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Published on: December 2, 2015
Children's emotional reactivity to interadult nonverbal conflict expressions
Arth-Pendley Gina De1, E Mark Cummings
1Department of Psychology, University of Notre Dame, IN 46556, USA. gvpendley@msn.com
Abstract:
The authors investigated children's responses to nonverbal expressions of conflict. Reactions of 3 groups of children (ranging in age from 6 to 16 years) to multiple forms of nonverbal conflict behaviors expressed in videotaped simulations of interadult disputes were examined. Results indicated that children make few discriminations between different forms of nonverbal conflict behaviors and that their reactions to nonverbal conflict are similar to their reactions to verbal conflict. Adults' expressions of fear elicited the most negative emotional responses from children, suggesting that children react to the meaning of conflict expressions and that expressions of fear may represent the greatest emotional security risks to children. Implications of these results for a theoretical model of the effects of forms of marital conflict on children are discussed (P. T. Davies & E. M. Cummings, 1994).
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