Development and Psychopathology 18 ~2006!, 707–735
Copyright © 2006 Cambridge University Press
Printed in the United States of America
DOI: 10.10170S0954579406060354
The implications of emotional security
theory for understanding and treating
childhood psychopathology
PATRICK T. DAVIES,a MARCIA A. WINTER,a and DANTE CICCHETTI b
a University
of Rochester; and b Institute of Child Development, University of Minnesota
Abstract
Understanding why interparental difficulties pose a risk to children in families experiencing domestic violence is an
urgent task for ameliorating childhood psychopathology, particularly in light of the paucity of knowledge on the
unfolding mediating mechanisms and the potentiating and protective conditions that underlie the multiplicity of
pathways between domestic violence and child maladjustment. Toward addressing this significant gap, this paper
examines how the emotional security theory ~EST! may foster advances in our understanding of the genesis, course,
and treatment of children’s psychological problems in families experiencing domestic violence. Following an
overview of the theoretical assumptions and significance of translating the emotional security theory to high-risk
contexts, we address how children’s difficulties in preserving security may emerge in the face of domestic violence
and accompanying forms of severe family adversity, and illustrate the implications of emotional insecurity for
childhood psychopathology in homes characterized by domestic violences. In the final section, we address how the
EST may be useful in informing public policy and intervention initiatives designed to reduce the burden of mental
illness.
The importance of applying the knowledge
derived from behavioral sciences to understanding and treating individuals who experience significant adversity and mental illness
is reflected in the growing emphasis placed on
translational research at multiple levels of the
scientific enterprise ~Cicchetti & Posner, 2005;
Pellmar & Eisenberg, 2000; Toth & Cicchetti,
1998!. For example, the Journal of the American Medical Association ~Zerhouni, 2005b!
and the New England Journal of Medicine
~Zerhouni, 2005a! have recently published articles exhorting those working in multiple areas
This research was supported by a National Institute of
Mental Health award ~R01 MH071256! to Patrick T.
Davies and Dante Cicchetti. Marcia A. Winter was supported by a National Institute of Mental Health fellowship ~F31 MH068057!.
Address correspondence and reprint requests to: Patrick
T. Davies, Department of Clinical and Social Sciences in
Psychology, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY
14627; E-mail: davies@psych.rochester.edu.
of the biomedical sciences to translate their
research findings and to disseminate them to
society. Moreover, editorial guidelines at scientific journal outlets such as the Journal of
Family Psychology now uniformly challenge
contributors to outline how empirical findings
may inform clinical practice and public policy
~Kazak, 2004; Parke, 1998!. Furthermore, the
fields of applied developmental psychology
and developmental psychopathology have long
championed the necessity of applying basic
research findings to the clinical and societal
arenas ~Cicchetti, 1993; Cicchetti & Toth, 1998;
Higgins-D’Alessandro & Jankowski, 2002!.
Likewise, modifications in the organization and priorities of funding agencies like
the National Institute of Mental Health signify an overarching commitment to translating knowledge in behavioral and social
sciences to understanding and reducing mental illness ~Cicchetti & Valentino, in press;
Dingfelder, 2004; Institute of Medicine, 1994;
707
708
National Advisory Mental Health Council Behavioral Science Workgroup, 2000; Pellmar
& Eisenberg, 2000!. Accompanying such
changes in the infrastructure of the behavioral
sciences is some, albeit modest, progress in
addressing the many significant gaps in integrating behavioral theory and science with intervention and policy initiatives ~see Cicchetti
& Hinshaw, 2002; Cicchetti & Toth, 2000!.
Consistent with this focus on translational
research, the purpose of this paper is to explicate how the emotional security theory ~EST!
and its assumptions about how family discord
affects children can be applied to advance
knowledge on the etiology, course, and amelioration of child psychopathology. Davies
and Cummings ~1994! originally developed
the EST to explain relatively normative developmental differences in children’s coping and
adaptation patterns in contexts of interparental conflict. In accordance with the developmental psychopathology approach and its
goal of elucidating the reciprocal interplay
between normality and psychopathology ~Cicchetti, 1984; Cicchetti & Schneider-Rosen,
1986; Sroufe, 1990, 1997!, our goal in this
paper is to expand the traditional conceptual
boundaries of the EST by more systematically examining its potential for understanding
child development in abnormal and high-risk
contexts.
As an initial foray into describing the
utility of the EST in clinical and abnormal
settings, we specifically examine how the emotional security theory may help to advance the
understanding and treatment of child development in families experiencing interadult domestic violence. Our paper is organized into
four parts. The first section provides an overview of the EST, including coverage of the
theoretical assumptions and the significance
of translating or applying the theory to highrisk contexts. In the second part of the paper,
we address how children’s difficulties in preserving security may emerge in the face of
domestic violence and accompanying forms
of severe family adversity. In the penultimate
section, we illustrate the implications of emotional insecurity for the development of childhood psychopathology in domestically violent
homes. In the final section, we address how
P. T. Davies, M. A. Winter, and D. Cicchetti
the EST may be useful in informing public
policy and intervention initiatives designed to
reduce the burden of mental illness.
Primary Assumptions and Historical
Roots of the Emotional Security Theory
The EST was originally developed to account
for why children exposed to high levels of
interparental conflict evidenced a range of maladaptive outcomes ~e.g., Davies & Cummings, 1994!. Extant research at the time led
to the conclusion that there were two primary
pathways underlying the risk posed by interparental conflict. First, in supporting a direct
path model, evidence suggested that interparental conflict increases children’s vulnerability to adjustment problems by progressively
amplifying their distress and reactivity to subsequent adult conflicts. Second, consistent with
an indirect path model, findings from an independent line of research supported the prediction that disturbances in parenting practices
and parent–child relations mediated the link
between interparental conflict and child psychological maladjustment.
Although this research underscored that exposure to interparental conflict and its accompanying family disturbances ~e.g., parenting
difficulties! were emotionally charged experiences for children, children’s emotions in the
family did not assume primacy in any existing
conceptual models of interparental conflict
~e.g., Emery, 1982; Grych & Fincham, 1990!.
Rooted in the functionalist perspective on emotion, the EST was designed to address this
gap. Within the functionalist perspective, emotion regulation is understood relationally within
the context of goals and the dynamic relation
between the person and environment ~Campos, Mumme, Kermoian, & Campos, 1994;
Thompson, 1997!. Accordingly, identifying the
goals and contexts relevant to emotion is a
primary task in any theoretical application of
the functionalist perspective. Attachment
theory, with its focus on emotional security as
a goal for children in the parent–child relationship, served as a guide in specifying that
preserving security may be a salient goal in
the interparental relationship and the broader
family system ~Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters, &
Emotional security theory
Wall, 1978; Bowlby, 1969; Sroufe & Waters,
1977!. Thus, correspondence between the emotional security and attachment theories lies in
the shared assumption that the quality of the
parent–child relationship can affect children’s
adaptive functioning by enhancing or undermining children’s security in the parent–child
subsystem.
However, unlike attachment theory, the EST
emphasizes that preserving security is relevant beyond the context of the parent–child
relationship. More specifically, consistent with
the examination of children’s coping in the
broader family unit in family systems theory
~Davies, Cummings, & Winter, 2004!, the EST
posits that preserving emotional security is an
important goal that organizes children’s emotional experiences ~e.g., fear!, action tendencies ~e.g., withdrawal, involvement!, and
appraisals of the self and others ~e.g., perceptions of threat to well-being! across multiple
family relationships, including the interparental subsystem. Although the EST does not deny
the significance of multiple goals and tasks
for children’s adaptation, the emotional security theory postulates that within the hierarchy
of human goals, protection, safety, and security are among the most salient and important
~Davies, Harold, Goeke-Morey, & Cummings,
2002!. Thus, one implication is that a child’s
sense of security in the interpartner relationship is a prominent process that is relatively
distinct in its origins, organization, and sequelae from security within the parent–child
relationship.
Building on the assumption that children
develop their own distinct sense of security in
the interparental relationship, the direct path
component of the EST proposes that children’s
security in the interparental relationship is a
central mediating mechanism underlying the
direct risk posed by interparental conflict for
children. As illustrated in Path 1 of Figure 1,
repeated exposure to heightened hostility, distress, and disengagement between parents is
specifically theorized to increase children’s
concerns about their security over time as they
grapple with worries about the welfare of their
parents, proliferation of parental discord into
the parent–child subsystem, and the implications for family instability and dissolution. Re-
709
flecting the distinct nature of the organization
of security in the interpartner relationship, preserving security in the interpartner relationship is conceptualized as a latent goal that
regulates and is regulated by three observable
classes of response processes: emotional reactivity, regulation of conflict exposure, and internal representations. Thus, as shown in
Path 2 of Figure 1, threats to the goal of security in the interpartner relationship are posited
to trigger greater emotional reactivity, characterized by prolonged, dysregulated fear and
distress in the context of interparental discord; regulation of conflict exposure in the
form of avoidance of and involvement in interparental problems; and hostile internal representations of the consequences interparental
difficulties have for the welfare of the self and
family ~Davies & Cummings, 1994, 1998!.
Illustrating the bidirectional interplay between the goal and response processes, these
processes are posited to serve the evolutionarily adaptive function of facilitating the attainment of safety in the average expectable
environment. For example, heightened states
of vigilance and arousal that characterize
emotional reactivity are theorized to increase
children’s sensitivity to signs of impending
threat in the family unit and energize them to
quickly cope with stress and preserve their
well-being.
Although elevated concerns about security
for children from high-conflict homes may
hold adaptational value in the immediate context of the family, the EST further postulates
that these concerns are maladaptive for
children’s long-term functioning. Thus, Path 3
in Figure 1 illustrates the second link of the
mediational pathway and its assumption that
vigilance, distress, worry, and negative appraisals triggered by exposure to interparental difficulties lay the foundation for broader patterns
of internalizing and externalizing symptoms.
In the second part of the mediational chain,
response processes linked with the emotional
security system are hypothesized to increase
child vulnerability to psychological symptoms. Supporting this hypothesis, research indicates that security in the interparental
relationship partially mediates the link between interparental conflict and young adoles-
710
Figure 1. A family-wide model of the impact of interparental conflict on child emotional security and psychopathology.
Emotional security theory
cent internalizing and externalizing symptoms even after taking into account social–
cognitive appraisals of threat and self-blame
and parent–child attachment security ~Davies,
Harold, et al., 2002!.
Despite the empirical support for the direct
path hypothesis of EST, the modest to moderate magnitude of the mediational role of security in the interparental relationship highlights
the considerable variability of coping and adaptation processes experienced by children exposed to similar family circumstances. Thus,
the findings also reflect diversity and plurality
in pathways between interparental conflict and
psychopathology across children. According
to the family systems component of EST, processes in the broader family context may be
central sources for the multiplicity of pathways experienced by children that may alter
direct pathways in two broad ways. First, as
shown by Path 4 in Figure 1, the indirect path
component of EST demonstrates that the link
between interparental conflict and child psychopathology is at least partially mediated by
family disturbances, including parenting difficulties characterized by emotional unavailability and psychological control ~e.g., Fauber,
Forehand, Thomas, & Weirson, 1990; Gonzalez, Pitts, Hill, & Roosa, 2000; Harold,
Fincham, Osborne, & Conger, 1997!. In furthering a family-wide model of emotional security, the indirect path component of the
theory specifically posits that the joint influence of destructive interparental conflict and
poor parenting practices increases child vulnerability to maladaptation by undermining
security across both parent–child and interparental relationships. Given that protection is a
primary function of the attachment relationship, variations in the quality of attachment
patterns are assumed to reflect individual differences in the ability of children to use the
caregiver as a haven of protection and safety
~Cicchetti, Cummings, Greenberg, & Marvin,
1990; Kobak, 1999!. However, at least until
recently, the substantive scope of attachment
theory has been largely confined to identifying specific parenting ~e.g., responsiveness!
and child ~e.g., temperament! attributes in isolation from the broader family system ~Thompson, 1997!. In extending the literature on
711
parent–child relations, the indirect hypothesis
of EST contends that parenting difficulties accompanying interparental conflict are related
to child adjustment problems through their association with child–parent attachment security. Consistent with this prediction, research
utilizing structural equation modeling ~SEM!
has indicated that the mediational role of parenting difficulties in associations between interparental conflict and early adolescent
psychological symptoms is further mediated
by children’s insecurities about the accessibility of their parents as support figures ~Davies,
Harold, et al., 2002!.
Second, the family-wide model of EST postulates that family characteristics also serve
moderator roles as potentiating or protective
factors that alter the magnitude of mediational
pathways among parental conflict, child security, and child adjustment. Path 5 in Figure 1
illustrates the hypothesis that interparental conflict may have different implications for
children’s concerns about security in the interparental relationship depending on the processes in the larger family unit. Children’s
concerns about security following repeated exposure to interparental conflict are specifically proposed to be amplified in family units
that are exhibiting other signs of significant
vulnerability ~e.g., family discord, parental psychopathology!. Conversely, interparental conflict is hypothesized to take on a different,
more benign meaning in the context of significant psychosocial strengths and resources in
the family unit ~e.g., cohesion, social support!.
Despite empirical support for the EST, the
theory was initially developed to account for
patterns of relationships among interparental
discord, children’s reactions to interparental
interactions, and children’s psychological
adjustment in relatively well-functioning samples of families. Moreover, subsequent empirical tests of the main hypotheses derived from
the emotional security theory have been largely,
if not exclusively, confined to families who do
not experience significant risk or psychopathology. However, the viability of the EST for
understanding mental health and illness hinges
on advancing additional efforts to translate
and apply the emotional security theory to
families and children who experience signifi-
712
cant adversity. From a developmental psychopathology perspective, understanding development requires consideration of both normal
and abnormal functioning ~Cicchetti, 1993;
Cummings, Davies, & Campbell, 2000;
Sroufe, 1997; Warren & Sroufe, 2004!. Thus,
a key direction in the future development and
refinement of the theory is to examine the
generalizabilty and specificity of security processes across multiple contexts, particularly
in families experiencing high levels of risk.
As an initial step in expanding the viability of
the emotional security theory, we first address
how the application of emotional security
theory may raise new questions and advance
an understanding of how and why domestic
violence increases child vulnerability to
psychopathology.
Child Security in the Face of Domestic
Violence and Accompanying Family Risks
In attempting to elucidate the severity of different types of stressful events for children,
Milgram ~1998! ranked witnessing acts of violence as moderate to high in adversity ~i.e., 7
on a 9-point scale! and comparable to experiencing maltreatment, life-threatening illness,
and permanent injuries. Likewise, as an extreme form of interpartner dysfunction, domestic violence is regarded as a form of
psychological maltreatment that poses a considerable risk to children’s psychological and
physical welfare ~Barnett, Manly, & Cicchetti, 1993; Margolin & Gordis, 2000!. Consistent with these conceptualizations, physical
violence between partners or parents poses a
robust and unique risk to children’s adjustment. For example, interpartner physical aggression has been shown to predict a wide
range of child psychological problems even
when statistically controlling for general interpartner discord, child maltreatment, and parent mental health ~Fergusson & Horwood,
1998; McDonald, Jouriles, Norwood, Ware,
& Ezell, 2000; Yates, Dodds, Sroufe, & Egeland, 2003!.
Although children who are exposed to severe domestic violence are substantially more
likely to exhibit psychopathology than are children in the general population ~Cummings &
P. T. Davies, M. A. Winter, and D. Cicchetti
Davies, 1994; McDonald & Jouriles, 1991!,
most children from violent homes do not experience clinically significant levels of psychopathology ~Hughes, 1997; Hughes,
Graham-Bermann, & Gruber, 2001!. Despite
the risk for psychopathology and variability
in outcomes among children exposed to domestic violence, little is known about how
and why children from violent homes develop
specific outcomes over time ~Jouriles, Norwood, McDonald, & Peters, 2001; Jouriles,
Spiller, Stephens, McDonald, & Swank, 2000!.
In addressing this gap in understanding
process-oriented relationships between domestic violence and child adjustment, EST
postulates that domestic violence can be characterized as a proxy for underlying patterns of
destructive interparental interactions. Domestic violence specifically comprises multiple
dimensions including the type of perpetrator
~e.g., mother, father, mutual!, form of violence ~e.g., physical, psychological, sexual!,
frequency, developmental timing ~e.g., exposure in early childhood versus adolescence!,
and temporal course ~e.g., stable, increasing,
or decreasing trajectories; Anderson & CramerBenjamin, 1999; Jouriles et al., 1998; Jouriles,
Norwood, McDonald, Vincent, & Mahoney,
1996!. Individual differences in the experience of these properties of domestic violence
are thought to have multiple reverberations
for children and families. For example, research has shown that different forms of physical aggression are uniquely associated with
child psychological problems ~Jouriles et al.,
1996, 1998!. Likewise, some social scientists consider domestic violence as having
repercussions that are more serious for children and families if the perpetrator is the
male partner ~Bachman & Pillemer, 1992;
Holtzworth-Munroe, Smutzler, & Sandin,
1997; Jouriles et al., 2001!. However, in reflecting the complexity of disentangling process relations among domestic violence
parameters and child adjustment, domestic
violence is a robust risk factor for children
regardless of the gender of the perpetrator
and gender differences are often relatively
weak and qualified by other family processes
~e.g., Dutton, in press; Dutton & Nicholls, in
press!.
Emotional security theory
Direct paths of domestic violence
Efforts to address how and why domestic violence affects children have predominantly focused on delineating the familial processes
~e.g., parental stress; family negative affect!
that mediate child susceptibility to psychological difficulties ~Holden & Ritchie, 1991;
Kilpatrick & Williams, 1998; Levendosky,
Huth-Bocks, Shapiro, & Semel, 2003; Margolin & John, 1997!. Consequently, little is
known about the unfolding sequence of processes that domestic violence directly sets in
motion within children that ultimately increase their vulnerability to psychopathology.
As one particular sign of this gap, even when
findings are interpreted as supporting the notion that domestic violence is a direct source
of risk for children, the general incidence of
domestic violence is commonly used as a rough
proxy for children’s exposure to domestic violence ~Holden, 1998!. Thus, two main goals
in applying the direct path component of EST
to families experiencing domestic violence are
to explicate the dimensions of domestic violence that children are exposed to and to articulate the specific intrachild characteristics that
are altered by such exposure.
First, as depicted in Path 2 of Figure 1, the
direct path of EST precisely distinguishing
between the multiple properties of domestic
violence and children’s direct exposure to specific dimensions of violence and discord. On
the one hand, parents may be able to successfully shield or buffer children from domestic
violence or accompanying forms of destructive interparental interactions. Thus, although
the occurrence of domestic violence and child
exposure to domestic violence are often tacitly equated at a conceptual level, there is not
a one to one correspondence between occurrence of domestic violence and child exposure
to domestic violence ~Sternberg, Lamb, &
Dawud-Noursi, 1998!. On the other hand, however, the small corpus of extant studies consistently supports the hypothesis that the
majority of children from domestically violent homes do witness interparental assaults
~e.g., Dobash & Dobash, 1984; Hughes, Parkinson, & Vargo, 1989; Sternberg et al., 1998!.
Moreover, irregardless of whether children are
713
direct bystanders of violence between parents,
children from violent homes are still likely to
experience a range of destructive interparental interactions characterized by verbal hostility, psychological abuse, threats, withdrawal,
disengagement, and stonewalling ~Cummings,
1998!. Thus, from an EST perspective, the
defining parameters of domestic violence are
hypothesized to substantially increase the probability that children will be exposed to destructive interparental processes characterized by
more frequent and protracted bouts of aggressive relational tactics ~e.g., physical and psychological aggression!, escalating, unresolved
conflicts, and disengaged, cold interaction patterns between parents ~Holtzworth-Munroe
et al., 1997; Jouriles et al., 2001!.
The second goal of applying the direct pathway hypothesis of EST to families facing domestic violence involves the theoretical and
empirical articulation of specific intrachild
characteristics that are altered by children’s
direct exposure to the destructive conflict properties in domestically violent homes. As the
prevailing theoretical framework in the study
of intrachild mechanisms of domestic violence ~e.g., Grych, Jouriles, Swank, McDonald,
& Norwood, 2000; Jouriles et al., 2000!, the
cognitive–contextual framework was originally an application of work on attribution
theory in adult and adolescent samples. Because many of the social–cognitive processes
featured in the cognitive–contextual framework require advanced information processing capacities, these processes can have limited
applicability in explaining why interpartner
violence may pose a risk to the adjustment of
younger children. Moreover, despite the emotionally charged contexts within which domestic violence takes place, research has generally
ignored the study of child emotional processes in favor of the cognitive and behavioral
processes within children that are altered by
exposure to domestic violence.
Toward the goal of extending knowledge
in this area, a primary assumption of EST in
the study of domestic violence is that children
faced with such considerable family adversity
can exhibit their difficulties in preserving
security in the face of considerable family
adversity through rudimentary patterns of
714
emotional reactivity and representational capabilities ~Davies & Forman, 2002!. Johnston
and Roseby ~1997! provide vivid qualitative
descriptions of how processes evolving from
rudimentary sensorimotor systems of children
may develop into stable patterns of child reactivity in violent homes. In their words, scripts
“can initially be formed from schema of preverbal and perceptual experience . . . long
before the child has access to language to encode the experience” and, as a result, “frightening scenes of family conflict and violence
may never be available for cognitive recall
but can continue to manifest themselves in
scary dreams and anxious feelings” ~Johnston
& Roseby, 1997, p. 59!. Thus, children’s experiences with insecurity in interparental or
parent–child relationships may be largely
rooted in affective structures that are outside
of the child’s conscious awareness or expressive articulation. Moreover, the traumatizing
experience of directly witnessing aggression
and other destructive interactions between parents may engender suppression or denial of
subjective threat through dissociation, emotional constriction, and psychological numbing, as children try to negotiate the hazards to
their safety and security ~Wolak & Finkelhor,
1998!. Thus, although some prior conceptual
accounts have been valuable in articulating
some of the intrachild mechanisms of domestic violence ~e.g., Grych & Fincham, 1990!,
EST may provide some unique explanatory
power in identifying the child characteristics
that mediate the risk of growing up in the face
of family violence.
Path 1 in Figure 1 illustrates, in part, the
assumption that destructive properties of interparental interaction undermine children’s security in the interparental relationship. In
extending the direct path hypothesis, one possibility is that preserving security is even more
salient in the context of severe interparental
dysfunction in domestically violent homes than
the more normative forms of interaprental adversity in community samples. Child concerns about security in the context of domestic
violence may specifically evolve from multiple sources. For example, the co-occurrence
of domestic violence and severe parenting disturbances ~e.g., maltreatment; Appel & Holden,
P. T. Davies, M. A. Winter, and D. Cicchetti
1998! suggests that children have sound justification for worrying that discord and rancor
between parents may proliferate to the parent–
child subsystem, and directly compromise their
psychological or physical welfare. Likewise,
as children age and social perspective taking
abilities develop, children exposed to domestic violence may become increasingly preoccupied with the deleterious implications of
discord for the safety of one or both of their
psychologically vulnerable and volatile parents. Severe bouts of conflict characteristic of
domestic violence may also signify to children that the structure, composition, and stability of the interparental relationship and
broader family unit are in significant jeopardy. Thus, children exposed to domestic violence may have a greater psychological stake
in their experiences with interpartner difficulties than children whose parents are not physically aggressive. If this assumption is
correct, then associations between the high
levels of exposure to destructive interparental
interactions and the three components of
emotional security— children’s emotional reactivity, forms of regulating exposure to the
interparental relationship ~e.g., avoidance, involvement!, and negative internal representations of interparental relations—may be more
pronounced in violent homes than nonviolent
homes.
A complementary hypothesis derived from
integrating EST with models of family violence is that extreme forms of interparental
dysfunction in violent homes may transform
children’s goal system of emotional security
in ways that are qualitatively different ways
from changes in the emotional security systems of children from nonviolent families. With
repeated exposure to severe forms of domestic violence, children may specifically display
forms of responding within the three component processes of security that are rarely, if
ever, observed in normative samples of children. For example, in the parallel literature on
parent–child relations, systems for assessing
children’s internal representations of the family and attachment patterns for relatively lowrisk, community samples required substantial
modifications to accommodate differences in
the substance of representations of maltreated
Emotional security theory
children experiencing severe forms of parenting disturbances ~Cicchetti, 1987; Toth, Cicchetti, Macfie, Rogosch, & Maughan, 2000;
Waldinger, Toth, & Gerber, 2001!.
Correspondingly, the trauma of witnessing
domestic violence may alter the structure and
organization of children’s patterns of responding to interparental relations in novel ways.
New forms of regulating exposure to parents
may emerge as children are forced to process
and cope with the frightening and frightened
behaviors displayed by parents during incidents of interparental violence. For example,
although children from nonviolent homes
rarely exhibit stereotypic self-soothing movements ~e.g., rocking back and forth! in response to interparental difficulties, the
imminent threat and danger experienced by
children exposed to domestic violence may
engender these reflexive, protective patterns
of avoidance. Likewise, children’s attempts to
regulate the destructive forms of interparental
conflict in violent homes may necessitate intervention strategies that require substantially
greater emotional investment and psychological forethought. Therefore, although rarely
observed in the average expectable environment, excessive caregiving behaviors ~e.g., assuming the role of the parent in caring for the
needs of the parent! and triangulation ~e.g.,
formation of alliances with one caregiver
against the other! may be the only means for
children to help protect themselves and establish some stability in violent homes ~ByngHall, 2002; Davies, 2002!.
Applying pattern-based refinements of EST
to the study of domestic violence also generates possibilities and predictions of new organizations in the interplay among the component
processes serving the goal of emotional security ~Davies & Forman, 2002!. In community
samples of families, Davies and Forman ~2002!
distinguished between children based on differences in their higher order organization of
responding across subjective and overt indices of emotional reactivity and regulation of
exposure to conflict ~e.g., involvement! and
the quality of their internal representations.
Results provided evidence for the existence of
three higher order patterns of security in the
interparental relationship. In outline, secure
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children exhibited well-regulated, mild forms
of concern and distress, but the broader pattern of responding suggested that this concern
was well regulated and embedded in a larger
context of security ~e.g., confidence in parents
to manage disputes in ways that maintain family harmony!. In contrast, preoccupied children displayed insecurity through heightened
emotional reactivity, regulation of exposure to
interparental difficulties, and hostile internal
representations. Finally, dismissing children
displayed high levels of overt emotional reactivity ~e.g., behavioral distress! and low levels
of subjective distress and hostile internal representations. Thus, the disparity between overt
and subjective signs of insecurity was interpreted to constitute forms of normative dissociation characterized by suppression of
subjective experiences of threat. Moreover, the
results supported the hypothesis that the qualitatively different patterns of insecurity in the
interparental subsystem develop from distinct
family dynamics.
Of importance, the findings failed to support the existence of the fourth hypothesized
pattern of security: a masking-insecure pattern characterized by attempts by children to
dissemble or “mask” overt expressions of distress in the face of subjective experiences of
considerable threat and distress. However, in
posing a more imminent threat to the child,
homes characterized by violence may be particularly likely to engender attempts to suppress or deactivate overt displays of distress
~Cole, Michel, & Teti, 1994; Davies & Forman, 2002; Shipman, Zeman, Penza, &
Champion, 2000!. Reflecting possible correspondence with fearful or defended strategies
for coping with parent–child attachment relationships ~Colin, 1996; Crittenden, 1992!, dissembling in these families may help to preserve
the safety of children by reducing their salience as potential targets of hostility by angry
adults. In addition, exposure to more severe
forms of interparental dysfunction in domestically violent homes may significantly alter
the distribution of children exhibiting different patterns of security in the interparental
relationship. Thus, although prior research has
found that approximately half of the children
in the community samples are classified as
716
preoccupied or dismissing, EST hypothesizes
that markedly higher proportions of children
exposed to domestic violence will be classified into one of the three insecure profiles
~i.e., preoccupied, dismissing, masking!.
In summary, applying the principles of EST
to contexts of domestic violence does not necessarily translate into an identical set of predictions about the pattern of process relations
among the destructive properties of interparental interactions and children’s patterns of
security in the interparental relationship.
Whereas some conceptual models suggest that
interrelationships between domestic violence
and child insecurity may be greater in magnitude for children exposed to domestic violence, other formulations of security suggest
that pathways between interparental conflict
and child security may be qualitatively
different.
Indirect paths of domestic violence
In translating research findings on normative
forms of interparental conflict to contexts of
domestic violence, the indirect path hypothesis of EST maintains that more prolonged,
severe bouts of domestic violence undermine
children’s adjustment through their association with multiple forms of child-rearing difficulties. At its most extreme, domestic
violence is associated with substantial increases in child physical abuse; recent reviews indicate that the median co-occurrence
rate of interparental violence and child physical abuse is approximately 40%, with higher
rates in more extreme samples ~e.g., battered
women; Appel & Holden, 1998!. In addition,
interparental aggression has been associated
with parental unresponsiveness, rejection, and
poor disciplinary practices ~Holden & Ritchie,
1991; Margolin, Christensen, & John, 1996;
O’Brien & Bahadur, 1998!. Although interparental violence is likely to vary importantly in
its function as a cause, correlate, or sequelae
of parenting disturbances ~Anderson & CramerBenjamin, 1999; Appel & Holden, 1998!, parental maltreatment, emotional unavailability,
and poor child management techniques are
postulated to serve as partial mediators of
children’s vulnerability to domestic violence.
P. T. Davies, M. A. Winter, and D. Cicchetti
In support of this hypothesis, studies have reported that various forms of parental caregiving difficulties explain part of the association
between domestic violence and child maladjustment ~e.g., Kilpatrick & Williams, 1998;
Levendosky et al., 2003!.
However, a central, but untested, assumption of the indirect path of EST in the study of
domestic violence is that the mediational role
of parenting difficulties in the link between
domestic violence and child maladjustment is
further mediated by children’s insecurity in
the parent–child relationship. Thus, regardless of children’s direct exposure to domestic
violence, the severe parenting disturbances accompanying domestic violence are proposed
to ultimately increase child risk for psychopathology by undermining children’s confidence in their parents as sources of protection
and safety. Given the substantially higher prevalence of rejection, emotionally unavailability, and forms of maltreatment, it is likely that
attachment processes may assume even greater
salience in families experiencing domestic
violence than families from normative or
community samples. For example, as targets
of physical abuse, maltreatment, and other severe forms of parenting disruptions ~e.g., frightened or frightening parental behaviors; Hesse
& Main, 2000; Main & Hesse, 1990!, children
in domestically violent homes may not only
lack confidence in their parents as protective
figures, but also may appraise their parents
as actual causes of apprehension. Reflecting
differences in the magnitude of indirect pathways between community samples and highrisk samples, disruptions in children’s abilities
to use parents as a secure base in the attachment relationship may be an even more robust
explanatory mechanism in the indirect pathways among interparental conflict, parenting
difficulties, and child adjustment problems in
domestically violent homes.
In the face of such peril and danger in the
family, children are particularly challenged to
find a coherent strategy for negotiating a sense
of felt security in the parent–child relationship ~Lyons-Ruth & Jacobvitz, 1999!. Although the parent–child attachment system, at
an evolutionary level, is geared toward reducing threat to children by drawing them toward
Emotional security theory
caregivers in times of stress, this tendency to
seek proximity and support is counteracted by
the frightening experiences of children in interactions with their caregivers. Thus, for many
of these children, the natural basis for allaying
fear is also a source of their threat. The virtual
“draw” between evolutionary and experiential
forces is theorized to manifest itself in disorganized, disoriented ~i.e., D! attachment patterns characterized by fearful, bizarre, aimless,
and overtly contradictory behaviors ~e.g., simultaneous or sequential displays of approach
and avoidance behaviors; Main & Solomon,
1990!. Accordingly, translating the study of
emotional security to the extreme parenting
disturbances that accompany domestic violence may set the stage for the identifying
qualitatively distinct patterns of insecurity in
the parent–child relationship.
If preserving security in the parent— child
relationship is even more salient in the hierarchy of goals for children exposed to domestic
violence as our translational hypothesis suggests, then a central, but untested, question is
whether the risk posed by domestic violence
and the accompanying insecurity in the inteparental relationship will remain robust in the
face of the more harsh parenting practices.
Although EST proposes that the direct pathway will remain in the face of traumatizing
experiences of witnessing domestic violence,
an alternative interpretation that challenges this
hypothesis is that severe parenting difficulties
in domestically violent homes may be substantially more traumatizing than witnessing domestic violence and, as a result, may supersede
the direct risk posed by exposure to interpartner aggression. Consistent with this hypothesis, Maughan and Cicchetti ~2002! found that
maltreatment, rather than interparental violence, was associated with children’s dysregulated emotion patterns in response to a live
simulated conflict involving their mothers.
However, because this study was not designed
to test the applicability of the direct path hypothesis for families experiencing interadult
domestic violence, definitive conclusions await
future research. For example, the study assessed children’s emotion regulation patterns
in response to a conflict between an adult and
mother in a sample of maltreating families
717
rather than children’s patterns of preserving
security in the interparental relationship in a
sample of families experiencing domestic violence. Moreover, other studies have suggested that interparental violence uniquely
predicts children’s maladaptation even after
taking into account children’s experiences with
maltreatment ~Fergusson & Horwood, 1998;
Yates et al., 2003!.
Consistent with the multivariate process
models in developmental psychopathology, the
interplay between interparental relationship
processes and parenting in our family-wide
theory of emotional security also presumes
that other possible pathways to security in family relationships may emerge in domestically
violent homes. Thus, although security in any
specific family relationship is proposed to be
most strongly affected by children’s experiences within that particular relationship, the
family systems components of our theory suggest that other family processes may also engender child worries about security in family
relationships ~Cummings & Davies, 2002;
Davies & Cummings, 2006!. For example, permeability across relationship subsystems in the
family unit indicate that the health and welfare of the family and its members depends on
boundaries that govern the transmission of resources, energy ~e.g., affect!, and information
across different family relationships ~Davies
et al., 2004!. Likewise, the principle of holism
in family systems theory assumes that the functioning of any relationship is ascertained within
the broader organization of the family unit. In
outlining the implications of this assumption
for the direct pathway model, children’s histories of experience with substantial parenting
difficulties in some domestically violent homes
may alter how safe they feel in the context of
the interparental subsystem even after taking
into account their exposure to interparental
difficulties. Thus, the elevated incidence of
parental rejection, unavailability, and maltreatment in domestically violent homes may disrupt effective emotion regulation strategies,
self-confidence, and agency, the very capacities and building blocks that are theorized to
be necessary to efficiently attain and preserve
security in the interparental subsystem ~Davies
& Cummings, 2006; Davies et al., 2004!. Con-
718
sequently, the interplay between parenting disruptions and interparental conflict may be
additive in the prediction of children’s emotional security in the interparental relationship, with the functioning in each subsystem
uniquely accounting for individual differences in children’s security.
Just as security in the interparental relationship is postulated to be a product of processes
in multiple family subsystems, the family systems perspective also underscores that security in the parent–child relationship may also
be affected by experiential histories in other
family subsystems, including the interparental subsystem. For example, witnessing frightening or frightened behaviors by parents during
bouts of interparental discord may directly
compromise children’s confidence in parents
as sources of protection and support and, in
the process, increase child insecurity in the
parent–child subsystems. Consistent with this
prediction, interparental conflict has been
shown to predict insecure and disorganized
parent–child attachment relationships after statistically controlling for parental sensitivity
and warmth in community samples ~Frosch,
Mangelsdorf, & McHale, 2000; Owen & Cox,
1997!. However, questions remain about the
applicability of these findings to high-risk or
clinical samples of families. In the context of
the elevated incidence of exposure to destructive interparental interactions characterized
by aggression, hostility, and volatility, EST
proposes that children from domestically violent homes may be particularly likely to experience alarming or vulnerable behaviors by
parents. Accordingly, pathways between interparental discord and children’s attachment security may be stronger, particularly in the
prediction of disorganized or disoriented patterns of attachment that reflect dysregulated
and paralyzing forms of fear in the parent–
child relationship.
The Role of Family Contextual Factors
in Models of Security in Domestically
Violent Homes
Another fundamental goal in translating EST
to the study of high-risk populations is to understand the role of family characteristics as
P. T. Davies, M. A. Winter, and D. Cicchetti
potential moderators in associations between
family discord and children’s security in the
interparental and parent–child relationships.
Guided by risk and protective models in developmental psychopathology, considerable diversity is likely to be evident across children
in pathways between exposure to interparental and parenting disturbances and their emotional security in different family relationships
~Cicchetti & Rogosch, 1996a, 1996b; Sroufe,
1989!. Path 5 in our family-wide model of
emotional security ~see Figure 1! illustrates
the assumption that children from families that
evidence high levels of relational discord, instability, or disconnectedness have more at
stake in monitoring and repairing any damaged relationships in an already fragile family
system. Because children’s emotional security
is theorized to hinge on the meaning interparental functioning has for the welfare of the
family and child, the assumption is that interparental conflict may have a larger impact on
children’s concerns about security when it takes
place in an already fragile family system. In
partial support of this hypothesis, Davies,
Harold, et al. ~2002! reported that high levels
of unstable events in the family potentiated
the relationship between interparental conflict
and children’s insecurity in the interparental
relationship.
However, because this single study relied
on a largely middle-class sample, we possess
a very poor understanding of the nature of the
relationships between inteparental discord and
child insecurity in families experiencing significantly higher levels of risk. In circumstances of domestic violence, families must
commonly cope with formidable stressors that
are experienced rarely, if at all, by normal
families. For example, women who are victims of domestic violence are between three
and 15 times more likely to experience a range
of severe psychological disturbances, including alcohol problems, substance use, depression, suicidal attempts, and various forms of
psychosis, than women in nonviolent domestic situations ~Dutton, 1992; Kernic, Wolf, &
Holt, 2000; Radford & Hester, 2001!. Consequently, discord and instability in the broader
family unit may assume distinct forms in domestically violent homes. For example, fami-
Emotional security theory
lies may struggle with a wider array of different
types of instability characterized by loss of
primary caregivers for the child and cyclical
formation and dissolution of adult relationships in the home ~Ackerman, Kogos, Youngstrom, Schoff, & Izard, 1999!. Thus, progress
in testing the specificity and generalizability
of EST will require comprehensive tests of
the potentiating role of family characteristics
in higher risk families.
Nonetheless, solely identifying family risk
factors that amplify difficulties with security
runs the risk of overpathologizing families experiencing domestic violence. Although levels of psychosocial support in violent families
are substantially lower than in nonviolent families, violent families still experience considerable heterogeneity in family resources such
as levels of cohesion and support ~Holden,
Stein, Ritchie, Harris, & Jouriles, 1998; Howes,
Phillipsen, & Peisner-Feinberg, 2000; Levendosky et al., 2003!. Access to these family
resources may serve as protective factors that
mitigate, at least to some degree, the direct
pathway between interparental dysfunction and
child insecurity in violent families. Specifically, within EST, domestic violence and its
associated family processes are theorized to
assume less deleterious meaning for children
in families with relatively higher levels of cohesion, satisfaction, and support because the
confluence of these factors may signify that
any unresolved difficulties between parents is
less likely to disrupt the family unit. Although
there is some empirical support for the role of
family cohesion as a protective factor in relatively low-risk community samples of families ~Davies, Harold, et al., 2002!, the potency
of family cohesion and support as protective
factor may be diluted or neutralized by the
relatively low levels of support and high levels of interparental aggression in domestically
violent homes. In such circumstances, access
to some level of support in the family may not
substantially allay children’s concerns about
their security in the face of the superseding
threat of witnessing destructive interpartner
interactions. Thus, protective effects of family
resources for children’s sense of security are
hypothesized to be less robust in homes characterized by domestic violence.
719
Drawing from diathesis-stress models
~Wachs, 1991; Windle & Tubman, 1999!, EST
further postulates that associations between
interparental conflict and child insecurity may
vary as a function of particular characteristics
of the child. Children from domestically violent homes experience wide variability in the
manifestation of difficult temperament characteristics, prior histories of psychological
vulnerability, and difficulties in resolving stagesalient tasks. Therefore, for the subset of children who share these prior “diatheses,” these
early experiences may prime them to become
increasingly sensitive and vigilant to bouts of
interparental problems at subsequent developmental periods ~Cummings & Davies, 2002!.
As a result, histories of psychological susceptibilities may serve as provoking agents that
magnify the impact of exposure to destructive
interparental conflict on children’s subsequent
concerns about their security ~Davies & Cummings, 2006; Goodyer, 1990; Rutter, 1983!.
However, models guided by the concept of
canalization generate an alternative hypothesis in suggesting that plasticity and change in
dysfunctional psychological systems become
progressively constrained with development
~Cicchetti & Curtis, 2006; Cicchetti & Tucker,
1994; Sroufe, 1997!. Consequently, prolonged
psychological difficulties may supplant or
otherwise constrain any changes in security
that may result from differences in exposure
to interparental conflict as active ~e.g., selecting deviant niches! and evocative ~e.g., evoking negative responses from significant others!
genotype–environment interactions assume
greater salience ~Belsky & Cassidy, 1994; Scarr
& McCartney, 1983!.
Another possibility, which is broadly consistent with the mediational paths in the indirect path component of EST ~see Path 4 in
Figure 1!, is that family characteristics account for the links between domestic violence
and children’s emotional security. For example, parent psychopathology or child difficult
temperament may partially mediate the link
between domestic violence and child adaptation in the roles as phenotypical markers of
genetic transmission. Alternatively, in socialization theories that are more conceptually
compatible with EST, the stressfulness of liv-
720
ing with high rates of parental psychopathology and other caustic dimensions of the family
climate ~e.g., family instability! may partially
mediate the impact of family violence on
children’s psychological welfare ~Ackerman
et al., 1999; Cummings & Davies, 1994; Goodman & Gotlib, 1999!. Given that no studies
have directly examined the roles of family
contextual factors in links between interparental violence and child insecurity, tests of these
alternative hypotheses are critical to advancing simultaneously the developmental psychopathology of family violence and refining the
emotional security theory.
The Developmental Sequelae of Child
Insecurity in Violent Families
The high incidence of severe forms of psychopathology experienced by children from violent families affords the opportunity to further
refine and test predictions about the implications child insecurity has for childhood mental illness. Because observations of child
functioning in normal, middle-class families
served as the primary basis for the development of EST, a primary goal of prior work
was to identify broad-based measures of internalizing symptoms, externalizing problems,
and scholastic adjustment as sequelae of difficulties in preserving security. However,
low proportions of children with psychological disorders and accompanying restrictions
in the range of psychological symptoms have
hindered a comprehensive analysis of the
role of security in the development of child
psychopathology. Thus, the scope and range
of clinical difficulties and disorders experienced by children who have difficulties preserving security are ill defined. In turn, the
failure to delineate patterns of associations
among insecurity and types of psychopathology has hampered progress in identifying the
multiple mechanisms that account for how and
why emotional insecurity is associated with
psychopathology. Therefore, elucidating process relations among child insecurity and
mental illness is a critical step toward advancing a more comprehensive understanding
of emotional insecurity and developmental
psychopathology.
P. T. Davies, M. A. Winter, and D. Cicchetti
The multiplicity of pathways among child
insecurity and psychopathology
To achieve the goal of elucidating the implications of emotional insecurity in high-risk
contexts, it is necessary to outline the primary
mechanisms underlying paths between insecurity and child outcomes in EST. As shown in
Figure 2, EST specifically postulates that concerns about insecurity, although adaptive in
the context of immediate circumstances of family threat, pose long-term problems for child
adjustment through three broad classes of processes. The underlying premise of the first
class of processes is that insecurity in the interparental system signifies the emergence of
particular patterns of responding to interparental difficulties that are applied as lenses for
simplifying, interpreting, and coping with the
complexity of subsequent challenging ~i.e.,
stressful, novel! contexts. As one of the component processes of insecurity, children’s may
use representations about the negative implications of interparental conflict for their wellbeing as maps for identifying potential threats
in subsequent stressful social contexts, such
as negative peer interactions. In this process,
children from high-conflict homes may draw
on their negative representations of how the
family operates in times of interparental difficulties to direct and inform their understanding of the origins, course, and impending
consequences of interpersonal interactions in
other familial or extrafamilial settings. However, in our theory, the tendency to employ
old patterns of interpreting and responding to
subsequent settings is not confined to conscious appraisals or representations of family
life. Rather, consistent with clinical accounts
~e.g., Johnston & Roseby, 1997!, affective
analogs characterized by high levels of hypervigilance, distress, and extreme forms of avoiding or intervening may function as “scripts”
or alarm systems for scanning new, potentially threatening social scenes for “old dangers” that originally stemmed from exposure
to interparental conflict ~see Johnston &
Roseby, 1997, p. 60; also Davies, Forman,
Rasi, & Stevens, 2002!. Thus, children exhibiting difficulties with insecurity may be more
prone to developing psychopathology by vir-
721
Figure 2. A model of the multiplicity of processes underlying the pathways between child insecurity and psychopathology.
722
tue of their greater tendency to apply their
negative cognitive ~e.g., appraisals of threat to
self ! and affective ~e.g., high levels of emotional reactivity, avoidance, involvement!
scripts developed in the face of interparental
difficulties to novel or challenging social
settings.
Consistent with resource allocation formulations ~Hobfoll, 1989; Milgram, 1998!, the
second hypothesized class of processes is
rooted in the assumption that frequent, prolonged operation of emotional security in any
family subsystem requires considerable expenditure of biopsychosocial resources that deplete children of the reserves necessary to
resolve other important goals, tasks, and challenges ~see Davies, Forman, et al., 2002!.
Through this process, difficulties in preserving security may create deviations in homeostatic balance and efficient psychobiological
resource allocation that reverberate across multiple levels of functioning. Thus, in accordance with the concept of allostatic load
~Evans, 2004; Lupien et al., 2006; McEwen &
Stellar, 1993; Repetti, Taylor, & Seeman,
2002!, insecurity in family relationships may
result in physiological dysregulation and accompanying problems maintaining homeostasis and mounting effective physiological
responses to stress in several biological systems, including sympathetic–adrenomedullary,
hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenocortical ~HPA!,
and serotonergic functioning. If concerns about
security deplete psychosocial resources of children as EST suggests, then the sequelae of
insecurity may also be manifested in disruptions in neuropsychological functioning. Because attention focusing and shifting, task
persistence, response inhibition, problem solving, and organization of effective responses to
challenge require particularly large reservoirs
of psychobiological resources, insecurity may
be particularly likely to undermine these dimensions of neuropsychological functioning
and, through this process, increase the probability of developing along maladaptive trajectories ~Posner et al., 2003!.
Integrating resource allocation and developmental psychopathology models, a third
broad pathway proposes that the mental health
sequelae of emotional insecurity are partially
P. T. Davies, M. A. Winter, and D. Cicchetti
mediated by difficulties in resolving stagesalient tasks ~Cicchetti et al., 1990!. Stagesalient tasks specifically refer to challenges
that become prominent at a given developmental period and remain important throughout an
individual’s lifetime ~Cicchetti, 1993!. For example, during the toddler period, developmental challenges include exploration of social
and physical worlds, development of a sense
of mastery, individuation, and an autonomous
sense of self, the acquisition of internal state
language, and the internalization of moral standards ~e.g., Beeghly & Cicchetti, 1994; Cicchetti, 1993; Cicchetti & Schneider-Rosen,
1986; Cummings et al., 2000!. Because stagesalient tasks are challenging and require access to considerable resource capacities, their
successful resolution may be particularly sensitive to preexisting individual differences in
adaptation or maladaptation. Thus, in a cascading series of processes, insecurity may pose
significant long-term problems for the psychological well-being of children by setting the
stage for subsequent failure in resolving important developmental tasks ~Cicchetti & Toth,
1991; Waters & Sroufe, 1983!.
Given the focus of EST research on the
impact of security on child adjustment in normative contexts, important questions remain
regarding the operation of these pathways in
contexts of high risk. Although EST suggests
that children from both normal and abnormal
contexts share some common forms of risk
and sequelae, our theory provides grounds for
hypothesizing that there may also be important differences in the magnitude and nature
of associations between children’s insecurity
and developmental outcomes across these
contexts.
The magnitude of paths among child
security and outcomes in domestically
violent families
If greater exposure to interpartner difficulties
in violent homes does intensify and prolong
children’s difficulties preserving security as
EST suggests, then it follows that the experience of quantitatively greater degrees insecurity in the interparental relationship may
expend an even greater toll on children’s ad-
Emotional security theory
justment through the three proposed pathways
in Figure 2. In the context of the first pathway,
extreme negative forms of emotional reactivity to interparental difficulties stemming from
exposure to domestic violence may engender
greater inflexibility and intractability in reacting to new settings as children use extant response patterns as guides or analogs to
identifying similar threats in new settings ~see
Johnston & Roseby, 1997!. The tendency for
individuals to seek out confirmation for their
representational scripts of how the world operates may not only be reflected in the selective processing of threatening cues in
subsequent contexts among child witnesses of
domestic violence, but also in their active selection of pathogenic niches or settings ~Belsky & Cassidy, 1994; Scarr & McCartney,
1983!.
Greater concerns about security for children from violent homes may also result in
the magnification of vulnerability to psychopathology by undermining the balanced expenditure of biopsychosical resources. Interpreted
in relation to the second pathway in Figure 2,
one implication of this resource allocation
model is that resulting disruptions in children’s
capacities to marshal physical and psychological resources and maintain homeostasis
through efficient resource allocation to biological systems may become a particularly robust
mediator of the association between insecurity and psychopathology for child bystanders
of domestic violence. Likewise, from a multiple levels of analysis perspective in developmental psychopathology ~Cicchetti & Blender,
2004; Cicchetti & Dawson, 2002!, the higher
disruptions in the allocation of resources accompanying higher levels of insecurity of children exposed to violence may also be
manifested in greater difficulties in resolving
stage-salient tasks ~see Pathway 3 in Figure 2!.
The family-wide component of EST can
also inform predictions about the magnitude
of risk experienced by insecure children in
violent homes. According to EST, some dimensions of family functioning may serve as
moderators of the relationship between
children’s insecurity and their adjustment problems ~the lower part of Path 5 in Figure 1!.
Indices of fragile functioning such as parental
723
psychopathology, family instability, and family disengagement are specifically hypothesized to potentiate the risk insecurity poses
to children’s functioning, whereas family psychological strengths and resources are proposed to mitigate the deleterious consequences
of insecurity for children’s adjustment. In support of this pathway, research with community samples found that associations between
child insecurity in the interparental relationship and child maladjustment were significantly stronger at higher levels of family
problems, while dimensions of family harmony served as protective factors that reduced the vulnerability of high levels of
insecurity for children’s developmental outcomes ~Davies, Harold, et al., 2002!.
Despite the fact that definitive conclusions
about the role of family risk factors in models
of security will require replication of these
findings, they do provide bases for developing predictions about the magnitude of risk
associated with children’s insecurity in adverse contexts such as domestic violence. Interpartner violence is specifically associated
with disproportionate increases in exposure to
other forms of family adversity and a relative
dearth of supportive dimensions of family
functioning. For example, recent reviews indicate that the median co-occurrence rate of
interpartner violence and child physical abuse
is approximately 40%, with higher rates in
more extreme samples ~e.g., battered women;
e.g., Appel & Holden, 1998!. In addition, interparental aggression is associated with higher
levels of depression, trauma, anxiety, and personality disorders, schizophrenia, and alcohol
and substance use ~Coker et al., 2002; Dutton,
1992; Kernic et al. 2000; Radford & Hester,
2001! and lower levels of cohesion and support ~Holden et al., 1998; Howes et al., 2000;
Levendosky et al., 2003!. Accordingly, in comparison to children from nonviolent homes,
the relatively low levels of support and heightened discord may amplify the magnitude of
the pathways among insecurity and psychological problems for children in violent homes.
For example, a primary assumption of Path 1
in Figure 2 is that children utilize “scripts” for
responding to interparental difficulties as
guides in identifying and coping with danger
724
in subsequent contexts that contain similar
challenges and stressors. Thus, by virtue of
their exposure to a larger array of family risk
factors such as parent psychopathology and
family instability, children from domestically
violent homes may be particularly likely to
enlist these scripts as a means of coping with
the greater family discord than are children in
nonviolent homes. Thus, the mediational path
outlined in Path 1 of Figure 2 may be particularly robust for children exposed to domestic
violence as their tendencies to experience vigilance, distress, regulation of exposure to stress,
and negative internal representations in the
face of interparental difficulties proliferate and
crystallize into broader patterns of responding
to family stress and, ultimately, psychological
problems.
Although translation of elements of EST to
high-risk contexts has converged to suggest
that associations between insecurity in the interparental relationship and child psychopathology may be particularly robust for children
exposed to domestic violence, there is one
component to our model that may actually
counteract or dilute the strength of these pathways. A specific possibility raised by the indirect path component of EST ~Path 4 of
Figure 1! is that parenting difficulties ~e.g.,
maltreatment, emotional unavailability! and attachment insecurity mediate destructive interparental processes and, in the process, may
serve to dilute pathways between insecurity in
the interparental relationship and child psychological problems. However, questions remain about the extent to which these family
risk factors function as explanatory processes
in models of interparental discord that substantially attenuate or counteract the processes involved in the amplification of the paths
between child insecurity and psychopathology in violent homes. For example, utilizing
samples of families recruited from the community, studies have shown that child insecurity in the interparental relationship continues
to predict child psychological problems even
after taking into account parenting practices
~e.g., warmth! and attachment security ~Davies,
Harold, et al., 2002; Forman & Davies, 2005!.
However, the substantially higher incidence
of extreme dysfunction in parent-child rela-
P. T. Davies, M. A. Winter, and D. Cicchetti
tionships ~e.g., maltreatment; disorganized attachment! within violent homes may conspire
against the moderating conditions that forge
stronger paths between insecurity and psychopathology by overriding ~at least in part! the
risk of exposure to interparental violence. For
example, the developmental correlates of high
levels of insecurity in the interparental relationship are remarkably similar to the psychological problems experienced by maltreated
children ~e.g., aggression, depression, anxiety, emotional lability; Shields & Cicchetti,
2001!. Studies that simultaneously examine
multiple components of EST in high-risk
contexts will be necessary to address this
complex constellation of processes and its implications for elucidating the developmental
sequelae of children who experience high levels
of insecurity in the interparental relationship.
The nature of paths among child security
and outcomes in domestically violent
families
Applying our theory to children experiencing
high levels of adversity further underscores
the possibility of exploring qualitatively different forms of insecurity in the interparental
relationship and psychological problems. Although three different strategies for preserving security in the interparental relationship
and larger family system ~i.e., secure, insecurepreoccupied, insecure-dismissing! have been
identified in middle-class samples ~Davies &
Forman, 2002; Forman & Davies, 2005!, the
greater prevalence of insecurity in high conflict homes may permit the identification of
novel developmental trajectories of psychopathology ~for details, see Direct Paths of Domestic Violence section!. On the one hand,
expected increases in the incidence of the two
patterns of insecurity and psychological problems exhibited by children exposed to domestic violence may increase the power to test
predictions about the specificity of associations between types of security and forms of
psychological problems. For example, the excessive worrying, vigilance, and rumination
about family discord that characterize preoccupied children have been specifically proposed
to cohere into broader patterns of internaliz-
Emotional security theory
ing symptoms ~e.g., anxiety, depression, social withdrawal! as children use this type of
insecurity pattern or script in new interpersonal settings. Through a similar process, dismissing children’s tendency to downplay the
significance of interparental relations may increase risk for externalizing symptoms by
breeding larger patterns of emotional disengagement in interpersonal relationships, hostile views of the social world, and impulses to
violate moral and conventional standards
~Davies & Forman, 2002; Finnegan, Hodges,
& Perry, 1996; Kobak, Cole, Ferenz-Gillies,
Fleming, & Gamble, 1993!.
On the other hand, the prospect of identifying different forms of insecurity in the face
of high levels of interparental dysfunction may
also result in a more comprehensive understanding of the multiplicity of developmental
pathways experienced by child witnesses of
domestic violence. For example, if children
exposed to domestic violence are at risk for
developing a masking pattern of insecurity as
our theory suggests, then a key task is to identify whether it explains, in part, the heightened vulnerability to specific forms of
psychopathology exhibited by children from
violent homes. A central untested prediction is
that masking children may exhibit disproportionate risk for a wide range of internalizing
symptoms ~e.g., anxiety, depression, posttraumatic stress disorder! by virtue of their greater
sensitivity and motivation to defend against
the emergence of old threats to their welfare
in other social settings ~Cole et al., 1994;
Johnston & Roseby, 1997; Shipman et al.,
2000!.
Studying child adaptation in contexts of
domestic violence also provides opportunities
to expand our understanding of the scope and
nature of developmental sequelae of security
in family relationships. Reflecting the general
state of the literature on interparental discord,
EST is only in the very early stages of precisely identifying the long-term, mental health
consequences of children’s difficulties in preserving a sense of security in the interparental
relationship, with the main focus on distinguishing between child internalizing and externalizing symptoms. For example, operating
from the premise that experiences of specific
725
forms of mental illness hinge partially on individual differences in how difficulties with
insecurity are expressed by children, our
person-based reformulation of EST generates
specific predictions about which organizational patterns of insecurity ~i.e., preoccupied,
dismissing, masking! are precursors to internalizing and externalizing symptoms. Although this is a useful starting point in the
search for the multiplicity of paths and outcomes developing out of difficulties in preserving security, it does not fully address the
question of why children who witness domestic violence experience a wide array of different disorders. A growing body of research
indicates that children growing up in domestically violent homes must endure the burden
of experiencing a wide array of specific disorders and symptoms, including depression, anxiety, conduct, posttraumatic stress, and
dissociative disorder ~Jouriles et al., 2001; Kilpatrick & Williams, 1997; Rossman, Bingham, & Emde, 1997; Silvern & Kaersvang,
1989!. Therefore, a formidable objective is to
identify the specificity and range of risk incurred by insecurity for children’s mental
health prognoses, with a particular eye toward
understanding the conditions that forge specific pathways between insecurity and particular forms of psychopathology.
Two components of EST may serve as useful tools in achieving this objective. First, the
different forms of insecurity outlined in the
person-based formulation of EST may assist
in distinguishing between children who develop specific types of disorders. For example, dismissing patterns of insecurity and
normative forms of dissociation share a similar organizational function of blunting of overwhelming subjective distress and fear ~Davies
& Forman, 2002; also see Cole et al., 1994!.
However, regardless of whether security is conceptualized along categorical indices or a single continuum, simple bivariate models will
not be sufficient to delineate the multiplicity
of outcomes experienced by children in violent homes. For example, in returning to our
discussion of the correspondence between insecurity and normative forms of dissociation,
research suggests that dissociative disorders
do not simply fall on the extreme end of a
726
quantitative spectrum of dissociative experiences. Rather, some of the data suggest that
dissociative disorders are qualitatively distinct from normative dissociation experiences
~Griffin, Resick, & Mechanic, 1997; Putnam,
2000; Waller & Ross, 1997!. Thus, significant
gaps remain in our understanding of the processes by which insecurity evolves into specific forms of psychopathology. Likewise, the
other types of insecurity within the personbased formulation of EST ~e.g., preoccupied,
masking! and the variable-based approach to
examining insecurity along continua do not
readily map onto the genesis or maintenance
of specific forms of mental illness.
In further illustrating the importance of a
second component of EST aimed at identifying moderators in the association between insecurity and child adjustment ~see Path 5 in
Figure 1!, the specific pathogenic processes
set in motion by threats to security may vary
as a function of child characteristics and the
larger ecology of the family unit. For example, dissociative and posttraumatic stress disorders signify common underlying difficulties
in processing and integrating traumatic experiences into perceptual and memory systems
~Fletcher, 1996; Foa, Steketee, & Rothbaum,
1989; Putnam, 2000!. Accordingly, insecurity
stemming from exposure to traumatic bouts of
violence between parents may only develop
into these specific types of disorders if family
conditions undermine children’s abilities to assimilate and accommodate the traumatic experiences into their working models of the
world. Thus, censuring communication about
family violence or denying the occurrence of
traumatic incidents witnessed by the child may
serve as potentiating conditions in pathways
between insecurity and posttraumatic stress
and dissociative disorders. Conversely, some
forms of parent discourse centered on the coconstruction of the meaning of the stressful
events for the welfare of the child and family
may stave off these potential pathological sequelae of insecurity by facilitating the process
of integrating affectively charged experiences
within views of the self and larger world
~Dunn, Brown, & Beardsall, 1991; Laible,
2004; Root & Jenkins, 2005; Winter, Davies,
Hightower, & Meyer, in press!.
P. T. Davies, M. A. Winter, and D. Cicchetti
Challenges also remain in identifying the
different family circumstances that are responsible for transforming the operation of the
fear system underlying threats to security into
depressogenic or aggressogenic processes ~see
Jenkins, 2002!. Within the framework of EST,
difficulties in preserving security may develop into bouts of depression when interparental violence occurs in a broader context of
disengaged, unsupportive family relationships. Without the support and cohesiveness
of the family, insecurity in the interparental
relationship may evolve into depression by
engendering a specific pattern of learned helplessness in which children hold fast to the
belief that efforts to defend against continued
dangers to their welfare are futile ~Abramson, Seligman, & Teasdale, 1978; Fletcher,
1996; Seligman, 1975; Toth, Cicchetti, & Kim,
2002!.
In the context of elucidating developmental trajectories of aggression and conduct
problems, one prediction derived from the
functionalist perspective on emotion is that
threats to security in the face of interparental
violence may be particularly likely to lead to
hostile, defiant outbursts by children when they
appraise their parents as blocking their ability
to attain security ~Jenkins, 2002!. Moreover,
as outgrowths of high levels emotional reactivity and arousal in the emotional security
system ~Cummings & Zahn-Waxler, 1992;
Zeanah & Scheeringa, 1997!, displays of aggression and antagonism may intensify and
crystallize when it serves a “detouring” function that distracts parents from engagement in
destructive conflicts ~Buchanan & Waizenhofer, 2001; Emery, 1989; Kerig, 1995!. This
detouring process may facilitate the attainment of security by reestablishing of some
degree of stability in the family, particularly
in families where anger can be safely expressed ~e.g., parents with low potential for
abusing children!. Although our illustrations
of potential moderating conditions in pathways between insecurity and specific forms
of psychopathology have primarily centered
on the family system, delineating child characteristics ~e.g., temperament, genotype! that
shape associations between insecurity and psychopathology is likely to generate progress in
727
Emotional security theory
understanding the outcomes of insecure children from violent homes ~Caspi et al., 2002;
Moffitt, Caspi, & Rutter, 2005; Vasey, ElHag, & Daleiden, 1996!.
The implications of the emotional security
theory for public policy and intervention
initiatives
Our ultimate objective in refining and testing
EST is to utilize the resulting scientific knowledge to inform public policy and clinical treatment initiatives that reduce mental illness and
promote mental health. Progress in generating
and disseminating knowledge on the psychological and physical perils children face in
witnessing domestic violence has already resulted in greater awareness of this public health
problem in the community ~Graham-Bermann
& Edleson, 2001; Holden, 1998; Jaffe, Baker,
& Cunningham, 2004!. Public health professionals, in turn, have responded by using the
knowledge as a blueprint for protecting children through the development and modification of policy, legislation, and prevention and
intervention programs ~Baker, Cunningham,
& Jaffe, 2004; Cicchetti & Toth, 1993; Edleson, 2004; Johnston & Roseby, 1997; Rossman, Rea, Graham-Bermann, & Butterfield,
2004!. However, the generation of policy, legislation, and services for children and families
experiencing domestic violence is still in its
infancy as public health, community, and legal systems continue to grapple with the treatment implications of a small, complex corpus
of data on domestic violence. For example,
difficulties in translating scientific information to policy and treatment initiatives are reflected in considerable differences in laws and
policies across states and the resulting variability in responses to child exposure to domestic violence at the level of the criminal
justice system, child protection services, and
treatment programs for domestic violence
~Dunford-Jackson, 2004; Edleson, 2004!. At
the extreme, hasty efforts to apply scientific
knowledge to family law, policy, and services
pose a very real danger of producing negative,
unintended consequences for children ~e.g.,
see Edleson, 2004!. Thus, considerable care
should be exercised in applying research results on the emotional security theory to community and public health services. In fact, given
the early stages of research on the emotional
security theory and its implications for highrisk contexts, it is premature to offer any authoritative recommendations for treatment or
public policy. However, we outline, at a broad
level, the potential translational implications
of EST for alleviating the burden of child mental illness.
Identification of children at greatest risk
for experiencing mental illness in
violent homes
Research indicates that the majority of
children exposed to domestic violence ~i.e.,
55– 65%! do not experience clinically significant levels of psychopathology at any one
time ~Hughes, 1997; Hughes et al., 2001!.
When these findings are interpreted in the
context of the considerable financial and
organizational constraints of agencies and
programs designed to protect and serve children and families ~Edleson, 2004!, the task
of identifying children and families who benefit most from prevention and intervention
programs assumes even greater urgency. The
knowledge gained about the specific family
and child characteristics that potentiate child
vulnerability in pathways among destructive
interparental conflict, emotional security, and
child psychopathology has the potential to
improve our ability to identify children and
families most in need of treatment ~Path 5 in
Figure 1!. Our model specifically proposes
that children possessing specific characteristics ~e.g., difficult temperament! or facing
discord in the broader family system are at
disproportionately greater risk for experiencing psychopathology. As tests of these hypotheses progress in identifying the magnitude of
associations between domestic violence and
child psychopathology across various classes
of contextual characteristics, the resulting body
of findings may help to inform debates regarding when and how to intervene to protect child and adult victims of domestic
violence.
728
Delineation of targets and goals
of treatment
Successfully reducing the incidence of mental
illness in childhood will also require complementing scientifically informed progress in the
ability to identify families most in need of
treatment with corresponding advances in treatment programs. A first step toward this objective is to outline the specific goals of the
intervention. As a theory designed to address
the multiple etiological roots and antecedents
of child psychopathology, the EST can provide direction in the identification of intervention targets. Figure 1 specifically illustrates
that there may be multiple sites for treatment.
First, if future research supports our contention that child insecurity in the interparental
relationship partially explains the high prevalence of psychopathology experienced by children exposed to domestic violence ~see Paths
1 and 3 of Figure 1!, then one implication is
that programs may be able to reduce child
mental illness by focusing on fostering a sense
of security.
However, from the EST perspective, any
program that attempts to alter components of
the goal-corrected system of emotional security ~e.g., emotional reactivity, internal representations! must consider treatment in relation
to its impact on the family system. Because
high levels of reactivity in discordant homes
hold some adaptive value for children in the
immediate context of the family, treatment programs that change how children cope with
interparental dysfunction based on a single,
one size fits all, standard of healthy coping
will be ineffective in reducing child psychopathology, and may actually amplify children’s
vulnerability to psychopathology. For example, despite some accompanying long-term
risks, high levels of emotional ~e.g., worrying! or behavioral ~e.g., mediation! involvement in the destructive interactions of violent
parents may, under some conditions, actually
help children to identify and effectively manage potential threats to the family system. Consequently, failure to fully appreciate the
underlying meaning and short-term efficacy
of the way a given child copes with interparental conflict may have unintended, negative
P. T. Davies, M. A. Winter, and D. Cicchetti
consequences for how stress is managed in
the family unit.
If research supports these assumptions, then
any treatments designed to alter child response patterns to interparental dysfunction
must, at a minimum, be developed and implemented in a way that insures that any resulting
changes in family processes do not inflict additional risk to children. However, even if treatment programs are able to identify targets of
change that enhance child security, the EST
suggests that children will revert to previously established patterns of coping developed over lengthy histories of exposure to
destructive family interactions as they continue to negotiate the intransigent perils of
family processes that were not targets of intervention. Thus, from an EST perspective, maximizing the effectiveness of intervention
programs designed to reduce child psychopathology will hinge on improvements in
multiple family subsystems, including the interparental and parent–child relationships.
By the same token, practitioners in many
settings may not always be privy to the complex transactions among children’s coping strategies and the specific dynamics of their family
systems due to limitations in time, resources,
or authority to intervene in family matters.
Such cases raise a key question. How do we
begin to foster the mental health of these children if the EST warns against the dangers of
modifying children’s patterns of adapting in
violent homes? If insecurity in family relationships does increase the vulnerability of children from dysfunctional homes by disrupting
the efficient allocation of biopsychosocial resources and fostering the reflexive use of response patterns to parental conflict in new
social settings ~see Figure 2!, then it may be
possible to develop clinical initiatives that interrupt these pathogenic processes without altering children’s patterns of security. Guided
by the processes in Figure 2, specific clinical
goals for children might include ~a! processing and integrating stressful events stemming
from exposure to interparental violence and
discord into their schema and world views
~Fletcher, 1996; Lieberman, 2004!; ~b! fostering flexible patterns of appraising, interpreting, and coping with extrafamilial relationships
729
Emotional security theory
in ways that are tailored to the unique features
and circumstances of the relational context
~Conduct Problems Prevention Research
Group, 1999!; and ~c! successfully resolving
stage-salient tasks ~e.g., Cicchetti, 1993; Sroufe
& Rutter, 1984!.
Development of treatment tools
With the identification of populations and targets of treatment in the first two steps of the
translational process, another goal is to develop theoretically and scientifically informed
treatment tools. Given the early juncture of
research on EST in high-risk children and families, offering definitive recommendations
about specific therapeutic tools is premature.
However, in the event that our account of the
mechanisms mediating child vulnerability to
interparental discord is supported by future
research, our conceptual focus on organized
patterns of responding that evolve from exposure to disturbances in the interparental and
parent–child subsystems specifically underscore the potential value of therapeutic tools
designed to alter relationship quality and experiences in the family system. Because relatively stable patterns of security in the
interparental relationship are postulated to develop rapidly in response to repeated exposure to interparental discord, attempts to
intervene in the beginning stages of the genesis of family disturbances is predicted to lead
to better prognoses for the children. Moreover, given that EST postulates that child security is partially embedded in sensorimotor
systems that develop out of relationship experiences in the family and operate outside of
children’s conscious awareness, instituting
child psychoeducational programs designed to
alter cognitions ~e.g., patterns of interpreting
family processes! and coping skills ~e.g., involvement! will likely be insufficient methods for disrupting the unfolding pathogenic
processes. Rather, although interventions designed to alter relationship experiences in the
family generally require greater time, effort,
and expense than psychoeducational programs, our theory suggests that these psychotherapeutic treatments will provide more
efficacious and enduring means for reducing
child psychopathology. For example, assuming that the parent–child attachment relationship is a central mechanism of effect in
domestically violent homes, adapting and refining attachment-based therapies used in other
high-risk contexts to homes with domestic violence may be a fruitful clinical direction ~Cicchetti, Rogosch, & Toth, 2006; Cicchetti, Toth,
& Rogosch, 1999; Lieberman, 2004; Toth &
Cicchetti, 1993; Toth, Maughan, Manly, Spagnola, & Cicchetti, 2002!. Likewise, family
therapies may provide a useful foundation for
the development of a multicomponent intervention program that is designed to enhance
relationship quality and security across multiple family subsystems ~Byng-Hall, 2002;
Cowan & Cowan, 2002; Liddle & Schwartz,
2002!.
In addition, carefully planned prevention
trials can lead to an increased understanding
of causal pathways to dysfunction. Prevention
research is based on theoretical models of how
risk conditions are related to adverse outcomes, positing processes that link the risk
condition to the negative outcome ~Mrazek &
Haggerty, 1994!, and theories of prevention
should specify developmental processes that
alter trajectories toward the onset or maintenance of dysfunction. If the developmental
course is changed due to a prevention program, and the risk of the disorder or negative
outcome is reduced, then the research results
will contribute to our understanding of the
developmental process ~Coie et al., 1993!.
Moreover, the synergy among theory, research, and practice can contribute to the translation of basic research into intervention
initiatives and evaluations.
Conclusion
In conclusion, although the EST is a midlevel
theory designed to explain, in part, why children exposed to high levels of interparental
discord experience heightened vulnerability to
psychopathology, little is known about how
and why children respond to and cope with
interparental difficulties in families experiencing significant adversity. Reflecting this knowledge gap, the unfolding mediating mechanisms
and the potentiating and protective conditions
730
that shape the multiplicity of pathways underlying associations between interparental discord and child maladjustment in high-risk
contexts are poorly understood ~Davies &
Cummings, 2006; Kitzmann, Gaylord, Holt,
& Kenny, 2003!. Thus, applying the EST to
clinical and abnormal family contexts may provide a means of advancing understanding and
P. T. Davies, M. A. Winter, and D. Cicchetti
treatment of child psychopathology and refining and expanding the EST. The objective of
this paper was to provide the initial groundwork for illustrating the potential value of the
EST in delineating the genesis, course, and
treatment of children’s psychological problems in families experiencing interadult domestic violence.
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