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Prospective Relations Between Parental Depression, Negative Expressiveness, Emotional Insecurity, and Children’s Internalizing Symptoms

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Abstract

Building on the conceptual framework of emotional security theory (Davies and Cummings in Psychol Bull 116:387–411, 1994), this study longitudinally examined multiple factors linking parental depressive symptoms and child internalizing symptoms. Participants were 235 children (106 boys, 129 girls) and their cohabiting parents. Assessments included mothers’ and fathers’ depressive symptoms when children were in kindergarten, parents’ negative expressiveness when children were in first grade, children’s emotional insecurity 1 year later, and children’s internalizing symptoms in kindergarten and second grade. Findings revealed both mothers’ and fathers’ depressive symptoms were related to changes in children’s internalizing symptoms as a function of parents’ negative emotional expressiveness and children’s emotional insecurity. In addition to these similar pathways, distinctive pathways as a function of parental gender were identified. Contributions are considered for understanding relations between parental depressive symptoms and children’s development.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by a grant from the National Institutes of Mental Health (R01 MH57318) awarded to Patrick T. Davies and E. Mark Cummings. We are grateful to the families and teachers who participated in this project. We would like to thank the project staff and students at the University of Notre Dame and the University of Rochester. We also wish to thank Scott E. Maxwell and Ziyong Zhang for their statistical consultation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN, 46556, USA

    E. Mark Cummings & Rebecca Y. M. Cheung

  2. University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, USA

    Patrick T. Davies

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  1. E. Mark Cummings
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  2. Rebecca Y. M. Cheung
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  3. Patrick T. Davies
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Correspondence to E. Mark Cummings.

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Cummings, E.M., Cheung, R.Y.M. & Davies, P.T. Prospective Relations Between Parental Depression, Negative Expressiveness, Emotional Insecurity, and Children’s Internalizing Symptoms. Child Psychiatry Hum Dev 44, 698–708 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10578-013-0362-1

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