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The reformulation of emotional security theory: The role of children's social defense in developmental psychopathology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 December 2013

Patrick T. Davies  and
Meredith J. Martin
Patrick T. Davies*
Affiliation:
University of Rochester
Meredith J. Martin
Affiliation:
University of Rochester
*
Address correspondence and reprint requests to: Patrick T. Davies, Department of Clinical and Social Sciences in Psychology, University of Rochester, Rochester, New York, 14627; E-mail: patric.davies@rochester.edu.
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Abstract

Although children's security in the context of the interparental relationship has been identified as a key explanatory mechanism in pathways between family discord and child psychopathology, little is known about the inner workings of emotional security as a goal system. Thus, the objective of this paper is to describe how our reformulation of emotional security theory within an ethological and evolutionary framework may advance the characterization of the architecture and operation of emotional security and, in the process, cultivate sustainable growing points in developmental psychopathology. The first section of the paper describes how children's security in the interparental relationship is organized around a distinctive behavioral system designed to defend against interpersonal threat. Building on this evolutionary foundation for emotional security, the paper offers an innovative taxonomy for identifying qualitatively different ways children try to preserve their security and its innovative implications for more precisely informing understanding of the mechanisms in pathways between family and developmental precursors and children's trajectories of mental health. In the final section, the paper highlights the potential of the reformulation of emotional security theory to stimulate new generations of research on understanding how children defend against social threats in ecologies beyond the interparental dyad, including both familial and extrafamilial settings.

Type
Regular Articles
Information
Development and Psychopathology , Volume 25 , Issue 4pt2: Development and Psychopathology: A Vision Realized , November 2013 , pp. 1435 - 1454
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

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