Individual and Family Level Risk and Resilience Factors:

1. Individual and Family Level Risk and Resilience Factors: Impact on Internalizing and Externalizing Behaviors in Middle Childhood T. Caitlin O’Brien, Kathryn Lemery-Chalfant, & Carlos Valiente Figure1 Interaction of negative parenting and resilience when predicting children’s internalizing symptoms Figure2 Interaction of resilience and ethnicity when predicting children’s externalizing symptoms Introduction Method Children today encounter many risks that challenge successful development and research has illustrated how these risks can lead to internalizing and externalizing problems. Many risk factors such as SES are difficult to change; however, other factors may be present to negate or lessen the impact of growing up in a low income environment. Further, many theoretical models of resilience suggest that protective, compensatory, or resilience factors play a moderating role, influencing outcomes through statistical interaction with risk factors. Following Bronfenbrenner’s ideology, we propose that resilience effects may also be additive, especially with normative samples. Specifically, we hypothesize that a broad composite of compensatory factors will have an additive effect, reducing problem behaviors. Risk Factors for Internalizing and Externalizing Symptoms The Surgeon General Report estimates that almost twenty percent of children between the ages of 9 and 17 deal with some form of mental disorder (Satcher, 1999) and research can contribute to a clearer understanding of what risk factors are driving disordered outcomes. Socioeconomic Status (SES) - Children who experience economic hardships are at an increased risk for negative developmental outcomes in normative as well as selected high or low risk samples, and throughout development (Carlson & Corcoran, 2001). Family Stress - Family changes and chaos in the home can be stressful, and have been linked to increased behavior problems (Valiente, Lemery-Chalfant, & Reiser, in press). Marital conflict is another family stressor that can lead to higher rates of internalizing and externalizing problems (Low & Stocker, 2005). Negative Parenting – Parental negative reactions to their child’s expression of negative emotions can lead to both internalizing and externalizing behaviors (Eisenberg et al., 1999). Parental lack of knowledge of their child’s behaviors also relates to risky behaviors (Crouter, Bumpus, Davis, & McHale, 2005). Compensatory Resilience Factors and Internalizing and Externalizing Symptoms Resilience is a construct with many operational definitions. It can be seen as a characteristic of the child, as ordinary development and system functioning despite less than optimal circumstances, or as a product of the relationship between the child and his/her environment. There is a combination of sources necessary to reduce vulnerability and increase resilience. This makes a holistic approach that integrates multiple levels useful for obtaining a clear view of resilience (Cook, 2003). Ego Resilience - Ego resilience is a characteristic of the child that allows the child to be flexible and adapt to changing situational demands, ego-resilient children show little to no behavioral problems (Eisenberg, Spinrad, & Morris, 2002). Effortful Control - The ability to self-regulate and suppress a dominant response in order to perform a secondary response is another characteristic of the child that relates to fewer internalizing and externalizing behaviors (Rothbart & Bates, 2006). School Liking - A child’s involvement and liking of his/her school environment helps him/her to have better academic outcomes and better transitions through changes (Ladd & Price, 1987). Popularity - Social relationships with peers are especially important in the school environment. Positive relationships and peer standing contribute to the child’s resilience and fewer behavioral problems (Criss, Pettit, Bates, Dodge, & Lopp, 2002). • Participants • 220 children with a mean age of 9.57. • 32% Mexican American, 24% Caucasian, 4% African American, 6% American Indian, and 13% of other origins. • Procedure • Teacher and child questionnaires administered at school, parent questionnaires mailed to the home in the parent’s • chosen language. • Children were read all items from their questionnaires by a research assistant. • Measures • Risk Variables • Socioeconomic Status • Mean composite of primary caregiver employment, primary and secondary caregiver education, and total family • income. • Family Stress • Confusion, Hubbub, and Order Scale, 10 items on a true/false scale (CHAOS; Matheny, Wachs, Ludwig, & • Phillips,1995) • Marital Adjustment Test, 10 items on a five point scale (MAT; Locke & Wallace, 1959) • Negative Parenting • Coping with Children’s Negative Emotions Scale, 48 items on a seven point scale (CCNES; Fabes, Eisenberg, & • Bernzweig,1990) • Adaptation of Monitoring Scale, 7 items on a five point scale (Small & Kerns, 1993) • Resilience Factors • Ego Resilience • Ego Resilience, 11 items on a 9 point scale (Block & Block, 1980) • Effortful Control - Attention shifting, activation control, and inhibitory control scales • Early Adolescent Temperament Questionnaire, 16 items on a five point scale (Capaldi & Rothbart, 1992). • School Liking • School Liking and Avoidance Questionnaire, 11 items teacher report (12 items child report) on a three point • scale (Ladd & Price, 1987) • Popularity • Popularity and Socially Appropriate Behavior, 7 items on a four point scale (Eisenberg, Fabes, Guthrie, & Reiser, • 2000). • Internalizing and Externalizing Behaviors • Internalizing (child report) • Youth Self-Report, 37 items on a five point scale (YSR; Achenbach, 1991) • Externalizing (parent report) • Child Behavior Checklist, 38 items on a five point scale (CBCL, Achenbach, 1991) Figure 3 Interaction of family stress and ethnicity when predicting children’s externalizing symptoms Figure 4 Significant Additive and Interactive Effects Ethnicity Resilience Internalizing Family Stress Externalizing SES Neg Parenting Discussion Results • Summary of Findings • The risk composites of SES, family stress, and negative parenting all had significant main effects on number of externalizing behaviors, but were nonsignificant for internalizing. • Internalizing may be predicted by risk factors not included in this study, such as parental psychopathology and behavioral inhibition, or it may be that the children were not good reporters of their internalizing problems. • The resilience composite of ego resilience, effortful control, school liking, and popularity related significantly to fewer internalizing and externalizing behaviors. • Resilience was a significant moderator for the association between negative parenting and internalizing behaviors. The children who were one standard deviation above the mean on resilience experienced more internalizing problems than those who were low on resilience. • This interaction works in the opposite direction from what was expected. It could be that resilient children are better equipped to report on internalizing feelings and behaviors than are non-resilient children. • The relation of resilience to externalizing was moderated by ethnicity, in that as resilience increased, Caucasian children experienced significantly fewer externalizing behavior problems than Hispanic children. • Future studies should test other measures of resilience to see if other aspects of resilience are more influential for Hispanic children, such as social support or ethnic identity. • Ethnicity was also a moderator for the relation between family stress and externalizing behaviors. As family stress increased, Caucasian children exhibited significantly more externalizing behaviors while Hispanic children did not. • This finding supports our hypothesis that family-level risk factors will have differential impacts in the two cultures. Mexican culture values a higher level of familism, and a dependence on multiple caregivers and family-style living. • Conclusions • These results underscore the importance of the additive effect of resilience in normative samples. • Limitations include questionable reports of internalizing and a non culturally-sensitive research design. • Children have been suggested to be better reporters of unobservable internalizing states (Barrett et al., 1991), however it is still more difficult to accurately measure internalizing than externalizing. • As this study was not designed to be a study on ethnicity, the results are exploratory. A study designed and administered in culturally sensitive ways would be able to draw stronger conclusions. • Future research should attempt to measure the specific risks that children from different situations face as well as validate culturally sensitive measures of risk and resilience in different ethnicities and include a broader spectrum of possible resilience factors. • Principle component analysis was used to identify a broad composite of resilience, onto which ego resilience, effortful control, school liking, and popularity loaded. • SES, family stress, and negative parenting were significant predictors of parent report externalizing. The resilience component was a significant predictor of both parent report externalizing and child report internalizing. The risk factors were not significant predictors of internalizing. • Interaction terms were tested for each risk factor by resilience and then by ethnicity (Hispanic vs. Caucasian), significant additive and interactive effects are in bold. Hypotheses • Risk and resilience will jointly predict child psychopathology in a linear (additive) fashion. • Risk composites will increase the occurrence of internalizing and externalizing behaviors. • The resilience component will have a compensatory effect, decreasing the occurrence of internalizing and externalizing behaviors. • The interaction term ‘Ethnicity’ (Mexican American vs. Caucasian) will moderate the pathways from risk and resilience to internalizing and externalizing behaviors. Resilience is expected to differ by culture and ethnicity, and the family-level risk factors are expected to be less predictive for Mexican American children because of a higher level of familism and dependence on multiple caregivers in the Mexican culture. Table 1 Additive and Interactive Risk and Resilience Influences on Internalizing and Externalizing Behaviors. Risk Internalizing and Externalizing Symptoms Resilience Ethnicity Risk Internalizing and Externalizing Symptoms Resilience Note. β= Standardized Beta Coefficient. + p<.10; * p<.05; **p<.01; ***p<.001