Revisiting the Meaning of Emotional Overinvolvement in Early Development: Prospective Relations with Child Behavior Problems

Emotional overinvolvement (EOI) in parents’ Five Minute Speech Samples (FMSS; Magaña-Amato, 1993) is thought to measure overconcern and enmeshment with one’s child. Although related to maladaptive outcomes in studies of adult children, FMSS EOI evidences varied relations with behavior problems in studies with young children. These mixed findings may indicate that certain FMSS EOI criteria reflect inappropriate and excessive involvement with adult children, but do not indicate maladaptive processes when parenting younger children. The first study evaluated the relevance of the FMSS EOI construct for young children’s adjustment given mixed relations in the extant literature that have prompted concern regarding the validity of EOI as a measure of pathological parental overinvolvement with young children. Building upon findings from the first study, the second study examined whether the relation of self-sacrifice/overprotection (SSOP), the most prominent and theoretically pernicious EOI criterion, with elevated levels of child internalizing and attention/hyperactivity problems four years later (at age 8) could be accounted for by observed parenting (i.e., poor support, high intrusion, high hostility) during an intervening assessment at age 6. These studies utilized a community sample of 223 child-mother dyads (47.9% female; Mage_W1 = 49.08 months, Mage_W2 = 73.34 months, Mage_W3 = 97.66 months; 56.5% Hispanic/Latina). In the first study, I evaluated the relations of each FMSS EOI criterion with changes in child behavior problems from preschool to first grade (using data from Waves 1 and 2). Findings from the first study indicated that that both the self-sacrifice/overprotection (SSOP) and statements of attitude (SOAs) FMSS EOI criteria predicted increased externalizing problems. In contrast, excessive detail and exaggerated praise were not related to child externalizing behavior problems, and emotional display was not evident in this sample. None of the FMSS EOI criteria evidenced significant relations with internalizing behavior problems. We found evidence of moderation of the effect of SOAs by gender, such that SOAs contributed to increased externalizing problems among boys but not girls. Relations did not differ by maternal race/ethnicity (Hispanic/Latina vs. non-Hispanic/Latina mothers).Results from study 2 provided support for the primary theoretical assertion of the expressed emotion literature, which posits that what parents say about their child and the parent-child relationship reflects (or guides) how they interact with their child on a day-to-day basis (Chambless, Bryan, Aiken, Steketee, & Hooley, 1999). Higher levels of SSOP at age 4 predicted higher levels of maternal insensitivity at age 6, and maternal insensitivity predicted higher levels of internalizing (but not attention/hyperactivity) problems at age 8. Test of the indirect effects indicated that SSOP exerted a significant indirect effect, via maternal insensitivity, on internalizing problems, but only a direct effect on attention/hyperactivity problems. Moreover, none of the conditional indirect effects were significantly different from zero, suggesting an absence of moderated mediation by child gender, maternal race/ethnicity, and single mother status. Taken together, these studies suggest that the FMSS SSOP construct may offer a cost-effective, culturally valid, and clinically valuable screening tool for the detection of pathological parental attitudes that may confer elevated risks for insensitive parenting practices and/or child adjustment difficulties