the extent of the differential parental treatment itself. Where the individual characteristics of the parents are concerned, most studies focus upon the mother‘s characteristics and, in particular, those which might directly or indirectly affect maternal sensitivity. For example, it is interesting to note the role played by the age of the parents, certain personality traits (sociability, empathy, expressive behaviors, cf. Izard, Haynes, Chisholm and Baak, 1991), psychopathology (especially depressive, cf. Murray, Halligan, Adams, Patterson and Goodyer, 2006), level of education (Chen and Luster, 2002), the mother‘s work (Payne, 2001), socio-economic level (Zaouche-Gaudron, Devault and Troupel, 2005), stress (Wahler and Sumas, 1989) and consistency, or lack thereof, on the quality of the parent-child attachment bond (Zaouche-Gaudron, 2005). Beyond the individual characteristics of the parents, those of the child are also important. Along with the developmental period, the influence of two of the child‘s individual characteristics on the quality of the parent-child attachment bond is emphasized in scientific literature: the child‘s temperament

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and gender. The individual differences in temperament and emotivity contribute significantly to the development of the attachment bond (Frodi and Thompson, 1985; Izard and al., 1991). The child‘s temperament can perturb other subsystems, such as, for example, the marital couple, exacerbated by the child‘s irritability. As for the child‘s gender, without going into the details of its implications on each of the subsystems, it should be noted that gender is clearly associated with the security of the paternal attachment bond (a greater number of secure father-son attachment bonds than father-daughter), while this is not the case with the maternal attachment bond (the father-child attachment bond was assessed using the strange situation procedure when the child was 12 months old) (Schoppe-Sullivan, Diener, Mangelsdorf, Brown, McHale and Frosch, 2006).

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3.1.5. Attachment and the Sibling Subsystem The sibling subsystem is comprised of all the siblings, with their own individual characteristics (age, gender, temperament, etc.) and their interrelations. ―Even though it is true that relationships between children are closely dependant on the role that the adults, consciously or not, want each of the siblings to play, others are created on the fringe of these roles, even in opposition to them. And the fact that particular sibling affinities are encouraged or forbidden by the adults is in fact the strength of these links between children. This is why it is important to remove siblings from under the shadow of the adults, under which they are too often confined. Parents deal to own children the cards of their own sibling relationships. But the children will heal the parental wounds, transform this inheritance and co-construct among themselves a new story‖ (Scelles, 2006, 6).

The defining factors of sibling relationships include the degree of complicity and rivalry—components which we have already mentioned—as well as marital conflict, parenting style, the attachment bond of each of the parents with each of their children, and differential parental treatment. All of these, therefore, have the potential of influencing the emotional security of children. According to Whelan (2003), for example, depending on whether siblings show support for each other, they can contribute to the security of their environment. Volling, McElwain and Miller (2002) found that a positive marital relationship is associated with the ability of the siblings to regulate their jealousy in the triadic mother-siblings interaction. Conversely, marital

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dissatisfaction is associated to hostile and rivalrous sibling relationships (Brody and al., 1992; Jenkins, 1992; McKinnon, 1989; Stocker, Ahmed and Stall, 1997). Stocker and Youngblade (1999), in their study of 136 sibling groups of two children between 7 and 10 years of age, found a significant link between marital conflict and problematic sibling relationships, i.e., with a predominance of conflict and rivalry. The explanation set forth by the authors is that children are able to imitate the hostile relational style of their parents in their sibling interactions. In addition, coercive and caustic parent-child relationships are often linked to aggressive and conflictual sibling relationships (Patterson, Reid and Dishion, 1992). The children of ―authoritative‖ parents behave in a more sociable manner with other children (Dekovic and Janssens, 1992) as well as with their siblings (Volling and Belsky, 1992). Several studies have been carried out on the link existing between parent-child attachment and the quality of sibling relationships (Bosso, 1985; Coutu, Provost and Pelletier, 1995; Pinel-Jacquemin, Zaouche-Gaudron and Troupel-Cremel, 2009; Teti and Ablard, 1989; Volling et al., 1992): Children with a secure attachment have significantly better sibling relationships. In this paragraph we have built upon the ―analytic‖ studies which have dealt with the links between the family subsystems and the quality of attachment. We have seen that different subsystems (intergenerational, marital, coparental, parent-child and sibling) are all linked among themselves, without ever having proposed a joint study of them. However, the need to ―recontextualize‖ the dyadic ―attachment figure-child‖ in the family context where it was born, is now unanimous among researchers in developmental psychology (Byng-Hall and Stevenson-Hinde, 1991; Cowan, 1997; Kozlowska and Hanney, 2002; Stevenson-Hinde, 1990). Some authors have suggested the notion of ―family security‖ (Byng-Hall, 1995; 1999) in which the family acts, for the individual, as a secure base to which the individual can find the protection he or she is searching. But at the current time, this author has remained at a conceptual level and, in reality, no one knows how this family security connects to individual security. We have also undertaken a verification of our hypothesis according to which the entirety of the family components, considered to be a system, influence the quality of the parent-child attachment bond. In the following chapter we will present the main results of this study.

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3.2. Systemic Approach to Attachment

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By proposing a systemic approach to attachment, we have a triple objective: First, the goal is to widen the focus which, up until now, has been upon the attachment figure-child dyad with the complete set of interfamily relationships in which this dyad is intertwined so as to examine the combined influence. The second goal is to verify, within the family, that each person‘s perception of attachment can be different depending on the person and that person‘s place in the family, thereby providing an answer to the question of interindividual differences in the perception of attachment. The third objective aims to introduce the notion of family security and examine its link with perceived security on the individual level. We will now present the population that we addressed, the tools we used and the main results we obtained (Pinel-Jacquemin, 2009).

3.2.1. Population Our inclusion criteria dealt with families of French nationality with two children between the ages of 6 and 12, in which the four members lived under the same roof. The choice of the number of siblings was made with the goal of limiting the number of interactions which could potentially influence our independent variables (Camdessus, 1998). The developmental period was situated between 6 and 12 years, i.e., between childhood and adolescence. Before 6 years of age, attachment models are relatively unstable and permeable to environmental changes, and their stability is not yet fully in place (Bowlby, 1973). As for adolescence, it is a period of both strong sentimental ambivalence and of greater independence from parents, thereby making it worthy of an entire study in of its own. The parents in our study were married or unmarried heterosexuals who had been together for an average of 15 years. They were geographically limited to mainland France, as French overseas departments and territories, as well as other French-speaking countries, possess cultural variations would could have an influence on family practices (Rothbaum and Morelli, 2005). In total, 108 families with two children agreed to fill out our questionnaires. On average, the oldest child was 10.13 years old (SD = 1.56) and the youngest child was 7.55 years old (SD = 1.45). The age gap between the two children was on average 2.6 years (SD = 1.06). Out of the total population, 35.2% of the dyads were ―girl-girl‖ gender configurations, 22.2% were ―boy-boy‖ gender configurations and 42.6% were mixed (18.5% of the dyads were older girl-younger boy and 24.1% of the dyads were older boy-

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Siblings

younger girl). The families came from a somewhat privileged socio-economic level (59.3% of the men and 29.6% of the women fit into the French sociodemographic category of ―executive, intellectual professionals‖; INSEE, 2003). Table 1. Summary of measured variables and the corresponding measurement tools Subsystems Transgenerational

Variables Parents‘ attachment representations

Marital

Marital satisfaction

Coparental

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Parent-child

Children‘s representation of interparental conflit Parents‘ parenting alliance Parenting style

Parent-child attachment bonds (Perspectives of parents, children and spouses) Representation of children‘s temperament

Sibling

Family

Representation of differential parental treatment Sibling interaction Family = secure base

Tools P-AASQ Parent-Adult Attachment Style Questionnaire (Behrens and Lopez, 1998) Dyadic Adjustment Scale (Spanier, 1976) Children Perception of Interparental Conflict Scale + Y-CPIC (Grych, 2000) Parenting Alliance Inventory (Abidin and Brunner, 1995) Parenting Styles Perceived by Children PEPPE (Fortin, Cyr and Chénier, 1997) CPAS-C and P Child-Parent Attachment Security (Davies, Harold, Goeke-Morey, and Cummings, 2002) EAS-P Emotionality, Activity, Sociability (Gasman, Purper-Ouakil, Michel, Mouren-Siméoni, Bouvard, PerezDiaz, and Jouvent, 2002) SIDE – Parental Treatment (Daniels and Plomin, 1985) SIDE – Sibling Interaction (Daniels and Plomin, 1985) SIFS Security in the Family System (Forman and Davies, 2005)

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3.2.2. Measures The data was collected by means of inviting families through schools or acquaintances. Each member of the family (father, mother, older child, younger child) received a packet of questionnaires which they were to fill in on their own, without any outside help. The following variables were examined: attachment representation of each of the parents with their own parents, marital satisfaction, marital conflict perceived by the children, coparental alliance, parenting style and differential parenting treatment perceived by the children, children‘s temperament as perceived by their parents, quality of sibling relationships, and parent-child attachment bonds. These variables were evaluated from three different perspectives: that of the parents, the children and the spouses. Finally, a ―global‖ variable was added, concerning family security, i.e., the way in which the family can serve as a secure base for each of its members. These questionnaires were standardized and scientifically validated. 3.2.3. Results Our research dealt with the systemic dynamic of the family, as it is perceived in terms of the representations of the interactions between each of its members, and its influence on the quality of the father-child and mother-child attachment bond. It should be noted, however, that this was an exploratory study, based on a small population, and is in no way representative of the French population as a whole, and that the results presented here will first need to be confirmed by other studies before the results can be generalized. The results were obtained based on structural equations (Pinel-Jacquemin and Zaouche Gaudron, 2012). Two main issues are to be discussed: 1. First, the Variability of the Components of the Family System — Those Likely to Influence the Attachment Quality — Depending on the Perspectives under Examination (Point of View of the Parents, Children, Spouses) Indeed, we noted that differences in the variables which were likely to influence the quality of attachment depending on the members being questioned: parents are more sensitive to transgenerational (attachment representations), marital (marital satisfaction) and coparental (coparental alliances) variables. However, their children‘s perception of their attachment bonds can be explained more by the individual characteristics of the mother (depression) and the parenting (parenting style), although coparental alliance is also present. In sum, the factors which predict the attachment perception of the

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spouses are, on the one hand, the aforementioned components for the parents and the individual characteristics of the children (age, gender and temperament) and of the mother (working hours). The mother‘s perceptions of her attachment bonds to her older and younger children differ greatly from each other. The mother-younger child attachment bond, in contrast to the mother-older child attachment bond, is more independent from the rest of the family. In this case, the marital and coparental components are absent. It would seem that the mother somehow uses the father in her implementation of her attachment bond to her older child, but that she does not need it for her attachment to her younger child. One could also see a parental evolution here, in that this separation can turn out to be difficult for the mother to have a first child, but that she become more at ease as her family grows in size. For the father, the set of relationships between the family members influences the quality of his attachment to his children; this emphasizes, in a general sense, the just how sensitive the father is within the emotional context of the family (Schermerhorn, Cummings and Davies, 2008). Both the older and the younger child are very sensitive to the other child‘s quality of attachment with the parents, especially with the mother. Some variables, however, such as the paternal parenting style, have an influence on the older child‘s attachment perception, but not on that of the younger child. Another major difference exists between the older and the younger child: The older child‘s perceived attachment to the mother predicts the attachment to the father (and not the opposite) while for the younger child, the bond is reciprocal. Herein can be seen a growing implication of the father, who is more confident in his parental abilities with his second child. These results help to answer the question of why two children from the same family can have different attachment bonds to the same parent. Finally, with regard to the spouses‘ perception of their respective attachment bonds, the influence of parental alliance was noted for the father: The more he feels supported by the mother in his parenting role towards each child—but in particular for the older child—the more he will perceive the children‘s attachment bond to their mother as secure. In this case, the characteristics of the children (age, gender, temperament) do not play a role for him. For the mother, her own personal characteristics (depression, working hours) and those of the older child (age and gender) are what have a greater influence upon her perception of the attachment that her children have to her spouse. The older the first child is, the more the mother perceives the child‘s attachment to the father as insecure. It is possible that the child‘s autonomy

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grows in parallel to a decreasing involvement on the part of the father, who is likely to think that the older child needs him less, therefore offering the child less support and protection.

2. The Second Major Result Concerns the Importance of the Subsystems on the Different Dyads in this Family Dynamic As we see it, only two components of the family system play a particularly important role and can be found no matter what perspective is considered (seen by the parents, the children or the spouses): First the parental alliance, and in particular that which the father perceives with regard to the older child, and the family security of each of the family members. Where the first component is concerned, our results support the theory of family functioning which emphasizes the important of a shared and supportive behavior by the parental dyad in order to achieve optimal functioning. When parents work together as ―a team‖, family competence is greater and children perceive a greater feeling of predictability, of confidence and of security (Beavers and Hampson, 1990, 2000). They also align themselves with the theory of parental weight determining the emotional climate of the family, as developed by Cohn and al. (1992). A supportive parental alliance increases marital satisfaction for each of the parents (Abidin and Brunner, 1995; Floyd and al., 1998; McHale and al., 2000); this positive climate favors paternal involvement with the child, and this behavior is in turn more responsible for the improved emotional context (Dubeau, Coutu and Lavigueur, 2007). In a recent study, Fosco (2009) revealed similar results in a population of 8 to 12year-old children, when he demonstrated that supportive parenting in an emotionally positive family climate is associated with improved emotional regulation. As to the second component, the original contribution of this study is the proposal to add a family-level variable to the other variables within the explanatory models. The discovery was made that, conversely to what might have been expected, family security was discovered not to result from the quality of the parent-child attachment bond, but it makes a significant contribution to it, no matter which explanatory model is considered. The family security felt by each of the parents plays a role in the perceptions of attachment (theirs and those of their spouses), while for their children, the family security felt by all the members of the family is what predicts their perceptions of attachment. It would not be possible to speak of the weight of the different components in the quality of the parent-child attachment bond without

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mentioning the absence of variables, some at best unexpected, in the three models. Therefore, and inconsistent with much of the existing scientific literature, the stress perceived by parents (Allen and al., 2000), parent-child adaptation (Scher, 2001), marital conflict as perceived by the children (Frosch, Mangelsdorf, and McHale, 2000; Owen and Cox, 1997), differential parental treatment of the younger child (Sheehan and Noller, 2002; Volling and Belsky, 1992), and sibling relationships (Whelan, 2003) do not constitute explanatory factors for the perceptions of attachment presented here.

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CONCLUSION Since its development in 1969, attachment theory has been the object of numerous research studies. First centered on the mother-child dyad, it was widened to include other members of the family who were likely to represent an attachment figure for the child. However, particularly in order to explain how two brothers and sisters from the same sibling group could have a different attachment bond to the same figure, it appears necessary to go beyond this dyad. By offering a systemic approach which simultaneously takes into account the manner in which the entire set of factors within a family influence the quality of the parent-child attachment bond, we have made a step toward understanding family dynamics and the attachment bond (PinelJacquemin and Kettani, 2011). These factors, listed within scientific literature, are the attachment representations of both parents, marital satisfaction, marital conflict, coparental alliance, parenting style, parent-child attachment bonds, temperament of the children, the legitimacy of differential parental treatment and sibling interaction. Our study thus shows that each member of the family perceives things differently, thereby emphasizing that which explains the differences in attachment quality of a child to the child‘s two parents or of two children to the same parent. Indeed, our study reveals that, on the one hand, the variables which act to explain these attachment bonds are different depending on the family members being questioned (father, mother, older child, younger child), that some variables (coparental alliance and family security) however have a ―transversal‖ weight as they are in common with the entire set of perspectives questioned (parents, children, spouses) and, finally, that certain variables for which an influence on attachment quality had already be established within existing research do not appear when the family is considered as a whole. Furthermore, it seems that family security as perceived

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by each of the family members is not the result of perceived security by each of them on an individual level, but, to the contrary, is a contributor to it. This study, carried out on a population of French school-age children remains however exploratory and will need to be extended to more extensive populations, while keeping in mind the developmental periods of the children. It will be important to consider the gender of the children and to take particular interest in the process at work in the family leading to its homeostasis, the desired balance sought after by all systems.

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Chapter 2

SIBLINGS EXPOSED TO INTIMATE PARTNER VIOLENCE: FAMILY PREDICTORS OF CHILD TRAUMA SYMPTOMS Ashley Stewart-Tufescu and Caroline C. Piotrowski

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Department of Family Social Sciences University of Manitoba, Manitoba, Canada

ABSTRACT The purpose of the present chapter was to investigate the influence of familial factors on child trauma symptoms in children exposed to intimate partner violence (IPV). Building upon past research, the trauma symptoms of siblings were compared, and the role of these symptoms, maternal stress and the quality of mother-child interactions in relation to children‘s trauma symptoms was explored. Results indicated sibling trauma symptoms were significantly related, and that older siblings demonstrated significantly more trauma symptoms than younger siblings. Sibling trauma symptoms, maternal stress and the quality of mother-child interactions accounted for a significant amount of variance in trauma symptoms for both older and younger siblings. An exploration of maternal differential treatment indicated mothers directed significantly more positive behaviours towards older than younger siblings. Findings indicate that sibling trauma symptoms are mutually influential, and that some mothers may compensate for stressful life circumstances with positive parent-child interactions.

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Ashley Stewart-Tufescu and Caroline C. Piotrowski

Keywords: Exposure to intimate partner violence; trauma symptoms; siblings; mother-child relationships; maternal stress; differential treatment

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INTRODUCTION It is well documented that exposure to intimate partner violence (IPV) has numerous detrimental effects on children‘s developmental outcomes (Carpenter and Stacks, 2009; Chan and Yeung, 2009). In North America, the prevalence and incidence rates of childhood experiences of IPV vary greatly due to definitional, theoretical, and methodological issues (Evans, Davies and DiLillo, 2008; Levendosky, Bogat and von Eye, 2007). Regardless of this variation, IPV remains a serious and underestimated global public health concern effecting upwards of 275 million children worldwide (Pinheiro, 2006; Public Health Agency of Canada, 2010). Childhood exposure to IPV may include seeing the consequences of violence, hearing the violence, witnessing the violence and/or becoming directly involved in the violence (Cunningham and Baker, 2004, World Health Organization, 2011). Exposure to IPV has been linked to a wide variety of consequences, including but not limited to: negative emotional and behavioural functioning, compromised social competence and cognitive functioning, poor school achievement, internalizing and externalizing difficulties and general health concerns (see recent reviews: Carpenter and Stacks, 2009; Chan and Yeung, 2009; Evans, Davies and DiLillo, 2008; Holt, Buckley and Whelan, 2008). Some work has suggested that children exposed to IPV are also more likely to display symptoms consistent with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) (Graham-Bermann, De Voe, Mattis, Lynch and Thomas, 2006; Margolin and Vickerman, 2007; Spilsbury, Belliston, Drotar, Drinkard, Kretschmar, Creeden, Flannery and Friedman, 2007); unfortunately, trauma symptoms have not been as widely studied as other behavior problems and are not yet well understood. The first main goal of the present research was to better understand trauma symptoms in school-aged children exposed to IPV. Recent research has concentrated on better understanding the nature of heterogeneity in children‘s trauma symptoms, as well as identifying some of the mechanisms that may account for the range of variability in trauma symptomatology across children exposed to IPV (Gerwitz and Edelson, 2007). A research focus on mechanisms that positively or negative influence children‘s well-being is consonant with a developmental psychopathology perspective. This theoretical framework is useful for understanding variability

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in adjustment, as it focuses on the origins and pathways of individual patterns of maladaptation (Cicchetti, 2006). Risk and protective factors are given equal emphasis. Although risk factors that increase the likelihood of negative outcomes have been more widely studied to date (Evans et al., 2008), an understanding of protective factors that either reduce or eliminate adjustment difficulties is equally as important (Holt et al., 2008). Situating these differing risk and protective factors within specific contexts is vital, as the degree and nature of their influence is often context dependent. For example, some protective factors may be relevant only in certain situations, buffering children who face specific stressors but having a neutral or even negative effect in other situations (Cowan and Cowan, 2006). Lastly, the concept of developmental pathways seeks to explain the interaction of risk and protective factors at differing time points and contexts across the life course. The body of work examining trauma symptoms of children exposed to IPV has identified several important mechanisms to date, including child and family characteristics; however, family relationships are another potentially important influence that are only just beginning to be investigated (GrahamBermann, Gruber, Howell, and Girz, 2009). From a developmental psychopathology perspective, family risk factors play a crucial role in influencing children‘s developmental trajectories (Cowan and Cowan, 2006). The quality of mother-child relationships are particularly important, in that they can either lessen or amplify child adjustment difficulties. A second main goal of the present research was to explore the association between the quality of mother-child relationships and child trauma symptoms. Another issue commonly overlooked in the literature is that the majority of violent families have more than one child. Children within the same family can experience IPV quite differently. Unfortunately, the nature of the sibling experience within families is typically not considered. Siblings in violent families may or may not share exposure to the same stressful events. When exposure is shared, they may have quite different perceptions of such events given individual differences between them such as age and gender. An appreciable body of research on siblings with non-violent histories has demonstrated the influence of both shared and non-shared environments within families (Scarr and Grajek, 1982). In brief, shared factors are considered to contribute to sibling similarity on a given characteristic, while non-shared factors are seen as contributing to sibling differences, such as differential treatment by parents. One of the few studies that has addressed siblings exposed to IPV found that younger and older siblings demonstrated similar patterns of adjustment (Piotrowski, 2011). However, given the paucity

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of work on siblings to date, another important goal of the present study was to investigate similarities and differences in the trauma symptoms of siblings exposed to IPV. In summary, the overall goals of the present study were to better understand trauma symptoms of school-aged children exposed to IPV, and to investigate a variety of family predictors that may mediate or moderate these symptoms. Several unique features of the present study make a substantial contribution to the literature. First, the trauma symptoms of more than one child within in each family were investigated, allowing for a comparison of similarities and differences between siblings. Next, a multi-method approach was taken which included an observational assessment of the quality of mother-child relationships. Finally, other important family predictors such as maternal stress and sibling trauma symptomatology were also explored as potential mediators of trauma symptoms for IPV-exposed children.

REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE

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Trauma Symptoms in Children Exposed to IPV Recent research suggests that children exposed to IPV are at an increased risk for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) (Carlson, 2000; Lieberman, Van Horn, and Ozer, 2005; Levendosky, Huth-Bocks, and Semel, 2002; Margolin and Vickerman, 2007; Kilpatrick and Williams, 1997; 1998). They may experience symptoms which include traumatic re-experiencing, hyper-arousal, numbing, flat affect, dissociation, sleep disturbances, attention difficulties, cognitive problems, impulsivity and risk taking behaviours, and suicidal ideations (Ackerman, Newton, McPherson, Jones, and Dykman, 1998; Zerk, Mertin, and Proeve, 2009; Margolin and Vickerman, 2007; Perrin, Smith, and Yule, 2000, Samuelson and Cashman, 2008). One study suggested that up to 50% of children exposed to IPV may meet the stringent criteria for clinical diagnosis of PTSD (Grahman-Bermann et al., 2006), while another study reported that clinically significant trauma scores among youth exposed to IPV ranged from 10-14% (Spilsbury, Belliston, Drotar, Drinkard, Kretchmar Creeden, Friedman, 2007). Lang and Stover (2009) suggested that the wide variability in rates of traumatic stress symptoms for children and youth exposed to IPV may be due to the fact that these symptoms receive much less research attention than internalizing and externalizing behavioural problems, and therefore may not be as clearly differentiated from other adjustment

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difficulties (Graham-Bermann and Levensosky; 1998; Graham-Bermann et al. 2006; Margolin and Vickerman, 2007). An additional challenge to understanding post-traumatic stress symptommatology among children exposed to IPV is the difficulty in differentiating between these symptoms and a specific clinical diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Many of the studies that consider PTSD or PTSS in children exposed to IPV use proxy measures rather than the criterion from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) (GrahmanBermann et al., 2006). Moreover, the DSM criterion has been criticized for not being developmentally sensitive to children of a young age (Margolin and Vickerman, 2007). For example, in order to meet the diagnostic criteria for chronic PTSD, in contrast to acute PTSD, trauma symptoms must persist for three months or longer (American Psychological Association, 1994). In addition, co-morbid and secondary problems associated with PTSD may exacerbate symptomatology and/or lead to misdiagnoses; co-morbidity of PTSS is common with internalizing and externalizing difficulties (Margolin and Vickerman, 2007). However, it is important to interpret these findings within the context of the methodological challenges of accurate measures of trauma symptoms, as well as the likelihood of co-morbidity with other difficulties such as the co-occurance of witnessing IPV and experiencing child abuse directly. Given the above-mentioned methodological concerns, rates of traumatic stress in IPV-exposed children may be much higher than currently reported.

Similarities and Differences in Sibling Trauma Symptoms The degree of similarity and differences in the adjustment of siblings exposed to IPV is under-studied. One of the few studies to date that has compared siblings from a shelter-based sample found no mean differences between younger and older siblings on internalizing or externalizing difficulties; however reports on child adjustment by differing family members were inter-related (Skopp, McDonald, Manke, and Jouriles, 2005). Sibling reports of their own internalizing problems were independent of each other, but maternal reports of sibling internalizing and externalizing problems were significantly correlated. Differences between sibling appraisals of self-blame and perceptions of threat were predictive of sibling differences in internalizing outcomes (Skopp et al., 2005). More recently, Piotrowski (2011) assessed patterns of adjustment in a community-based sample of siblings exposed to

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IPV, and found that younger and older siblings demonstrated the same five patterns overall, but that very few siblings matched exactly in terms of their patterns of adjustment. We know of no other work to date that has investigated or compared trauma symptoms in siblings exposed to IPV; given the paucity of attention paid to siblings in the literature, an important goal of the present research was to explore similarities and differences in sibling trauma symptoms.

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Maternal Stress A variety of family factors have been suggested as potential mediators or moderators of trauma symptoms in children exposed to IPV. Some work has identified maternal stress as one potential influence, although linkages between maternal stress and child trauma symptoms remain unclear. Previous work reported that maternal parenting stress was found to mediate the relationship between IPV exposure and children‘s emotional and behavioural outcomes among low income, school-aged children (Owen, Thompson, and Kaslow, 2006). Unfortunately, this study did not include a measure of child trauma. More recently, research addressing the influence of maternal parenting practice and maternal stress on child internalizing problems in IPV-affected families concluded that maternal stress and observed parenting were not related, and found no evidence to support indirect effects of maternal stress on child internalizing difficulties (Gewirtz, DeGarmo and Medhanie, 2011). Given the limited research that has examined maternal stress and child trauma symptoms, another goal of the present study was to examine the relationship between maternal stress and child trauma symptoms in children exposed to IPV. Mothers with a history of intimate partner violence often experience significantly greater levels of stress than mothers without such a history (HuthBocks and Hughes, 2008). In addition, their life circumstances are often more difficult, including lower socioeconomic status, less education and less available social support (Letourneau, Fedick, and Willms, 2007). Given these barriers to effective parenting, it is perhaps not surprising that some researchers have found their parenting to be negatively impacted. Specifically, these mothers have been found to be at higher risk to abuse their children, and are more likely to report using harsh parenting methods, such as psychological or physical aggression, and neglectful behaviours (Kelleher, Hazen, Coben, Wang, McGeehan, Kohl, and Gardner, 2008). Furthermore, maternal parenting

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stress has been reported to have a direct effect on child outcomes and behaviour problems following IPV-exposure (Huth-Bocks and Hughes, 2008). A recent study found that maternal distress was linked to parenting stress in IPV-affected families, and that maternal stress had a negative impact on the quality of the parent-child relationship. Moreover, it was parenting stress and not exposure to IPV that was found to be the strongest predictor of children adjustment in this study, including trauma symptoms (Zerk, Mertin, and Proeve, 2009). In contrast, other studies have failed to report an association between maternal mental health, stress and parenting in IPV-affected families. These studies suggest that despite high levels of stress, mothers may utilize compensatory strategies to buffer their children‘s negative experiences (Gewirtz et al., 2011; Letourneau et al., 2007). Considering the conflicting nature of the current literature on maternal stress and the lack of findings specific to the maternal stress and child trauma outcomes following IPV exposure, another goal of the present study was to investigate the potential influence of maternal stress on children‘s trauma symptoms.

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The Role of Mother-Child Relationships Mother-child relationships have also been identified as a significant influence on the adjustment of children exposed to IPV; however, there is currently no consensus as to the nature of this influence on children‘s trauma symptoms (Huth-Bocks and Hughes, 2008; Haight, Shim, Linn and Swinford, 2007; Letourneau et al., 2007). Recent meta-analyses and critiques of the literature report results appear to be diverse and even inconsistent (Chan and Yeung, 2009; Kitzmann, Gaylord, Holt, and Kenny, 2003; Holt et al., 2008; Wolfe, Crooks, Lee, McIntrye-Smith, Jaffe, 2003). It is clear that a significant body of work has found that maternal psychopathology and depression have a significant negative impact on parenting practices and developmental outcomes for children exposed to IPV (Graham-Bermann et al., 2009; HuthBocks and Hughes, 2008; Owen et al., 2009; Renner, 2009; Samuelson and Cashman, 2008; Schwartz, Hage, Bush and Burns, 2006; Silverstein, Augustyn, Cabral, and Zuckerman, 2006; Ybarra, Wilkens, Lieberman, 2007). These studies indicate that poor maternal mental health, particularly stress and depression, contributes to less optimal parenting behaviours (DeJonghe, Bogot, Levendosky, and von Eye, 2008; Johnson and Lieberman, 2007). Moreover, chronic and severe intimate partner violence can create extreme

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stress, which interferes with effective parenting, maternal sensitivity and maternal responsiveness (Letourneau et al., 2007; Lieberman et al., 2005). Alternatively, other studies have also shown that mothers may compensate for stressful circumstances with heightened sensitivity and attunement that may help protect and promote healthy emotional and developmental outcomes for children exposed to IPV (Carlson, 2000; Gewirtz et al., 2011; Haight, et al., 2007; Johnson and Lieberman, 2007; Levendosky and Graham-Bermann, 2000; Letourneau et al., 2007; Lieberman et al., 2005). The buffering effects of supportive maternal caregiving have been linked with better child outcomes in violent families, including increased self esteem and less externalizing behaviour. For example, Skopp and colleagues found that higher levels of maternal warmth were associated with an attenuation of the relation between partner-to-mother aggression and children‘s externalizing problems (Skopp et al., 2007). Others have found that mothers of asymptomatic children reported greater warmth than mothers of children with adjustment difficulties (GrahamBermann, et al., 2009). Given these findings, it was hypothesized in the present research that more negative mother-child interactions (e.g., characterized by more hostility, rejection and control) would be associated with more child trauma symptoms and greater maternal stress. Complementarily, it was also hypothesized that more positive mother-child interactions (e.g., characterized by more warmth, sensitivity and affection) would be associated with fewer child trauma symptoms and lower maternal life stress. Clearly, positive mother-child relationships can play an important protective role in children‘s adjustment; they may be one crucial factor in understanding why some children exposed to intimate partner violence do not demonstrate trauma symptoms. Unfortunately, the quality of the mother-child relationships are often assessed by maternal self-report only, while observations of the quality of mother-child interaction and parenting are rarely conducted in IPV-affected families, with few exceptions (Levendosky and Graham-Bermann, 2000; Gewirtz et al., 2011). The present study addressed this gap in the literature by utilizing observational methodology to assess the quality of mother-child interactions. In addition, to our knowledge no empirical work to date has addressed the role of differential maternal parenting on trauma symptoms of siblings with a history of IPV. Previous work investigating non-violent families has shown that differential parental treatment of siblings was significantly associated with negative mental health outcomes and behaviour problems in children, such as depressed mood, low self-esteem and conduct disorders (Dunn, Stocker and

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Plomin, 1990; McHale, Crouter, McGuire and Updegraff, 1995; Richmond, Stocker, Rienks, 2005). Clearly, further investigation into the potential influence of differential parenting on siblings exposed to IPV is needed. Therefore, the final goal of the present study was to describe differential parental treatment of siblings exposed to IPV, and to explore linkages between differential treatment and children‘s trauma symptoms. In summary, the overall goal of the present study was to address gaps in the literature by investigating the trauma symptoms of siblings exposed to IPV utilizing a community-based, multi-method research design. Our first goal was to explore similarities and differences in sibling trauma symptoms. Taking a developmental psychopathology approach, we investigated if family predictors, such as maternal stress, the quality of the mother-child relationship, and sibling trauma symptoms were mediators of child trauma symptoms. The third and final goal of the present study was to explore the potential association maternal differential treatment of siblings and children‘s trauma symptoms in IPV-affected families.

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METHOD A community-based sample of families was recruited from through newspaper advertising, mail flyers, and posters displayed in counseling centres. Inclusion criteria for families consisted of: a) at least two school-aged children between 5-18 years of age, b) fluency in English of all family members, and c) mothers self-identified as having a history of IPV. As required by the Research Ethics Board, all mothers were required to have some prior counseling for their abuse, which ranged from less than one month (9%) to more than one year (49%). Mothers. Forty-seven mothers agreed to participate. Their average age was 35 years (SD= 5.30). This sample of mothers indicated their ethnic-cultural backgrounds as 62% Euro-Canadian, 30% Aboriginal, and 8% multiracial. The majority of mothers (75%) reported they were lone parents (separated, divorced, widowed or never married). Thirty families (64%) reported an income that fell below the Low-Income Cut-Off (LICO) for families of three members or more, which was $27,000 at the time of data collection (Statistics Canada, 1998). Children. Younger siblings included 27 boys and 20 girls, with an age range from 4 to 14 years of age (M= 7.89, SD= 2.50). Older siblings included 29 boys and 18 girls with an age range from 6 to 17 years of age (M= 10.83,

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Ashley Stewart-Tufescu and Caroline C. Piotrowski

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SD= 3.00). Sibling dyads had an average age spacing of 2.8 years (SD= 2.0) and included 18 brothers, 9 sisters, 8 older brother/ younger sister pairs, and 9 older sister/ younger brother pairs. The majority of mothers (62%) reported that their children had received or were currently receiving family counseling at the time of participating in the study.

Procedures After mothers signed an informed consent form and children provided oral assent, each family member was interviewed separately and privately. When age-appropriate, each family member was given the option of completing questionnaires on his or her own (with a research assistant available to answer questions). All interviewers were female, and whenever possible interviewers were of similar ethno-cultural origin as study participants. All families were provided $75 remuneration and information about local community resources (e.g., crisis hotlines) for participating in the study. During the observational component of the study, family members were brought into an observation room equipped with a video camera and microphone. The observation room was furnished similarly to a home environment including couches, chairs, and a coffee table. A snack was also provided. Mothers were observed for ten minutes with each sibling separately. These interactions were semi-structured, in that mother-child dyads were provided with an Issues Checklist created by Robin and Foster (1989), which consisted of a list of potential conversational topics that were likely to generate conflict. For example, participants may have discussed problems at home, school, or with friends. Each mother-child dyad was asked to choose any items from the checklist that they most wanted to discuss during the observation session. When a child was not participating in the observational session with their mother, they were asked to complete measures with a research assistant in a separate room. Measures Child Trauma Symptoms. The Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) is a widely used tool for assessing externalizing and internalizing difficulties in children aged 4 to 18 years (Achenbach, 1991). A subset of items from this measure has also been widely used as a measure of post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms in children (Dehon and Scheeringa, 2006; Rossman, Bingham and Emde, 1997; Wolfe, Gentitle and Wolfe, 1989). This subscale consists of 20-items selected to reflect PTSD criteria as defined in the DSMIII-R (Wolfe et al., 1989). These items included: difficulties concentrating,

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obsessive thoughts, feelings of guilt, moodiness, difficulties sleeping, nightmares, irrational fears, clinging to adults, nervousness, anxiety, sadness or depression, withdrawal, secrecy, feelings of persecution, irritability, frequent arguing, and somatic complaints including: headaches, nausea, stomachaches, and vomiting. Each item was rated on a 3-point scale, ranging from 0 (not true), 1 (somewhat true) to 2 (often true). The CBCL-PTSD subscale has shown predictive power and incremental validity above and beyond the externalizing and internalizing behaviour scales of the CBCL-Total (Dehon and Scheeringa, 2006). Previous research using the CBCL-PTSD subscale for 4-18-year olds demonstrated good internal consistency, with a coefficient alpha of .87 (Dehon and Scheeringa, 2006). Similarly, good internal consistency was found for the CBCL-PTSD in the present study; coefficient alpha was .84. Exposure to Intimate Partner Violence. Mothers were asked to estimate the length of their children‘s lifetime exposure to intimate partner violence. On average, younger siblings were exposed for 3.9 years (SD=2.9) while older siblings were exposed for 4.8 years (SD=3.6). Maternal Violence History. The Physical Aggression scale of the Conflict Tactics Scale (CTS) (Straus, 1979) was completed by mothers. The CTS asked about 9 violent behaviours that occurred within the context of a conflict in the past 12 months. Each violent behaviour was rated on a 7-point scale ranging from 0 (never) to 6 (more than 20 times). Mothers reported on their own and their partner‘s behaviours; however, mothers reported more often about themselves (n=47) than their partner (n=30). This subscale has been widely used to assess aggression in intimate partner relationships and has demonstrated adequate internal consistency, concurrent validity and construct validity (Straus, 1979). Alpha coefficients for this subscale in the present study were .90 and .85 for self report and report on partner respectively. Mothers in this sample reported experiencing moderate to high levels of intimate partner violence. Overall, 66% reported an intimate partner had directed violent behaviour towards them in the context of conflict at least once the past year (mild physical violence subscale M=4.46 SD=5.12; severe physical violence subscale M=4.61 SD=5.63; n=30). Examples of these behaviours included: being pushed, grabbed or shoved (66%), kicked, bitten or hit (50%), beaten up (34%) or threatened with a weapon (28%). Sixty-eight percent of mothers also reported directing at least one violent behaviour towards an intimate partner in the context of a conflict during the year prior to the study (mild physical violence subscale M=3.17 SD=3.89; severe physical violence subscale M=2.28 SD=7.61 n=47). Examples of these behaviours

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Ashley Stewart-Tufescu and Caroline C. Piotrowski

included: pushing, shoving or grabbing (62%), kicking, biting or hitting (34%), and threatening with a weapon (15%). Maternal Stress. Mothers completed the Parenting Stress Index (PSI) which is a 101-item questionnaire designed to assess parent-child relationships and parenting stress (Abidin, 1995). The Life Stress subscale was used to assess maternal stress in the present study; it is a 19-item subscale that provided an index of the amount of stress outside of the parent-child relationship experienced by the parent. High scores on the Life Stress subscale indicated stressful situational circumstances that were often beyond the control of the parent (e.g., death of a relative or loss of a job). The items of this subscale were scored dichotomously; higher total scores indicated greater stress. The PSI has been used by other researchers as a measure of stress for women affected by IPV (Holden and Ritchie, 1991). Previous work has shown the PSI has acceptable psychometric properties and good test-retest reliability for both clinical and non-clinical populations (Abidin, 1995). Coefficient alpha was .55 for this subscale in the present study. Quality of Mother-Child Dyadic Interactions. The Parent-Child Relationship Coding Scheme was developed for the present study to assess mother-child interactions. It consisted of six content codes (e.g., verbal content, nonverbal content, proximity, physical contact, compliance, and joint attention) designed to capture the quality of mother-child interaction; each content code was coded as positive, negative or neutral. Content codes were applied to the behaviour of each individual rather than to dyadic interaction at the end of every 15-second interval. Mother-child dyads were observed for ten minutes; therefore, a total of 40 intervals were coded for each mother-younger sibling and mother-older sibling combination. Individuals could also be coding as disengaged if there was no interaction for the majority of the 15 second interval. Intervals could also be coded as uncodeable if one or both of the participants was neither audible nor visible. Emotional tone was also coded at the end of each interval on a 5-point scale ranging from (1) Very Positive to (5) Very Negative. Three independent observers were trained in the coding scheme. For each observer pair, reliability was conducted on a total of 8 families (16 motherchild dyads). Training involved comparisons of independent observer coding, and discrepancies were discussed until agreement was reached. Inter-rater reliability was computed using Cohen‘s Kappa coefficients, and these were α =.87 for verbal content, α =.88 for nonverbal content, α=.96 for physical contact, α =. 97 for proximity, α =.93 for compliance, α =.92 for joint

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attention, α=.99 for disengagement, α =.99 for uncodeable and α =.89 for emotional tone. The six content codes of the Parent-Child Coding Scheme were combined into a summary variable to assess the quality of mother-child interaction. Given that not all mother-child dyads were observed for the full observation period (e.g., one family member may have left to use the bathroom), the proportion of positive, negative and neutral codes assigned to each of the six categories were calculated based on the total number of observation intervals for each family member. By calculating proportional frequencies rather than raw frequencies, differences in the length of observations were controlled. Proportional frequencies were summed separately for each family member (mothers, younger siblings and older siblings). The summary variable of positive interaction (e.g., warmth, affection, attention) consisted of positively coded content codes and positively coded emotional tone ratings for each family member. Similarly, a summary measure of negative interaction (e.g., control, rejection, hostility) included negatively coded content codes and negatively coded emotional tone ratings for each family member.

Statistical Analyses SPSS version 18 was used to conduct all analyses. Prior to hypotheses testing, descriptive statistics were conducted on all variables, including mean, standard deviation and range. All variables were normally distributed, and no outliers were detected. Missing data were not replaced or estimated for any analyses. The minimum alpha level used to test significance for all analyses in the present study was set at p < .05. Hierarchal regression analyses were conducted separately for older and younger siblings, using child trauma scores as the dependent variable in each of the models. Predictor variables included: sibling trauma scores, maternal life stress, and the quality of the mother-child interaction. All significant interactions effects were plotted using Dawson‘s (n.d.) Interpreting Interaction Effects program.

RESULTS Our analyses addressed the three main goals of our study: 1) to compare the trauma symptoms of siblings exposed to IPV, 2) to investigate family predictors of trauma symptoms of younger and older siblings, including maternal stress, sibling trauma symptoms, length of child exposure to IPV and the quality of mother-child interactions, and 3) to explore differential maternal

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treatment of siblings, and the linkages between differential treatment and the trauma symptoms of sibling exposed to IPV.

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Comparison of Sibling Trauma Symptoms Younger and older siblings were first compared on several demographic characteristics, including age, sex, and length of exposure to IPV. Results indicated that older siblings were significantly older (younger M=8.5 years, older M=11.3 years, t(46)=-9.98, pOinf 2) Y-inf->O-agn->Yinf 3) Y-inf->O-agn->Yagn 4) Y-noinf->O-agn>Y-noinf 5) O-agn->Y-noinf>O-agn 6) O-agn->Y-agr->Oagn 7) Y-agn->O-inf->Yagn 8) O-agn->Y-agn->Oinf 9) Y-agn->O-agn->Ynoinf

Component 1 Component 2 Verbal @ vs Affect @ l0 Verbal @ l1 vs. Affect @ l1 l0 -> Verbal ->Verbal @ l1 -> Verbal @ l2 -> Verbal @ l2 @ l1 Neg Neu Pos Neg Neu Pos .20 .38* .18 .18 .40 .23* .56 .48 .34

.52*

.34

.33

.31 .28

.15*

.34

.28

2

.24

.36*

.19

.24

.08

same as sequence .16* .09

.07 .45

.23*

.60

.45

.24

.14*

.38*

.24 .19

.44*

.11

.17

.20

.25

.14*

.22 not applicable

.23

.15*

.38*

.25 not applicable

.63

.50

.22*

.36 not applicable

.50

.57

.30*

.52 not applicable

Abbrv. O stands for Older and Y stands for Younger sibling; inf stands for influence, noinf stands for non-influence, agn stands for agonistic and agr stands for agree/compliance exchanges; l0 stands for lag 0; l1 stands for lag 1 and l2 stands for lag 2; neg stands for negative affect; neu stands for neutral affect and pos stands for positive affect. * indicates cells with significant standardized residuals at p< .05. ‗Not applicable‘ indicates those components of three-event communication chains in which hedonic tone does not serve a communicative function over and above the communication taking place in the verbal-behavioral channel.

However, this transitional probability is significantly increased to .38 when older siblings delivered influence attempts with a negative hedonic tone (column 2 of Table 3). In the second component of this chain which started with older sibling‘s influence attempt, the hedonic tone of younger sibling's

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agonistic behavior at lag 1 alters the .40 probability that older sibling will respond with an influence attempt versus any other verbal-behavioral exchange code. Specifically, if the younger sibling uses a negative affective tone in antagonizing the older sibling‘s original influence attempt, the older sibling is far less likely to respond with a repeated influence attempt, .23. We will first highlight how hedonic affect alters the likelihood of a sibling‘s consequent agonistic behaviors and then highlight how the hedonic affect accompanying a sibling‘s agonistic behavior leads to non-agonistic responses in the consequent lag. We find that when both older (component 1 of chain 1) and younger siblings (component 1 of chain 2) make an influence attempt using a negative affective tone, the sibling is far more likely to give agonistic responses, transitional probability increases from .20 to.38 for younger siblings and from .34 to .52 for older siblings. Even when siblings, in particular younger siblings, deliver non-influence exchanges with a negative affective tone, the likelihood of agonistic responses from older siblings increases (transitional probability changes from .08 to .16 in component 1 of chain 4 and, from .19 to .44 in component of 2 of chain 5). Both neutral and negative affective tones appear important in determining how siblings respond to each others agonistic exchanges. For example, when both older and younger siblings deliver agonistic exchanges with a negative affective tone they decrease the likelihood that their siblings will respond in one of the non-agonistic exchange modes, from .24 to .14 for younger sibling‘s non-influence responses (component 1 of chain 5) and from .23 to .15 for older sibling‘s influence responses (component 1 of chain 7). In contrast, when both older and younger siblings deliver agonistic exchanges with a neutral affective tone they increase the likelihood that their siblings will respond in one of the non-agonistic exchange modes, from .24 to .38 for younger sibling‘s non-influence responses (component 1 of chain 5) and from .23 to .38 for older sibling‘s influence responses (component 1 of chain 7). The same pattern is evident in the second component of the first two communication chains as well. When both younger and older siblings deliver agonistic responses in a negative affective tone to their sibling‘s original influence attempts at lag 0, they are far less likely to meet with a repetition of the original influence attempt at lag 2, from .40 to .23 for older sibling‘s influence attempt (component 2 of chain 1) and from .28 to .15 for younger sibling‘s influence attempt (component 2 of chain 2). When we examine communication chains in which reciprocated agonistic exchanges take place between siblings (component 1 of chains 8 and 9, and component 2 of chain 3), we find a consistent pattern. Neutrally delivered

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agonistic exchanges by older or younger siblings decrease the likelihood of reciprocation (component 1 of chains 8 and 9). In the second component of chain 3, we find when older siblings deliver agonistic responses to their younger siblings‘ original influence attempts using a negative affective tone, they are far more likely to evoke agonistic responses from younger siblings in the third lag, probability of a younger sibling‘s agonistic response increases from .24 to .36, resulting in reciprocated agonistic exchanges, or full-fledged conflict. In summary, these findings are consistent with the interpretation that neutrally delivered agonistic responses tend to decrease the potential for future agonistic responses whereas negatively toned influence, and even noninfluence attempts, are far more likely to evoke agonistic responses. Neutral affect diffuses whereas negative affect infuses interactions of siblings with potential for agonistic exchanges, if not reciprocated conflict. Interestingly, positive affective tone did not appear to play a role in regulating conflict in any of the communication chains.

The Role of Discrete Affect and Action Tendencies The analyses heretofore present a clear picture as to the diffusing role of neutral affect and inflaming role of negative affect. However, one of the central questions is whether various different forms of negative affect play a similar role in regulating the potential for conflict in sibling interactions. The thesis of this study was that anxious-tense and sad affective tones are likely to have different consequences than annoyed-angry affective tones. In particular, we expected that the action tendencies associated with discrete affective tones may be the critical ingredient in understanding how affect comes to serve a communicative function. Hence, we next examined the same communication chains for differential roles discrete negative affective tones may play in conflict regulation. Table 4 presents transitional probabilities for the discrete components of hedonic affect. Once again, standardized residuals were obtained given the expectations generated under the assumption of the independence of discrete affect and verbal-behavioral exchange codes in consecutive lags. These residuals were obtained separately for components 1 and 2 of those three-event communication chains in which hedonic affect served a communicative function (i.e. 6X2 tables, lag 0 discrete affect X lag 1 verbal-behavioral exchange codes). There were a total of seven discrete affect categories, however, content and bored states do not have clearly discernable action tendencies associated with them. For example, annoyed-angry and excited

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exuberant states are clearly associated with approach, while sadness and anxious-tense states are clearly associated with withdrawal tendencies. Thus, bored and content states were pooled into an ―other‖ category in these tables. The independence chi-squares were significant for these extended tables as would be expected given the prior analyses. The superscript n indicates that the standardized residual was negative while the p superscript indicates that it was positive. Table 4. Transitional probabilities and sign of standardized residuals associated with discrete affects

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Verbal Sequence l0-> l1 -> l2

1) O-inf->Y-agn>O-inf 2) Y-inf->O-agn>Y-inf 3) Y-inf->O-agn>Y-agn 4) Y-noinf->O-agn>Y-noinf 5) O-agn->Y-noinf>O-agn 6) O-agn->Y-agr>O-agn 7) Y-agn->O-inf>Y-agn 8) O-agn->Y-agn>O-inf 9) Y-agn->O-agn>Y-noinf

Component 1 Discrete Affect @ l0 -> Verbal @ l1 aa ex at sd p .37* p.23 p.43* 0 p

.53*

n

.30*

p

.57

n

.27

neu n .18

Component 2 Discrete Affect @ l1 -> Verbal @ l2 other aa ex at sd n .15 n.21* p.42 n.25 p.50

neu p .56

other p .53

n

n

0

p

.34

p

.36

0

n

.19

n

.15

0n0

p

n

.42

p

n

n

.18

.33

.31

n

.07

p

.15

p

n

.13*

n

.20

p

.31* 0

.25

n

.20

p

.12*

n

.17

p

.51*

.54*

p

.18*

n

p

n

.60*

.13*

n

.16

.39*

p

.40 p.25

p

same as sequence 2 p

n

n

0

.09

n

.07

n

.25

p

p

.35*

p

.28

p

.33

n

.23

p

n

.14*

p

.23

not applicable

p

.29

n

.19 p.38*

p

.38* not applicable

p

p

.39

p

n

.22*

n

.19* not applicable

p

n

.43

n

n

.30*

n

.36

.65*

.15

.33

.67 .43

.47 .15 p.57*

.50

.60 .11

not applicable

Abbrv. O stands for Older and Y stands for Younger sibling; inf stands for influence, noinf stands for non-influence, agn stands for agonistic and agr stands for agree/compliance exchanges; l0 stands for lag 0; l1 stands for lag 1 and l2 stands for lag 2. aa stands for annoyed-angry; ex stands for excited-exuberant; at stands for anxioustense, sd stands for sadness, neu stands for neutral and other contains the pulled content and bored categories. * indicates cells with significant standardized residuals at p< .05; n indicates negative and p indicates a positive standardized residual. Not applicable indicates those components of three-event communication chains in which hedonic tone does not serve a communicative function over and above the communication taking place in the verbal-behavioral channel.

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Clear support for the hypothesis that action tendencies associated with discrete affects explain the communicative function of affect, broadly construed, can take several forms. First and foremost, the standardized residuals associated with discrete affects which share the same underlying action tendency should have the same sign. The reason is that when discrete emotions share either negative or positive standardized residuals, the effects of those emotions on consequent verbal-behavioral exchanges are similar. A specific example will help clarify. Because we believe the communicative effect of emotions to arise from the underlying approach or withdrawal actiontendency, we expected both annoyed-angry and excited-exuberant states to share negative or positive standardized residuals because both are approachoriented discrete emotions. Second, the sign of the standardized residuals should differ among discrete affective states associated with approach versus withdrawal tendencies. For example, if annoyed-angry tone has a positive standardized residual, anxious-tense tone should have a negative standardized residual. These two patterns would constitute preliminary evidence in support of the hypothesis that action tendencies associated with discrete affects underlie the communicative effect of hedonic affect. As can be seen from Table 4, in seven out of 13 instances annoyed-angry and excited-exuberant tone were both associated with either negative or positive standardized residuals (component 1 of chains 1, 5, 7, 8 and 9 and component 2 of chains 2 and 3). In other words, in all of these instances, excited-exuberant affective tone had effects similar to annoyed-angry tone. For example, agonistic exchanges of either younger or older siblings were far more likely to be reciprocated leading to full-fledged conflict when those were uttered with either excitement or annoyed-angry affective tone (component 1 of chains 8 and 9, and component 2 of chain 3). Similarly, when older siblings respond with agonistic responses to their younger sibling‘s original influence attempts with an annoyed-angry tone or an excited exuberant affective tone, younger siblings are far less likely to repeat their influence attempts (component 2 of chain 2). When older siblings deliver influence attempts with annoyed-angry tone or excited exuberant affective tone, younger siblings are more likely to give agonistic responses. There were also two exceptions to this pattern of parallel influences of annoyed-angry and excited-exuberant affective tones in regulating conflictual exchanges. When younger siblings delivered influence attempts with an annoyed-angry tone they were far more likely to meet agonistic responses from their older siblings (component 1 of chains 2 and 3, probability of older

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siblings‘ agonistic response is .53). In contrast, when younger siblings delivered influence attempts with excited-exuberant affective tone they were far less likely to meet agonistic responses (component 1 of chains 2 and 3, probability of older siblings‘ agonistic response drops to.30). In chains that start with younger sibling‘s non-influence exchange (component 2 of chain 4), if older siblings give agonistic responses with excited-exuberant affective tone, younger siblings are more likely to continue with non-influence exchanges (.47) but if older siblings give agonistic responses with annoyed-angry affective tone, younger siblings are less likely to continue with non-influence exchanges (.25). When we examined this table for differential roles various negative affective tones may play in the regulation of conflict, the evidence was supportive in places, but generally more difficult to discern. First, in two out of 14 instances, both in component 2 of chains 2 and 4, there was insufficient evidence to evaluate directional differences in standardized residuals among various negative affects. The verbal-behavioral exchange categories in these components were never uttered with anxious-tense or sad tone, thus we could not evaluate any differential effects such tones may have relative to annoyedangry tone in these communication chains. In five out of the remaining 11 unique instances, evidence was partially supportive of predictions. Specifically, we found that the direction of standardized residuals for the effects of annoyed-angry tones differed from either sad or anxious-tense tones but only in one instance among those five chains, direction of standardized residuals favored a similar effect for both anxious-tense and sad tones on the regulation of conflict. In the remaining six out of 11 unique instances, standardized residuals were in the same direction for all types of negative affective tone, contrary to predictions. A detailed examination of those patterns follows. When we examine those chains in which all three types of negative tone affected consequent sibling responses similarly, contrary to predictions, we found two interesting patterns. The first pattern was that a preponderance of these chains (five out of six) involved movement into agonistic responses in the consequent lag. The second pattern was that also in a preponderance of cases (four of six), it was the older sibling‘s discrete negative affective tones, irrespective of its type, which increased younger sibling‘s agonistic responses similarly. In other words, when the perceiving partner was the younger sibling all three types of negative affect had similar influences on the younger siblings‘ responses in the consequent lag. In contrast, in a preponderance of cases (four out of five) in which the effects of annoyed-angry affective tone

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differed from either sad or anxious-tense tones, consistent with predictions, discrepant effects arose from younger sibling‘s affective tone. In other words, when the perceiving partner was the older sibling, different types of negative affective tone had differential effects on the older siblings‘ responses in the consequent lag. For example, older siblings‘ influence attempts and agonistic responses, younger sibling‘s non-influence exchanges, when toned with any of the three discrete negative affects (annoyed-angry, anxious-tense and sad) increased the likelihood of agonistic responses in the consequent lag (component 1 of chains 1, 4, 8 and component 2 of chains 3 and 5). In contrast, younger sibling‘s influence attempts when uttered with annoyed-angry or anxious-tense tone increased the likelihood of older sibling‘s agonistic responses (from .34 to .more than .50) whereas when those influence attempts were uttered with a sad tone it decreased the likelihood of older sibling‘s agonistic responses (from .34 to .27) (component 1 of chain 2). Similarly, younger sibling‘s agonistic exchanges were less likely to be followed by older sibling‘s influence attempts (.12) if those were uttered with an annoyed-angry tone but more likely to be followed by older sibling‘s influence attempts if uttered with either anxioustense (.29, component 1 of chain 7) or sad affective tone (.50, component 2 of chain 1). When younger sibling‘s agonistic exchanges were uttered with an annoyed-angry tone, it increased likelihood of older sibling‘s agonistic responses (.60) whereas when agonistic exchanges were uttered with either anxious-tense or sad tone it decreased the likelihood of older sibling‘s agonistic responses (.43) (component 1 of chain 9).

DISCUSSION Findings showed that apparently random streams of conversation, characteristic of young children‘s interactions, contained lawful communication chains consisting of only non-affective verbal-behavioral content, and majority of those chains (nine out of 14) involved the regulation of potential interpersonal conflict. Findings also showed that even when controlling for lawful affect-to-affect transitions, hedonic affect served a communicative function over and above the communication taking place in the non-affective verbal-behavioral channel. Following a brief overview of the ways in which hedonic affect altered children's verbal-behavioral exchanges and specific influence of discrete emotional tone, limitations of this study and

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broader significance of the findings for both emotion research and children‘s development are discussed. Findings showed that both neutral and negative affective tones are important in determining the potential for reciprocated conflict in sibling relationships. For example, when both older and younger siblings made an influence attempt using a negative affective tone, the sibling was far more likely to give agonistic responses. Even when siblings, in particular younger siblings, delivered non-influence exchanges with a negative affective tone, the likelihood of agonistic responses from older siblings increased. Hedonic tone also affected how siblings responded to each others‘ agonistic exchanges. For example, when both older and younger siblings delivered agonistic exchanges with a negative affective tone, they decreased the likelihood that their siblings would respond in one of the non-agonistic exchange modes. In contrast, when both older and younger siblings delivered agonistic exchanges with a neutral affective tone they increased the likelihood that their siblings would respond in one of the non-agonistic exchange modes. Hence, neutrally delivered agonistic exchanges of both siblings de-escalated while negatively delivered agonistic exchanges increased the likelihood of consequent agonistic responses and thus, occurrences of fully reciprocated dyadic conflict. These effects of hedonic affective tone on consequent verbal-behavioral exchanges were parallel for younger and older siblings. Hence, by and large, the findings paralleled those in the marital interaction research (Gottman, 1979; 1980). However, examination of discrete affective tones revealed a far more complicated picture concerning the dynamics of conflict. For example, the increased likelihood of agonistic responses following negative affective tone was also observed for excited-exuberant utterances. In fact, conflict escalating effects of negative hedonic tone were generally statistically notable for both annoyed-angry and excited-exuberant tone. This evidence supported our thesis that both annoyed-angry and excited-exuberant communicative tone are likely to be positively associated with generation of conflict because these states may attach an immediate urgency signal to the demands in the verbal-behavioral channel, and therefore, perhaps, more likely to invite antagonistic responses from the sibling. Furthermore, influence attempts delivered with excitedexuberant tone had different effects on older and younger siblings. When older siblings delivered influence attempts with exuberant tone, the younger siblings were more likely to respond with agonistic behaviors. However, when younger siblings delivered influence attempts with exuberant tone, the older siblings were less likely to respond with agonistic behaviors. Hence, unlike the case for

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hedonic affects, effects of discrete affective tones were not parallel for younger and older siblings. Conflict escalating potential of excited-exuberant utterances may also explain why we did not find any clear evidence that overall positive hedonic tone played a communicative function in the regulation of agonistic exchanges. It is possible that the variety of positive affects, excited-exuberant versus content, play differential communicative roles. For example, contented positive affect may have a conflict de-escalating role similar to neutral affective tone while excited-exuberant affective tones clearly play a conflict escalating role in sibling relationships. This possibility needs to be examined in future research. When we examined the effects of other discrete negative effects on movement into and out agonistic exchanges, we found that in a majority of cases (eight out of 11) anxious-tense affective tone had a similar effect to annoyedangry affective tones in terms of the regulation of potential for conflict. This was a contrary pattern to our thesis that differences in the action tendencies associated with discrete, negatively valenced emotions should produce divergent consequences in the next lag. Furthermore, sad affective tones, at least partly due to their low frequency, had more mixed effects on the interaction. Sad tones either did not alter transitions into or out of agonistic exchanges, or when they did, the effects were often in the opposite direction to both annoyed-angry and even anxious-tense affective tones. One communication chain fully supported our thesis that action tendencies underlying negatively valenced discrete emotions would help explain the communicative effects of these emotions. Older siblings were far more likely to reciprocate their younger siblings‘ agonistic exchanges when younger siblings delivered agonistic responses with an annoyed-angry affective tone. In contrast, older siblings were far less likely to reciprocate their younger siblings‘ agonistic exchanges when younger siblings delivered agonistic responses with anxious-tense or sad affective tones. In other words, both of the withdrawal-based, negatively valenced discrete emotions (sadness and anxious tone) produced different effects than the approach-based, negatively valenced discrete emotion (annoyed-angry). Interestingly, once again, the findings were not parallel for older and younger siblings. When older siblings delivered agonistic exchanges with any of the three negatively valenced discrete emotions, all three emotions produced similar effects, i.e. increased the likelihood of younger siblings‘ reciprocation with agonistic behavior. In other words, when the perceiving partner was the younger sibling all three discrete negative affects influenced

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reciprocated agonistic behavior chains or full-fledged conflict similarly. In contrast, when the perceiving partner was the older sibling, the three negatively valenced discrete emotions produced different effects on reciprocated agonistic behavior chains. These non-parallel findings for older versus younger siblings are similar to some of the patterns discussed earlier. Recall that when younger siblings delivered influence attempts with excitedexuberant tones older siblings were less likely to antagonize their younger siblings and accept influence but were more likely to resist if the influence attempts were delivered with annoyed-angry tones. In contrast, when older siblings delivered influence attempts with either annoyed-angry or excitedexuberant tones, younger siblings were more likely to resist influence and antagonize. These findings make sense when we consider the limited emotion understanding of children during preschool years, corresponding to the age range of younger siblings in this sample. In standard emotion understanding paradigms, children are asked to recognize and label emotions using facial expressions and match various expressions to hypothetical emotion-eliciting scenarios, e.g. Jimmy lost mommy at the grocery store (Brown & Dunn, 1996; Dunn & Hughes, 1998). Developmental studies show that while preschoolers as young as two years of age are adept at recognizing, labeling and identifying emotions along a basic positive versus negative emotional valence, their ability to tell apart various discrete negative emotions remains limited until 6 to 7 years of age. Our findings concerning the non-parallel effects of discrete emotions on younger versus older siblings are consistent with those findings. Older siblings were sensitive to distinctions between various discrete negative emotions because they responded differentially. In contrast, younger siblings, for the most part, did not respond differentially to such differences and perhaps, were not detecting those differences in affective tone in the complexity of ongoing transactions with their older siblings.

Limitations Several limitations are attached to this study. Our findings clearly demonstrate that affect serves a communicative function in the interaction of siblings. However, the extent of individual difference variation in the specific patterns discussed above is unknown. Because of this limitation, the findings do not inform whether the patterns observed systematically differ given the history of the relationship between the siblings or other individual difference

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characteristics. The labor intensive nature of this kind of work forced us to consider only a small sub-sample. Hence, our ability to make connections between individual differences in the emotional communication patterns in this study and other domains of functioning such as differential maternal treatment, sibling temperaments, and general social competency and functioning was limited. However, the findings from the study enable the generation and testing of hypotheses regarding the specific communicative effects of emotions in future work. Such focused hypotheses can be tested using less labor-intensive coding schemes and may be more feasible in larger samples.

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Broader Significance The findings have clear implications for the role of emotions in social relationships. The pioneering work of Gottman and colleagues speaks to communicative functions of emotions in marriage. The findings here showed that emotions also serve a communicative function in the interaction of young siblings with moderate effect sizes for the most part. Effects of undifferentiated negative and neutral affect on the regulation of conflict paralleled those reported in marital interaction research. It is likely that the de-escalating role of neutral affect and inflaming role of negative affect we found amongst young siblings is a common denominator to the communicative functions emotions play in most dyadic relationships. However, future research needs to investigate the generalizibility of these patterns to other well-established, close relationships including parent-child relations and friendships. The findings also carry significance for the literature on children‘s social competency and more specifically the role of emotional communication in well-established relationships. Dynamic adjustment of social behavior in ongoing interactions to meet social goals and challenges is a critical aspect of any definition of social competency (Denham, 1998). Ability to read emotional cues in ongoing social transactions is often discussed as a prerequisite to successfully navigating the social environment and hence, emotional competency is advocated by some to be a central aspect of general social competency (Saarni, 1998). In order for emotional communication patterns to yield fruitful insights to our understanding of children‘s social competency, researchers need to incorporate analytic methods that can capture dynamic constructs such as responsiveness, reciprocity, and contingency more directly rather than relying

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on proxy measures. As has been argued repeatedly by Gottman and colleagues (e.g. Gottman & Ringland, 1981; Gottman & Bakeman, 1997), the methods of sequential analyses are essential to successful quantification of such dynamic dimensions of individual‘s behavior in social transactions. Both the historical success of these methods in marital interaction research and the promise these methods showed in elucidating the role emotions played in ongoing interactions of young siblings in the current study should serve to encourage greater reliance on these analytic methods. A better understanding of emotions in the context of social interactions also meaningfully extends research on emotions in general. In attempting to uncover the specific roles accorded to emotions in various anxiety, mood disorders and antisocial personality, several researchers have invoked what has become an elusive construct: emotion regulation (Gross & Thompson, 2007; Cole, Martin & Dennis, 2004). Some view both risk for and manifest psychopathology as failure to regulate emotional experience in ways that promote well-being (e.g., Gross & Thompson, 2007). In this view that dominates the literature, emotions are regulated (e.g. Buss & Goldsmith, 1998; Goldsmith & Davidson, 2004). Others, especially those studying emotional development, find themselves unable to study the regulation of emotional experience without confounding it with the view that emotions also regulate ongoing transactions in an inherently social environment because of the communicative functions they serve. Hence, regulatory (Levenson, 1999) and communicative functions of emotions (Barrett, 1993) are not likely to be mutually exclusive. A better understanding of how emotions are deployed in free-flowing interactions, their correlates and the predictive power of individual difference variability in how emotions are deployed may yield a better understanding of psychological functioning at the level of the individual (Gottman, 1993).

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This study is based on the first author‘s dissertation. Financial support for data collection, data coding, initial analyses and write-up were provided by NIH grant MH50560 awarded to Dr. H. H. Goldsmith and NIH grant MH44340 awarded to Marilyn J. Essex and Janet S. Hyde, with Roseanne Clark, H. Hill Goldsmith, Marjorie H. Klein, Nancy A. Smider, and Deborah Lowe Vandell. Additional support was provided by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Psychopathology and

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Development (David J. Kupfer, M.D., Chair). I would like to thank my dissertation committee members Colleen Moore, Richard Davidson and Jim Dannemiller who provided valuable input during the proposal and defense stage for the eventual publication of these data.

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Levenson, R. W. & Gottman, J. M. (1985). Physiological and affective predictors of change in relationship satisfaction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 49, 85-94. MacLeod, C., Campbell, L., Rutherford, E., & Wilson, E. (2004). The causal status of anxiety-linked attentional and interpretive bias. J. Yiend (Ed). Cognition, Emotion and psychopathology: Theoretical, empirical and clinical directions, pp. 172-189. Cambridge University Press: London. McArthur, L. Z. & Baron, R. M. (1983). Toward an ecological theory of social perception. Psychological Review, 90, 215-238. Mineka S. (2004). The positive and negative consequences of worry in the aeitology of generalized anxiety disorder: A learning theory perspective. J. Yiend (Ed). Cognition, Emotion and psychopathology: Theoretical, empirical and clinical directions, pp. 29-48. Cambridge University Press: London. Munn, P. & Dunn, J. (1989). Temperament and the developing relationship between siblings. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 12, 433-451. Noller, P. & Feeney, J. A. (2006). Close relationships: functions, forms and processes. NY: Psychology Press. Patrick, C. (2007). Affective processes in psychopathy. In Rottenberg J. & Johnson S. L. Emotion & Psychopathology: Bridging affective and clinical science, pp.215-239. DC: APA. Rothbart, M. K., & Bates, J. E. (1998). Temperament. In P. Mussen (Series Ed.), Damon W. & Eisenberg M. (Volume Eds.), Handbook of Child Psychology: Social, emotional and personality development pp. (105176). Wiley: New York. Rottenberg, J. (2007). Major depressive disorder: Emerging evidence for emotion context insensitivity. In Rottenberg J. & Johnson S. L. Emotion & Psychopathology: Bridging affective and clinical science, pp.151-165. DC: APA. Saarni, C. (2001). Emotion communication and relationship context. International journal of Behavioral Development, 25, 354-356. Saarni, C. (1998). The development of emotional competence. New York: Guilford Press. Scherer, K. (1999). Appraisal Theory. In T. Dalgleish and M. Power (Eds.) Handbook of Cognition and Emotion, pp. 637-663. UK: Wiley & Sons.

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Shantz, C. U. & Hartup, W. W. (1992). Conflict and development: An introduction. In C.U. Shantz and W.W. Hartup (Eds.), Conflict in child and adolescent development, pp. 1-14. New York: Cambridge University Press. Stocker, C., Dunn, J., & Plomin, R. (1989). Sibling relationships: Links with child temperament, maternal behavior and family structure. Child Development, 60, 715-727. Stoneman, Z., & Brody, G. H., (1993). Sibling temperaments, conflict, warmth role asymmetry. Child Development, 64, 1786-1800. Sutton, S. K. & Davidson, R. J. (1997). Prefrontal brain asymmetry: A biological substrate of the behavioral approach and inhibition system. Psychological Science, 8, 204-210. Tronick, E. Z. (1989). Emotions and emotional communication in infants. American Psychologist, 44, 112-119. Watson, D., Clark, L. A., Weber, K., Assenheimer, J. S., Strauss, M. E. & McCromick, R. A. (1995). Testing the tripartite model: I. Evaluating the convergent and discriminant validity of anxiety and depression symptom scales. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 104, 3-14.

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INDEX

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A abuse, viii, 48, 51, 63, 65, 75, 77, 81 access, 4, 8, 101, 131, 132 adaptability, 9 adaptation(s), 7, 27, 31, 33, 73 adaptive functioning, 71 ADHD, 80, 95, 97 adjustment, 30, 31, 34, 39, 40, 45, 46, 47, 49, 50, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 69, 71, 72, 77, 92, 95, 97, 174 adolescent development, 33, 39, 181 adolescents, 5, 36, 70, 71, 77, 92, 94, 96, 97, 101, 146 adulthood, 30, 31, 35 adults, 9, 20, 53 advancement, 79 affective dimension, 153 affective states, 168 African-American, 81, 157 age, 4, 5, 6, 12, 14, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 25, 28, 45, 47, 51, 52, 56, 60, 61, 64, 83, 100, 101, 103, 105, 106, 111, 112, 114, 115, 123, 138, 142, 152, 157, 173, 176, 177 aggression, viii, 50, 53, 67, 75, 77, 78, 84, 91, 92, 96, 144, 158, 178 aggressive behavior, 77, 80 agonist, 132 air, 160

Alaska, 157 alpha, 161, 163 alternatives, 160 alters, 163, 165 ambivalence, 2, 22 American Psychological Association, 47, 66 analysis of variance, 159 anger, 144, 153, 154, 177 ANOVA, 159, 163 antagonistic, 171 antisocial behavior, vii, viii, 37, 75, 76, 92 antisocial personality, 175 anxiety, ix, 5, 13, 53, 65, 69, 76, 77, 93, 96, 139, 175, 180, 181 anxiety disorder, 93, 96, 180 APA, 180 appraisals, 32, 47 arousal, 46, 123 Asian, 157 assault, 77 assessment, 33, 34, 36, 46, 61, 71, 81, 85, 128, 151 assignment, 158 asymmetry, 177, 181 asymptomatic, 50 attachment, vii, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 78, 176, 179 attachment theory, 3, 7, 27, 29, 38, 41, 79

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184

Index

attitudes, 100, 101, 102, 117, 121, 123 authority, 97 autism, ix, 76, 97 autonomy, 3, 7, 12, 17, 25 aversion, 122 avoidance, 2 awareness, 136

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B barriers, 48 base, 3, 7, 21, 23, 24, 28, 29, 30, 41, 154, 172 battered women, 68, 70 behavior, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156, 158, 160, 161, 164, 165, 172, 174, 175, 176, 179, 181 behavioral problems, 67, 72, 96 behaviors, ix, 2, 3, 5, 6, 14, 19, 32, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 88, 91, 120, 123, 150, 154, 155, 156, 160, 165, 171 Belgium, 130, 141, 142 benefits, 6, 81, 96, 121, 130, 136 bias, 11, 107, 180 birth rate, 130 blame, 47, 61, 85 blastocyst culture, x, 125, 132 bonds, 6, 20, 23, 24, 25, 27 border crossing, 131 brain, 177, 178, 181 brain asymmetry, 181 brothers, 27, 52, 72, 90, 100, 142

C capacity, 155 caregivers, 97 caregiving, 10, 39, 41 case study(s), 80, 92, 95, 142, 143 categorization, 11 Caucasian, 157 cell, 159, 161, 163 cerebral asymmetry, 177 challenges, 47, 123, 146, 174, 177

changing environment, 8 chaos, 29 chicken, 88, 89 child abuse, 47, 68, 81 Child Behavior Checklist, 52, 66, 79 child development, vii, 32, 77, 177 child maltreatment, 71, 77, 81 child protective services, 68 child rearing, 34 childhood, viii, 5, 11, 22, 30, 31, 33, 34, 35, 37, 38, 41, 44, 66, 69, 75, 77, 93, 94, 97, 100, 101, 104, 105, 106, 110, 117, 144 childrearing, 12 child-rearing practices, 176 China, 97 cholesterol, 101, 104, 107, 108, 109, 111, 112, 113, 114, 117, 118, 119 chronic illness, 80, 92 city(s), 97, 105, 106 classification, 35, 39 cleaning, 86 cleavage, x, 125, 128 clients, 147 clinical application, 31 clinical diagnosis, 46, 47 clinical psychology, 2 close relationships, 33, 174, 178 coaches, 79 codes, 160, 161, 162, 163, 166 coding, 54, 79, 144, 174, 175 coercion, 97 cognition, 179 cognitive, xi, 149 cognitive ability, 102, 121 cognitive development, 139 cognitive function, 44 cognitive perspective, 41 college students, 122 communication, xi, 8, 30, 150, 152, 154, 155, 156, 159, 160, 161, 163, 164, 165, 166, 167, 169, 170, 172, 174, 176, 179, 180, 181 communication patterns, 174 community(s), 47, 51, 63, 64, 65, 69, 72, 81, 143, 145

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185

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Index community service, 145 compensation, 16 competence, 179, 180 competency, 151, 174 competition, 14, 123 competitiveness, 16 complexity, 8, 146, 173 compliance, ix, 54, 76, 78, 80, 84, 88, 90, 156, 158, 159, 162, 164, 167 complications, 127, 131, 134 components, 154, 156, 158, 161, 164, 166, 167, 169 composition, 61, 67 conception, x, 125, 127, 138 conceptual model, 63 conceptualization, 150 conduct disorder, 50 conflict resolution, 77 consensus, 13, 49, 130 construct validity, 53 construction, 6 content analysis, 143 contingency, 175 control group, 80, 81, 95 controlled trials, 128 conversations, 5, 31, 161, 178 cooperation, 16, 35 cooperative sibling behaviors, ix, 76 correlation(s), 37, 56, 102, 108, 117 couples, 151, 153 criticism, 15 cryopreservation, 128, 129, 130, 136, 138 cues, 174 cultivation, x, 125, 126, 128 culture, x, 38, 125, 128, 132 culture media, 128 cycles, x, 126, 130, 132, 133, 138, 139

delinquency, 61, 72, 77, 93 demographic characteristics, 56, 157 dependent variable, 55, 110, 115 depression, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 19, 24, 25, 36, 38, 39, 49, 53, 65, 72, 77, 80, 95, 127, 139, 177, 181 depressive disorder, 37, 71, 180 depth, 144, 146 destruction, 10 destructive process, 93 determinism, 6 developmental psychology, 2, 4, 21 developmental psychopathology, 44, 45, 51, 62, 65 Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 47 diagnostic criteria, 47, 81 differential treatment, viii, 29, 31, 34, 36, 40, 43, 44, 45, 51, 56, 64, 65, 66, 70, 71 dimensionality, 160 disability, x, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146 discrete emotions, 152, 168, 172, 173 disorder, 67, 69, 180 disputes, 178 dissatisfaction, 21 dissociative disorders, 5 distress, vii, 1, 13, 36, 49, 63, 137 distribution, 105, 108, 110 divorce, xi, 150, 153 DOI, 137 domestic violence, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73 dominance, 154, 155, 156 double blastocyst transfer (DBT), x, 126, 129 drawing, 85, 107 DSM, 47

E D data collection, 51, 175 data set, 102 defense, 176 definition, 174 degrees of freedom, 159

earnings, 101, 106, 114, 122 ecological, 180 economics, 99, 100 education, 48, 100, 105, 120, 123, 136, 146, 157 educational attainment, 121, 122

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186

Index

elective single embryo transfer (eSET), x, 125, 130 e-mail, 99 emotion(s), xi, 28, 32, 40, 95, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156, 168, 171, 172, 173, 175, 176, 177, 178, 179, 180 emotion regulation, 32, 69, 175, 178 emotional, xi, 150, 151, 152, 153, 170, 173, 174, 175, 176, 177, 180, 181 emotional well-being, 19, 145 emotionality, xi, 19, 29, 149 empathy, 19 employment status, 63 energy, 8 engagement, 154 England, 93 environment(s), vii, 1, 3, 8, 9, 20, 37, 45, 52, 61, 174, 175 environmental change, 22 environmental influences, 35 ethnic minority, 68 Europe, 126, 130, 138, 139, 146 evidence, xi, 6, 48, 65, 77, 102, 121, 128, 130, 131, 149, 152, 161, 162, 168, 169, 171, 172, 180 exchange rate, 103, 120 exposure, 44, 45, 48, 49, 53, 55, 56, 57, 60, 63, 64, 66, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73 expressiveness, 40, 150, 151, 152 externalizing difficulties, 44, 47, 81

family interactions, 15, 16 family life, 143, 145, 146 family members, x, 8, 25, 26, 27, 47, 51, 52, 64, 142 family relationships, 2, 3, 18, 38, 45 family system, vii, 1, 7, 8, 9, 11, 26, 30, 32, 35, 39, 67, 92 family therapy, 29, 97 family violence, 69, 70 father-oldest child attachment, viii, 2 father-youngest child attachment, viii, 2 fear(s), 53, 126, 154 feelings, 11, 12, 53 female partner, 132, 133 fertilization, 137 fights, 84, 90, 95 financial, 100, 117, 121, 122, 136 financial incentives, 121 Finland, 130 first dimension, 160 flexibility, 9 focus groups, 143 force, 78, 131 formation, 40, 122 foundations, 78 France, 1, 22 freedom, 159 freezing, 138 funding, x, 126

G F facial expression, 152, 173 factor analysis, 33 failure, 175 fairness, 34 family(s), 9, 17, 19, 22, 24, 29, 33, 34, 36, 37, 45, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 54, 61, 64, 65, 66, 69, 70, 72, 73, 81, 95, 96, 97, 101, 139, 142, 145, 146, 157, 181 family characteristics, 40, 45 family conflict, 28, 48 family functioning, 26, 94, 139 family income, 157

gender differences, 114, 122 generalized anxiety disorder, 180 generation, 171, 174 Germany, 146 gestation, 126, 129, 134, 136 goals, 174 grading, 132 groups, 157 growth, 93 guilt, 53

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Index

H

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health, 44, 65, 100, 101, 104, 111, 114, 120, 121, 127, 139, 151 hedonic, 153, 156, 159, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 166, 167, 168, 170, 171, 172 heterogeneity, 44, 107 heterosexuals, 22 high school, 157 Hispanic, 157 history, 48, 50, 51, 56, 63, 65, 66, 123, 173 homeostasis, 8, 28 homework, 89, 90 Hong Kong, 81 horses, 91 hospitalization, 145 hostility, 16, 40, 50, 55 House, 84 human, 38, 123, 138 human development, 38 Hunter, 97 husband, 84, 87, 90, 154 hyperactivity, 84, 96 hypothesis, xi, 6, 7, 18, 21, 31, 150, 168

I ID, x, 141, 142, 143, 145, 146, 160 ideal, 4, 82 identification, 144 image, 146 improvements, 128 impulsive, 102, 117 in transition, 164 in vitro, 137 incentive effect, 122 incidence, 44, 126, 129, 134, 135 inclusion, 157 income, 48, 51, 100, 105, 114, 157 independence, 15, 22, 160, 162, 163, 166 Indian, 157 indices, 151 indirect effect, 15, 48

187

individual character, 14, 17, 19, 20, 24, 65, 100, 122 individual characteristics, 14, 17, 19, 20, 24, 65, 100, 122 individual differences, xi, 20, 41, 45, 149, 174 individuals, ix, 7, 18, 99, 100, 103, 106, 142, 151 infancy, 35, 36, 41, 177 infants, 64, 176, 181 inferences, 152, 159 infertility, 127, 130, 131, 132, 137, 139 information exchange, 158 inheritance, 20, 61 inhibition, 181 insecurity, 3 insurance policy, x, 126, 134, 135, 136 integration, 35 integrity, 9 intellectual disabilities, vii, x, 81, 141 interaction, xi, 149, 152, 153, 154, 156, 158, 161, 163, 171, 172, 173, 174, 175, 176, 178, 179 interaction effect(s), 59, 67 interactions, xi, 149, 151, 152, 153, 155, 158, 159, 166, 170, 174, 175, 176 interdependence, 39 interface, 8 internal consistency, 53 internalizing, 44, 46, 47, 48, 52, 68, 80 interparental conflict, 31 interpersonal conflict, 152, 153, 170 interpretation, 154, 159, 166 interrelations, 9, 20 intervention, ix, 29, 36, 68, 71, 76, 77, 78, 92, 95, 96, 97, 178 intimate partner violence (IPV), viii, 43, 44, 68, 71 Investigations, 178 investment, 100, 114 irritability, 20, 53 issues, 5, 24, 44, 61, 65, 78, 95, 100, 104, 114, 121

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188

Index

J judgment, 159 jumping, 104, 107, 108, 109, 111 justification, 178

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L labeling, 152, 173 labor-intensive, 174 later life, 77 lead, 5, 47, 79, 85, 86, 87, 91, 136, 146 Leahy, 70 learning, 62, 83, 84, 180 learning difficulties, 84 legislation, 130, 131 leisure, 100, 143, 145, 146 leisure time, 145, 146 lending, 65 level of education, 14, 19 life course, 45 lifetime, 53, 57 light, ix, 99, 102, 116 likelihood, 153, 159, 163, 165, 166, 170, 171, 172 limitation(s), 170, 173 linear, 159, 160, 163, 179 linear model, 159, 179 linear modeling, 159 linkage, 179 local community, 52 London, 177, 180 longitudinal study, 31, 40, 157 love, 14, 38

M Madison, 149, 157, 179 magnitude, 102, 108, 117 majority, 7, 45, 51, 52, 54, 105, 128, 170, 172 management, 78, 80, 131, 137 mapping, 142

marital conflict, 10, 15, 18, 19, 20, 24, 27, 34, 36, 39, 153, 179 Markov, 159, 160 marriage(s), 15, 18, 34, 39, 151, 153, 154, 174, 178 married couples, 153, 156, 179 maternal, 157, 174, 176, 178, 181 maternal care, 5, 50 matrix, 108 matter, 8, 10, 26, 117 measurement, 23, 40, 150 measures, 151, 157, 159, 175 media, x, 64, 125 medical, 127, 136, 145 medicine, 131 mental disorder, 66 mental health, 49, 50, 61, 70, 93, 151 mental representation, 4 mental retardation, 92 messages, xi, 150, 153, 156 meta-analysis, 30, 67, 73, 100, 123, 138 methodology, xi, 41, 50, 142, 150, 153 modalities, 155, 159 modeling, 159 models, 4, 8, 11, 22, 26, 28, 30, 34, 41, 55, 59, 159, 160, 161, 162, 163, 179 moderators, 39, 48 mood disorder, 175 morbidity, 47, 65 morphology, 138 mothers, 157, 176, 178 mother-youngest child attachment, viii, 2 motivation, 93, 122 movement, 154, 169, 172 multiples, 139 mutuality, 14

N narratives, 4, 142 nationality, 22 nausea, 53 negative consequences, 180 negative effects, 12, 15, 16, 63, 172, 173 negative experiences, 49

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Index negative outcomes, 45 negativity, 157 neglect, 65, 95 negotiation, 97, 176 nervous system, 178, 179 nervousness, 53 Netherlands, 123 network members, 142, 146 neuropsychology, 177 neutral, 45, 54, 55, 161, 164, 165, 166, 167, 171, 172, 174 New York, 177, 178, 180, 181 NIH, 175 non-clinical population, 54 nonverbal, xi, 150, 151, 153, 154, 155, 158, 176, 178, 179 nonverbal communication, 154, 176 normal, 163 North America, 44 nuclear family, 2

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O observations, 153 ODD, 80, 86 oocyte, 132, 138 openness, 6, 9, 146 opportunities, 84, 87, 146, 156 Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD), 86 organize, 18 orientation, 155, 176, 179

P Paper, 179 parallel, 18, 26, 153, 163, 168, 171, 172, 173 parental authority, 9, 78, 79 parental relationships, 13, 16 parental treatment, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 23, 27, 50 parent-child, 151, 152, 174 parent-child attachment, vii, 1, 10, 11, 13, 14, 16, 17, 18, 19, 21, 24, 26, 27

189

Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT), ix, 76 parenting, viii, ix, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 30, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 41, 48, 49, 50, 54, 63, 65, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 75, 76, 77, 79, 81, 91, 92, 96, 127 parenting behaviours, 49 parenting styles, 30, 41 participants, 10, 52, 54, 80, 117 pathology, xi, 149 pathways, 45, 70 peer, 150, 151 peer relationship, 40, 70, 151 percentile, 107 perception(s), 155, 180 perinatal, x, 125 personal development, 9 personal history, 9, 17 personality, 19, 64, 65, 71, 100, 122, 175, 180 personality differences, 100 personality traits, 19 physical abuse, 81 physical aggression, 48, 78, 158 physiological, xi, 149, 150, 179, 180 physiology, 177, 178 pilot study, 93 plausibility, 159 play, xi, 149, 152, 158, 166, 169, 172, 174, 177 playing, 83, 85, 86, 91, 144 policy, x, 67, 125, 126, 132, 134 population, ix, 7, 18, 22, 24, 26, 28, 76, 78, 105, 107, 135, 136, 139, 152 positive attitudes, 14 positive interactions, 15, 59, 63, 64, 79 positive parent-child interactions, viii, 43 positive relationship, 87 posttraumatic stress, 67, 72 post-traumatic stress disorder, 44, 46, 47, 52, 66, 67, 71 power, 175 preadolescents, 34 predictability, 26, 80

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190

Index

prediction, 151, 162 predictor variables, 59 predictors, 154, 180 preferential treatment, 34, 64 pregnancy, x, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 133, 134, 135, 136, 139, 157 prematurity, 32 preschool, 12, 14, 16, 18, 35, 37, 40, 67, 80, 95, 101, 122, 173 preschool children, 18, 37, 80, 95 preschoolers, ix, 69, 76, 80, 96, 173 prevention, 67, 71 principles, 131 probability, x, 125, 163, 164, 165, 166, 168 problem behavior(s), 77, 78, 83, 91 problem children, 94, 95 professionals, 23, 92, 127, 142, 143, 146, 147 prognosis, 130, 132, 137 program, 151 project, x, 141 promote, 175 prosocial behavior, 79, 82 protection, vii, 1, 2, 3, 21, 26 protective factors, 45, 70 provocation, 158 proxy, 175 psychiatrist, vii, 1 psychobiology, 177, 178 psychological development, 17, 137 psychological problems, 11, 127 psychology, 100, 123 psychometric properties, 54 psychopathology, xi, 13, 19, 31, 33, 49, 67, 68, 149, 150, 175, 180 psychopathy, 180 PTSD, 44, 46, 47, 52, 56, 73 public health, 44

Q quality of life, x, 137, 141, 142 quantification, 175 questionnaire, 54, 103, 132, 157

R race, 89 random, xi, 150, 152, 161, 170 range, 152, 173 ratings, 154, 157 reading, 177 reality, 6, 21, 144 reasoning, 78 recidivism, 81, 93 reciprocity, 152, 155, 175, 178 recognition, 152 recommendations, 128 regression, 55, 59, 66, 105, 110, 111, 115 regulation, xi, 150, 152, 156, 161, 163, 166, 169, 170, 172, 174, 175, 177, 178, 179 regulations, x, 125, 126, 130, 131, 133, 134, 135, 136 reinforcement, viii, 75, 78, 91, 92 rejection, 50, 55, 153 relationship, xi, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155, 173, 176, 180 relationship quality, 34, 41, 71, 93, 176 relationship satisfaction, 32, 180 relationships, xi, 149, 151, 152, 171, 172, 174, 176, 177, 178, 180, 181 reliability, 54, 144 religion, 122 replication, 40, 65 reporters, 62 reproduction, vii, x, 125, 126, 131, 137, 138, 139 research, xi, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 171, 172, 174, 175, 177 researchers, 2, 21, 48, 54, 77, 81, 142, 144, 150, 151, 153, 174, 175, 179 residuals, 161, 163, 164, 166, 167, 168, 169 resilience, 68 resolution, 93, 97 resources, 8, 19, 52, 101, 137 response, 103, 107, 153, 154, 161, 166, 169 responsiveness, 50, 147, 175, 178 rights, x, 126, 130 risk aversion, 101, 102, 114, 116, 121, 122 risk factors, xi, 45, 65, 67, 149

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Index risk-taking, 100, 101, 123 romantic relationship, 38 rules, 78, 80, 84, 102, 130, 131, 134, 152 Rutherford, 150, 180

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S sadness, 12, 53, 153, 154, 167, 172, 177 safety, 101, 104, 114 sample, 157, 173, 174 satisfaction, 153, 154, 155, 179, 180 school, 5, 17, 24, 28, 39, 44, 46, 48, 51, 52, 64, 72, 80, 95, 143, 145, 146, 157, 176 school achievement, 44 schooling, 145 science, 176, 177, 180 security, 3, 11, 13, 17, 20, 21, 22, 24, 26, 27, 31, 32, 34, 37, 38 self esteem, 50 self-control, 101, 102 self-esteem, 50, 77 sensation, 100, 123 sensation seeking, 100, 123 sensitivity, 11, 19, 38, 40, 41, 50, 62, 65, 66 series, 161, 179 services, 81, 142, 143, 147 sex, 56, 67, 73 sharing, 158 shelter, 47 showing, vii, xi, 1, 111, 149 sibling conflict, viii, ix, xi, 75, 76, 77, 78, 82, 84, 91, 94, 97, 150 sign, 167, 168 signals, 176 significance level, 107 skill acquisition, 79 skills training, ix, 76 sleep disturbance, 46 sociability, 6, 14, 19 social behavior, 83, 174 social competence, 44, 177 social development, viii, 28, 75, 93 social environment, 174, 175 social interactions, xi, 149, 175 social learning, 79, 96

191

social sciences, 38 social skills, vii, viii, ix, 75, 76, 83 social support, 48, 69, 143 socialization, 4, 8 socioeconomic status, 48 software, 144 solidarity, 16 solution, 91 species, 4 speech, 79 SPSS, 176 stability, 5, 9, 22 stabilization, 8 standard deviation, 55 state(s), 5, 104, 110, 166, 168, 171, 178 statistics, 55, 102, 105, 106, 107 stimulation, 131, 132, 133 stock, 114 streams, xi, 150, 152, 161, 170 stress, viii, ix, 4, 7, 16, 17, 18, 19, 27, 39, 43, 44, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 54, 55, 56, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 65, 68, 69, 70, 71, 76, 83, 127, 137 stressful events, 45 stressful life events, 63 stressors, 45, 71 structure, 8, 12, 29, 34, 38, 81, 92, 142, 143, 144, 181 style(s), 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 18, 20, 23, 24, 25, 27, 29, 31, 34, 35, 36, 39, 79 substance abuse, 72 substance-abuse treatment, 147 substrate, 181 success rate, x, 125, 127, 129, 131, 134 succession, 160 successive approximations, 79 suicidal ideation, 46 survival, 4, 129 survivors, 67 Sweden, 99, 103, 105, 106, 107, 117, 123, 130 Switzerland, 132 symptom, 181 symptomology, 14

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Index

symptoms, vii, viii, 12, 13, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 55, 56, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 68, 72, 80 syndrome, 131, 143 synthesis, 122

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T Taiwan, 30 target, ix, 76, 77, 82, 83, 84, 85, 91, 157 Task Force, 127, 137 teacher relationships, 150 teachers, 62, 146 teaching, 158 techniques, viii, 75, 78, 126, 127, 128 technology, 137, 138, 139 temperament, 12, 13, 14, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 23, 24, 25, 27, 33, 35, 39, 40, 61, 65, 96, 178, 181 temporal, 177 testing, 55, 59, 159, 174 test-retest reliability, 54 theory, 180 therapist, 79, 83, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91 therapy, 30, 79, 82, 84, 91, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 145, 178 thoughts, 11, 53, 144, 145 threat, 155 time preferences, ix, 99, 101, 108, 114, 117, 120 tones, 165, 166, 168, 169, 171, 172, 173 toys, 82, 83, 84, 88, 91 trade-off, 121 training, ix, 76, 78, 94, 96 transactions, xi, 9, 150, 151, 155, 173, 174, 175 transcription, 158 transition(s), 161, 162, 163, 170, 172 transmission, 5, 11, 12, 28, 101, 121 trauma, vii, viii, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 55, 56, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 72 treatment, ix, 16, 18, 19, 24, 45, 51, 56, 60, 63, 64, 71, 76, 79, 80, 81, 84, 87, 91, 92,

93, 94, 95, 97, 127, 128, 130, 131, 132, 136, 139, 145, 151, 174 trend, xi, 149 trial, 92, 95, 97, 137, 138, 139 Turkey, 149 twin rate deliveries, x, 126 twinning, 127 twins, 18, 67, 127, 137, 139 two-dimensional, 159

U UK, 38, 121, 180 unique features, 46, 78, 92 United, 9, 71 United States, 9 university education, 105, 106 USA, 75, 149 uterus, 132

V valence, 173 validation, 29, 154 validity, 154, 181 values, 161 variability, 152, 175 variable(s), viii, 2, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 55, 59, 60, 71, 100, 103, 105, 106, 110, 117, 123, 133, 142, 151, 161 variance, 159 variation(s), 3, 22, 150, 173 verbalizations, 152, 156 victimization, 69, 71, 94 victims, 65, 67 videotape, 158 violence, vii, viii, 43, 44, 48, 49, 50, 53, 56, 61, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 77, 93, 94, 96, 97 violent behaviour, 53 visual perception, 178 vocalizations, 158 voice, 159 vomiting, 53

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Index

W

Y Yale University, 93 yield, 174, 175 young adults, 5, 18, 38, 68, 114, 122

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Washington, 66, 147 welfare, 67, 69, 93, 137 well-being, 34, 36, 44, 70, 127, 143, 175 WHO, 73 Wisconsin, 149, 157, 179 withdrawal, 53, 154, 155, 156, 159, 167, 168, 172, 177 witnesses, 69, 70

World Health Organization, 44, 73 worldwide, 44 worry, 180

Siblings: Social Adjustments, Interaction and Family Dynamics : Social Adjustments, Interaction and Family Dynamics, edited