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Updated: May 21, 2026

Assessing the Coherence of Parents' Short Narratives Regarding their Child Using the Five-Minute Speech Sample Procedure
Published on: September 19, 2019
Toward greater specificity in identifying associations among interparental aggression, child emotional reactivity to
Patrick T Davies1, Dante Cicchetti, Meredith J Martin
1Department of Clinical and Social Sciences in Psychology, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY 14627, USA. patrick.davies@rochester.edu
Abstract:
This study examined specific forms of emotional reactivity to conflict and temperamental emotionality as explanatory mechanisms in pathways among interparental aggression and child psychological problems. Participants of the multimethod, longitudinal study included 201 two-year-old children and their mothers who had experienced elevated violence in the home. Consistent with emotional security theory, autoregressive structural equation model analyses indicated that children's fearful reactivity to conflict was the only consistent mediator in the associations among interparental aggression and their internalizing and externalizing symptoms 1year later. Pathways remained significant across maternal and observer ratings of children's symptoms and with the inclusion of other predictors and mediators, including children's sad and angry forms of reactivity to conflict, temperamental emotionality, gender, and socioeconomic status.
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