The Composition of Emotional Security: The Role of the Social Defense System (SDS)

Empirical work over the past decade has made substantial headway in delineating emotional security in the interparental relationship as a significant phenomenon distinct from parent–child attachment security processes within attachment theory (see Cummings & Davies, Reference Cummings and Davies2010; Davies et al., Reference Davies, Winter and Cicchetti2006). However, theory has lagged substantially behind empirical work in accounting for how and why emotional security is distinct from attachment security (Waters & Cummings, Reference Waters and Cummings2000). Difficulty in disentangling the two constructs is perhaps not surprising given recent characterizations of emotional security. For example, emotional security in the interparental relationship has been portrayed as serving as a secure base for children and a metaphorical “bridge between the child and the world” (Cummings et al., Reference Cummings, Schermerhorn, Davies, Goekey-Morey and Cummings2006, p. 134; also El-Sheikh et al., Reference El-Sheikh, Cummings, Kouros, Elmore-Staton and Buckhalt2008). This common use of shared terminology is further instantiated in describing the behavioral responses used to define both attachment and emotional insecurity. For example, procedures for evaluating attachment quality through observing children's emotionality, strategies for regulating their proximity to caregivers, and negative appraisals of parents resemble, at least on the surface, the three component processes of EST (i.e., emotional reactivity, regulation of exposure to conflict, and negative representations of the interparental relationship). Additional substantive overlap is evidenced by the shared focus on defining both types of security in contexts involving parents or primary caregivers in the family. Thus, without some additional theoretical clarification, it is difficult to keenly decipher how attachment and emotional security differ.

Rooted in an ethological and evolutionary framework that is supported by a growing corpus of psychobiological and animal research, EST-R is uniquely poised to address this significant conceptual gap (Davies & Sturge-Apple, Reference Davies and Sturge-Apple2007; Davies, Sturge-Apple, & Martin, Reference Davies, Sturge-Apple, Martin, Lansdale, McHale and Booth2013). The fundamental and novel thesis underlying EST-R is that children's strategies for maintaining a sense of security while navigating the physical and social world are governed largely by a set of evolved behavioral control systems or ethological modules, each defined by an integrated set of processing algorithms, neurobiological processes, and psychological and behavioral repertoires that uniquely function to promote survival and reproduction within various developmental and ecological niches. Thus, each behavioral system may be distinguished based on three features: (a) the systems' external or observed goal; (b) the ecological conditions that organize the activity of each system; and (c) a unique repertoire of affective, cognitive, and behavioral response strategies. Consistent with broader evolutionary frameworks, a primary assumption guiding the delineation of each system is that its external goal is defined by its original, specific function in regulating the ongoing relationship between organism and environment in ways that ultimately contributed to survival and reproduction within ancestral environments (Hilburn-Cobb, Reference Hilburn-Cobb, Atkinson and Goldberg2004). In turn, the degree of correspondence between current environments and the selective pressures and conditions of ancestral environments is proposed to play a significant role in the genesis and developmental course of behavior (Konner, Reference Konner2010).

Within this framework, EST-R can authoritatively distinguish between emotional and attachment security based on their evolutionary origins as distinct behavioral systems (see Figure 2). Specifically, EST-R posits that children's concerns about security in the face of interparental conflict are largely organized by the SDS. The SDS is a concept that initially stemmed from early ethological descriptions of the fear/wariness system (e.g., Bowlby, Reference Bowlby1969, Reference Bowlby1988; Harlow, Reference Harlow1959), with further theoretical advances occurring largely outside of the developmental literature (i.e., Gilbert, Reference Gilbert1993; Öhman, Reference Öhman1986; Öhman & Mineka, Reference Öhman and Mineka2001; Sloman & Gilbert, Reference Sloman and Gilbert2000). Consistent with this work, our conceptualization of the SDS assumes that the high cost of conflict between members of social groups throughout humans' phylogenetic history put selective pressure on the development of a behavioral system capable of efficiently identifying social signals indicative of the potential for threat (e.g., yelling, dominant posturing) and responding by organizing behavioral strategies to avoid or defuse interpersonal threat (Davies & Sturge-Apple, Reference Davies and Sturge-Apple2007). Moreover, despite obvious differences between the family structures of today and those of our evolutionary past (e.g., extended family units, clans), most, if not all, contemporary families are headed by dominant adults who carry disproportionate power in shaping the structure, stability, and safety of the family unit. Because relationship difficulties between these adults can have threatening implications for children and the family as a whole, the SDS and its goal of protecting oneself from interpersonal harm is posited to organize children's response patterns to interparental conflict.

Figure 2.

A model illustrating how the social defense system impacts children's competence in multiple domains by altering the operation of ethological systems that organize approach motives and behaviors.

In contrast, ethological perspectives on attachment theory within the developmental literature propose that the attachment system evolved out of a phylogenetic history in which ecological conditions were characterized by a high risk of infant mortality (e.g., predation, mammalian infant dependency, infanticide). In these contexts, inclusive fitness increased for those individuals who successfully adopted a strategy of maintaining proximity to and garnering protection from a primary caregiver (Bowlby, Reference Bowlby1969; Chisholm, Reference Chisholm1996). Thus, although the social defense and attachment systems share the broad adaptive advantage of protection from harm, the SDS' goal of protecting oneself from harm by combatant caregivers during conflict is qualitatively distinct from and, in many cases, antithetical to the attachment system and its goal of increasing accessibility to caregivers. Because each system is defined by a different external goal, the specific contexts that elicit prioritization of the social defense and attachment systems in organizing behavior are also thought to be relatively distinct. The attachment system is viewed as increasing in salience under conditions of internal (e.g., fatigue, sickness) or external (e.g., aloneness, darkness, quickly approaching or looming stimuli) cues to danger or threat. Although the stimulus characteristics of interparental discord may, on the surface, resemble an external threat cue that would stimulate the attachment system, EST-R contends that the attachment goal of increasing proximity to caregivers is unlikely to be the primary motive underlying children's behavior in contexts in which attachment figures are exhibiting frightened and frightening behaviors that will, if anything, inhibit the child's motivation to approach and seek their support. Under these conditions, we posit that protecting oneself from harm should be prioritized as a predominating goal, manifested in the relatively high salience of SDS as an organizer of children's responses to interparental conflict.

Finally, the social defense and attachment systems may be further distinguished by their specific behavioral strategies, affective mechanisms, and ways of processing information in serving their distinct external goals. For the attachment system, clinging, seeking comfort, verbal bids for support, behavioral signals of distress, and regular monitoring of the whereabouts of the parent are all potential means toward increasing accessibility to a supportive caregiver (Bowlby, Reference Bowlby1969; Hilburn-Cobb, Reference Hilburn-Cobb, Atkinson and Goldberg2004). Conversely, minimizing the threat accompanying interparental conflict substantially increases the probability of fear, vigilance (e.g., heightened perceptual–cognitive sensitivity to threat cues), freezing, distress, flight (e.g., escape) and cutoff behaviors (e.g., covering eyes), camouflaging (e.g., inhibiting verbal and overt emotional distress), social deescalation strategies (e.g., coy behavior, ingratiation, pacifying parents), long-term demobilization (e.g., fatigue, hopelessness, helplessness, dysphoria), intervention (e.g., mediation, support), and, in some cases, fight (e.g., dominant posturing) behaviors (Davies & Sturge-Apple, Reference Davies and Sturge-Apple2007; Gilbert, Reference Gilbert1993). Although many of the behavioral strategies (e.g., distress, coy behavior) can be flexibly enlisted by either system, important differences exist in how they are expressed within the individual's broader pattern of behavior. Thus, consistent with the organizational perspective in developmental psychopathology, no behavior can be fully understood without evaluating its meaning and functioning within the larger developmental context of children's response processes (Davies & Cicchetti, Reference Davies and Cicchetti2004). For example, distress behaviors regulated by the attachment system not only commonly serve the function of drawing the attention of the attachment figure but also occur within a broader context of behaviors that increase proximity (e.g., comfort seeking, clinginess, approach behaviors). In the case of the SDS, distress is accompanied by a wider pattern of behaviors that reflect fear, vigilance to threat, and efforts to avoid or mediate conflicts between parents.

From the process-oriented objective of examining emotional security as a risk mechanism in pathways between interparental conflict and children's health outcomes, EST-R's evolutionary lens provides a much-needed conceptual framework from which to better understand empirical findings distinguishing between the mediational roles of children's security in the parent–child and interparental subsystems. However, distinguishing between emotional and attachment security does not, by itself, address the existing limitations of EST in advancing an understanding of the processes underlying children's vulnerability to interparental conflict. Without further theoretical direction, these ethological distinctions could merely produce unnecessary complexity and data reduction challenges by expanding the search for signs of insecurity. For example, EST-R has actually expanded the array of reaction patterns (e.g., social deescalation, demobilizing, camouflaging behaviors) that subserve the underlying goal of preserving security in the interparental relationship. Thus, in the next section, we address how our adoption of an ethologically guided, pattern-based approach to identifying individual differences in emotional security overcomes significant barriers hindering new conceptual and empirical advances.

Pattern-Based Approach to Individual Differences in Emotional Security

The original formulation of EST places conceptual emphasis on the hypothesis that indicators within and across the three component processes are interdependent and intercorrelated. Consequently, researchers have predominantly relied on a variable-based measurement approach which aims to create a single, linear composite of insecurity based on the aggregation of multiple dimensions of conflict reactivity (e.g., anger, fear, involvement, avoidance). In an effort to then expand the conceptual scope of EST, the primary research agenda over the past two decades has largely consisted of searching for properties of interparental conflict, contextual characteristics, and forms of child outcomes that could elucidate the mediational role of emotional security (see Figure 1). Although placing a linear, aggregate assessment of emotional insecurity within multivariate models has generated significant scientific advances, continuing to utilize this approach as the predominant research agenda poses significant problems for future research. We specifically argue that unfettered proliferation of substantive breadth without balanced consideration for increasing precision and novelty in the characterization of emotional security as a construct in its own right runs the risk of failing the defining objective of EST: to achieve a precise and systematic identification of the processes that account for the wide array of problems faced by children in high-conflict homes.

At one level of analysis, the mechanistic, additive approach relies on a shared colloquial lexicon and common wisdom for identifying inherently negative response patterns and ultimately imparting meaning by designating them as signs of insecurity (see LeDoux, Reference LeDoux2012). Equipped with this broad definition of insecurity as consisting of intrinsically negative response processes, the only sustainable research direction is to examine emotional security within models that are increasingly expansive in scope. Any potential benefits of identifying family or contextual conditions that may inform an understanding of emotional security occur at the cost of delineating the precursors, dynamics, and implications of security with pinpoint accuracy. The resulting complexity of the findings is increasingly unstable and difficult to replicate. Therefore, the primary conclusion that we can generate with any sort of certainty is that toxic family environments and children's inherently negative “liabilities” (e.g., difficult temperament) increase their vulnerability to virtually all impairments in health by engendering inherently negative responses to interparental conflict.

At another level of analysis, relying on linear correspondence among various forms of conflict reactivity results in a loss of precision by masking important individual differences in emotional security. Associations among indicators of emotional security are typically modest in magnitude. For example, a review of 15 studies in Table 1 indicates that the mean shared variance among the measures is only 17% when weighted for the number of indicators in each study. The conventional conceptual definition of emotional security and its derivative measurement approach results in simple aggregates of individual variations in children's responding, in effect equating the meaning of virtually any combination of “negative” behaviors, emotions, and appraisals (e.g., children's fearful distress, sadness, anger, aggression, avoidance, involvement, negative appraisals of the implications interparental conflict has for themselves, their parents, and their families). This highlights a concerning disconnect between the operational definitions of emotional security used in prior research and EST's conceptual assumption that emotional security is a dynamic, nonlinear control system that can flexibility organize an array of behaviors to defend against the threat posed by interparental conflict. Moreover, existing measurement approaches used in testing EST are at odds with the organizational principle of developmental psychopathology that the meaning of morphologically identical responses to conflict cannot be deciphered unless examined in relation to children's larger constellation of responses (Cummings & Davies, Reference Cummings and Davies1996; Davies & Cicchetti, Reference Davies and Cicchetti2004). For example, depending on the broader organization of reactions, expressions of modest levels of fearful distress may reflect children's confidence in parents to effectively manage conflict and threat or an effortful attempt to dampen vulnerable emotional displays as a way to guard against palpable threats posed by the interparental difficulties.

Table 1.

Analysis of the magnitude of interrelationships among security indicators in previous studies of emotional security theory

To counteract the risk of conceptual dispersion, EST-R proposes a move toward a new generation of research based on pattern-based taxonomies for capturing individual differences in the nature and magnitude of interrelationships between multiple dimensions of children's reactivity to interparental conflict. This approach is consistent with the value developmental psychopathology has placed on advancing the organizational perspective by utilizing pattern-based strategies for capturing higher order coherency in children's adaptation (Cicchetti & Rogosch, Reference Cicchetti and Rogosch1996). Although research on pattern-based responses to family discord is limited, there is some empirical basis for distinguishing between qualitatively distinct patterns of child reactions to interparental conflict that bolsters the potential of our taxonomy (Cummings, Reference Cummings1987; Davies & Forman, Reference Davies and Forman2002). However, even these novel studies have stopped short of addressing the underlying concerns, taking a more descriptive empirical approach to classifying children based on differences in the form of their behavior without regard for potential variations in function. Integrating functional utility consists of identifying the specific strategy or tactic used by children to manage and defuse the threat accompanying interparental conflict. Thus, although the SDS is universally designed with the external goal of neutralizing interpersonal threat, an ethological approach assumes that humans adopt a limited number of distinctive “subroutines,” or strategies for achieving this overarching goal, that were exquisitely designed, over evolutionary history, to manage and defuse specific configurations of recurring interpersonal conflict and threat (Crittenden, Kozlowska, & Landini, Reference Crittenden, Kozlowska and Landini2010; Del Giudice, Ellis, & Shirtcliff, Reference Del Giudice, Ellis and Shirtcliff2011). Because interpersonal threats in our ancestral past are proposed to assume a finite quantity of forms, EST-R regards the specific reaction patterns to interparental conflict, based on an analysis of both form and function, to converge around a limited number of central tendencies. In the following sections, we describe the four basic social defense strategies children are proposed to adopt in the context of interparental conflict.

Secure pattern

Given the ubiquity and cost of competition and conflict throughout evolution, the external goal of the SDS in defusing or neutralizing conspecific threat is likely to be adaptive for all individuals. As a result, the SDS of children adopting a secure profile is actually operative but functions in relatively circumscribed instances of clear, direct threat. This results in the SDS assuming low saliency as an organizer of behavior in interparental contexts (Davies & Sturge-Apple, Reference Davies and Sturge-Apple2007; Gilbert, Reference Gilbert2001). Hence, the functional utility of the secure profile lies in its efficient coordination of SDS resources to contend with interparental challenges, balanced by sustaining open attention to social and exploratory opportunities as threats in the relationship subside. Thus, in the context of interparental conflict and anger, secure children possess an underlying confidence that the dispute will be effectively managed and regulated in a way that maintains family harmony. At a phenotypic level, this confidence is reflected in mild, well-regulated displays of negative affect, open acknowledgement and processing of subjective distress, minimal impulses to regulate their exposure to the conflict, and internal representations that reflect optimism that parents will manage the conflict in a way that does not undermine their functioning (see Table 2). Exquisite attunement of the SDS system to the properties of the interparental threat further insures that any distress and involvement is well regulated and relatively brief, allowing secure children to resume other critical goals and activities in the wake of interparental discord.

Table 2.

Synopsis of the functional utility, form of behavior, and underlying subjective experiences of the social defense system (SDS) profiles of security

Developmental Origins and Precursors of the Security Profiles in EST-R

Identifying the myriad of family and developmental precursors of children's reactivity to interparental conflict with any degree of specificity remains a significant challenge in the literature. Open-systems principles of developmental psychopathology have facilitated an appreciation of children's security as a complex product of multiple, diverse, and interacting developmental factors (Masten, Reference Masten2006), but EST has struggled to make progress in identifying the correspondence between distinctive sets of family and developmental conditions and differences in the way children attempt to preserve their security. From our perspective, the predominant focus in EST and existing theories of interparental conflict does not provide a sufficient theoretical frame for identifying how specific patterns of children's conflict reactivity develop over time as a function of the interplay between their experiential histories in the family and their intrapersonal attributes. For example, carving out a seemingly “angry” pattern of responding to conflict from the expansive constellation of children's possible responses based on its physical characteristics offers minimal direction in selecting among a number of operative explanatory mechanisms, including social contagion, shared genetic makeup, social learning theory process (e.g. vicarious learning), or the blockage of an array of ill-defined goals that might give rise to anger (Crockenberg & Langrock, Reference Crockenberg, Langrock, Grych and Fincham2001; Jenkins, Reference Jenkins2000; Reference Jenkins2002). Thus, the pragmatic approach of searching for patterns based solely on the form of reactivity commonly relegates the use of theory to post hoc interpretations. In contrast, the search for functional utility in EST-R identifies specific patterns of child reactivity based on their provision of an adaptive solution to overcoming specific profiles of interparental and family adversity. Therefore, the melding of form and function facilitate the formulation and testing of a priori hypotheses regarding the precise response patterns to conflict underlying distinctive constellations of family and developmental factors. In the following sections, we illustrate how EST-R is designed to achieve this objective.

With the functional pattern characterized by the efficient and circumscribed operation of the SDS, a secure profile is likely to develop in family contexts characterized by the occurrence of minimal, manageable interpersonal threats. As Table 3 shows, the underlying confidence in parents to manage their own difficulties is specifically posited to evolve from witnessing well-managed parental disputes (e.g., minimal anger, resolution) within a family context that is sufficiently resilient to intermittent interparental conflict (Davies & Sturge-Apple, Reference Davies and Sturge-Apple2007). These family systems are likely to be characterized by harmony, child trust in parents as sources of support in times of distress (i.e., secure attachment and representations), and low incidence of parental vulnerability (e.g., psychopathology). Likewise, temperamental attributes of the child reflecting effortful control and a high threshold for negative affect are theorized to be constitutional differences that bias the operation of the SDS toward developing a secure profile (e.g., Davies & Windle, Reference Davies and Windle2001).

Table 3.

Brief synopsis of precursors of the social defense system (SDS) profiles of security profiles

As a strategy to systematically monitor and manage threat in a way that sustains some connectedness in the family, the mobilizing profile is theorized to be rooted in familial and intrapersonal processes that immerse children in interparental problems (see Table 3). At the interpersonal level, a confluence of parent–child enmeshment (e.g., psychological control, resistant attachment, family enmeshment), blurred boundaries between interparental and parent–child subsystems marked by child-rearing disagreements and escalating conflict, and some, albeit inconsistent, cohesiveness in the family are conceptualized as emotionally coaxing or pulling children into conflicts. High stakes in guarding against threat and cultivating connectedness evident in the mobilizing profile may be further amplified by temperamental dispositions to exhibit high sensitivity to punishment (e.g., high distress proneness) and reward (e.g., impulsivity, approach). As part of the mobilizing pattern, perseveration on conflicts between parents may also reflect effortful control impairments that undermine the ability to inhibit prepotent negative responses in favor of a more balanced, contextually-sensitive response.

A dominant profile is posited to develop in family ecologies characterized by three primary parameters: (a) moderate hostility, (b) adult disengagement and indifference, and (c) an indistinct power hierarchy. The first two classes of characteristics are proposed to engender two trademark features of dominance including “analgesic” responses to stress (i.e., blunting subjective worry and fear in response to threat) and efforts to downplay the significance of family relationships (Davies & Forman, Reference Davies and Forman2002; Dixon, Reference Dixon1998; Gilbert, Reference Gilbert2001; Gilbert & Allan, Reference Gilbert and Allan1998). These responses are expected to evolve into the use of dominant posturing in coping with interparental conflict when significant collapses in family structure lead to obscured guidelines for accessing family resources and inconsistent consequences for violations in conduct (Sloman et al., Reference Sloman, Farvolden, Gilbert and Price2006). Ill-defined power hierarchies are most commonly reflected in hostile detachment in the interparental relationship, family disengagement, low parental investment in the lives of children (e.g., apathy, passivity), and frightened forms of adult psychopathology (e.g., anxiety). Likewise, temperamental dispositions characterized by proneness to distress, poor effortful control, and impulsivity further amplify the risk of utilizing dominance strategies (see Table 3).

Finally, because the functional utility of the demobilizing profile is rooted in its ability to reduce children's salience as targets of hostility, EST-R postulates that tendencies to exhibit this profile evolve from exposure to very dire, agonic family niches replete with adult aggression, intimidation and oppression, and limited opportunities for solace in the face of threat (Blanchard, McKittrick, & Blanchard, Reference Blanchard, McKittrick and Blanchard2001; Dixon, Reference Dixon1998; Gilbert, Reference Gilbert2001; Honess & Marin, Reference Honess and Marin2006). Without any source of solace (i.e., social support) in the family, the “last resort” strategy of demobilization serves two functional roles: (a) reducing the salience of children (i.e., conspecific subordinates) in the face of possible threats by hostile, rejecting, and cold caregivers (i.e., aggressive dominants) and (b) inhibiting children's motivation to explore and acquire resources in competitive, threatening, and impoverished family contexts in which access to limited resources are unlikely, unpredictable, and accessed at substantial risk (Bracha, Reference Bracha2004; Sloman, Atkinson, Milligan, & Liotti, Reference Sloman, Atkinson, Milligan and Liotti2002; Sloman et al., Reference Sloman, Farvolden, Gilbert and Price2006). Thus, we hypothesize that demobilizing tendencies will be associated with high levels of interparental anger escalation, violence, and disengagement that occur in a broader context of frightening forms of parent functioning (e.g., antisocial personality disorder), disorganized parent–child attachment patterns, high parental abuse potential and intolerance of emotional expressiveness (see Table 3). Early dispositions to experience high sensitivity to punishment, wariness to novelty, and low approach tendencies in the face of reward are also theorized to serve as temperamental precursors to demobilizing styles (Ellis, Jackson, & Boyce, Reference Ellis, Jackson and Boyce2006; Korte, Koolhaas, Wingfield, & McEwen, Reference Korte, Koolhaas, Wingfield and McEwen2005; Sih & Bell, Reference Sih and Bell2008). However, in highlighting that not all negative experiences are necessarily linked with demobilizing patterns, EST-R further proposes that the skillful ability to downregulate reflexive, automatic expressions of overt distress may also be supported by some relatively intact capacities for effortful control (Davies, Cicchetti, Hentges, & Sturge-Apple, in press; Sih & Bell, Reference Sih and Bell2008).

Illustrating the promise of our new taxonomy, preliminary research findings support distinctive patterns of family and developmental precursors to the EST-R profiles. For example, patterns of child reactivity fitting the secure profile have been associated with interparental harmony, parent–child attachment security, family cohesion, and low family adversity (Cummings & El-Sheikh, Reference Cummings, El-Sheikh, Cummings, Greene and Karraker1991; Davies & Forman, Reference Davies and Forman2002; Maughan & Cicchetti, Reference Maughan and Cicchetti2002). Likewise, children exhibiting high levels of distress, hypervigilance, and involvement characteristic of a mobilizing pattern commonly experienced multiple signs of family enmeshment (e.g., parent psychological control), interparental hostility, and high levels of psychological investment in their families (Davies & Forman, Reference Davies and Forman2002). In addition, children who displayed a response pattern resembling a dominant profile experienced elevated levels of intense, poorly resolved interparental conflict, family disengagement, and avoidant parent–child attachment (Cummings & El-Sheikh, Reference Cummings, El-Sheikh, Cummings, Greene and Karraker1991; Davies & Forman, Reference Davies and Forman2002; Maughan & Cicchetti, Reference Maughan and Cicchetti2002).

Developmental Cascades and Sequelae of Security Profiles in EST-R

Although research has documented an array of negative physical and mental health sequelae associated with conventional measures of emotional insecurity derived from EST, we still know very little about the unfolding cascade of processes that serve as architects of these pathways. According to traditional conceptualizations of EST, “excessive” concerns about security are proposed to assume a nondescript pathogenic meaning and, as a result, produce an expansive catalogue of inherently undesirable outcomes (Cummings & Davies, Reference Cummings and Davies2010; Davies & Cummings, Reference Davies and Cummings1994). From a developmental psychopathology perspective, the utility of EST-R ultimately hinges on (a) its ability to more precisely characterize the developmental cascades of individuals who differ in their overall level and form of security and (b) its capacity to increase precision and novelty in identifying distinctive patterns of adjustment (Cicchetti & Aber, Reference Cicchetti and Aber1998; Masten & Cicchetti, Reference Masten and Cicchetti2010). In advancing these objectives, we now turn to demonstrating how distinctions between the functions of the SDS profiles may offer greater depth and pinpoint accuracy in identifying trajectories of specific patterns of psychological functioning.

Toward greater precision in identifying mental health sequelae

Despite the multiple advantages theorized to result from an efficient SDS, a key question is whether higher levels of security engender only healthy forms of adjustment. The original formulation of EST asserts that higher levels of security should be associated with either benign or salubrious developmental outcomes based on the tacit assumption that security is an inherently positive or desirable condition (Cummings & Davies, Reference Cummings and Davies2010; Davies & Cummings, Reference Davies and Cummings1994). However, through its evolutionary lens, EST-R raises the possibility that higher levels of security may still confer some developmental costs. By allocating limited psychobiological resources to social defense, children with secure profiles are proposed to have relatively rudimentary systems for quickly identifying emerging threats in their social environments and the potential array of negative consequences for themselves and others (see Figure 3a). Consequently, children adopting a secure profile may be more likely to exhibit relatively optimistic views of interpersonal relationships in the family at the risk of exhibiting naivety and gullibility in more challenging and stressful contexts. Although research has yet to examine the potential “dark” side of security in the interparental relationship, a plausible hypothesis is that higher security may lead to impairment in the ability to detect cheating or malevolent intent in others and modestly higher rates of victimization in specific contexts (e.g., new social networks), particularly in relation to specific insecure profiles (e.g., a dominant pattern).

Figure 3.

Models depicting the distinct pattern of developmental cascade mechanisms and mental health sequelae proposed to be products of each social defense system (SDS) profile.

Although evolutionary conceptualizations emphasize that an acute awareness of the potential for threat in the family, preoccupation with interparental contexts, and the expression of submissive and appeasing behaviors are adaptive strategies for reducing harm in the face of conspecific threat (Gilbert, Reference Gilbert2001; Wakefield, Reference Wakefield1999), the resulting mobilizing pattern of defending against threat is proposed to result in significant developmental costs. By virtue of the accompanying hypervigilance to social stimuli, self-consciousness, proclivity to experience shame, unmitigated communion, unstable sense of self, and ingratiating and appeasing behaviors, the mobilizing pattern of responding to conflict may increase risk for experiencing a distinctive higher order pattern of heightened anxiety, depression, inattention and hyperactivity, borderline personality symptoms, and impulsive and attention-seeking risk (e.g., substance use) behaviors (see Figure 3b). However, against this backdrop of pathogenic processes, mobilizing patterns may confer a unique portfolio of relative strengths. We specifically hypothesize that the substantial motivation to engage in interpersonal relationships will engender a broader personality style characterized by moderate levels of communion, social interest, and openness to intimacy.

In serving the functional goal of directly defeating the threat posed by interparental conflict, dominant tendencies to blunt the experience of vulnerable emotions and downplay the value of close relationships are proposed to coalesce into externalizing symptoms by breeding hostile views of the interpersonal world, social disenfranchisement, callousness, and the rigid, reflexive use of aggressive behaviors. However, the landscape is not uniformly bleak for children with dominant profiles. The direct, domineering approach to defending against threat in the family may provide a training ground for the elaboration of daring, audacious strategies to acquire and expand privileged access to resources and to boldly explore new objects and settings. If these bold behavioral patterns for engaging in the broader social and physical worlds become increasingly organized, they may help to counteract the risk associated with a dominant profile by crystallizing into some advantageous attributes characterized by self-confident, agentic, adventurous, and assertive personality traits (see Figure 3c).

Finally, with its function of laying low in the context of threat, children adopting demobilizing strategies likely bear the most significant mental and physical health burdens of any of the SDS profiles. Given the tendency to adopt existing ways of processing and responding to threat in new and challenging contexts, Figure 3d depicts how a demobilizing profile may set in motion a developmental cascade marked by high sensitivity to social threats, social reticence, withdrawal, and harm-avoidant strategies in subsequent stressful contexts. Consequently, children with demobilizing profiles are proposed to exhibit an increased likelihood of anxiety, depression, posttraumatic stress symptoms, attention difficulties, and social problems. However, further ethological analysis of the implications of demobilizing patterns for other behavioral systems suggests that its pernicious impact may be considerably more broad and deep (Gilbert, Reference Gilbert2006; Sloman, Price, Gilbert, & Gardner, Reference Sloman, Price, Gilbert and Gardner1994). As the trademark of a demobilizing pattern of responding to interparental conflict, the excessive operation of the SDS is likely to substantially tax the functioning affiliative, exploratory, and caregiving systems. As a result, we propose that demobilizing tendencies should be associated with ample impairments in social skills, prosocial behavior, agency, and problem-solving abilities (Davies & Sturge-Apple, Reference Davies and Sturge-Apple2007; Gilbert, Reference Gilbert2001; Sloman et al., Reference Sloman, Atkinson, Milligan and Liotti2002). By the same token, it is also important to note that demobilizing patterns may confer some, albeit limited, developmental benefits that extend beyond its proximate function of reducing threat. High sensitivity to punishment and the tendency to acquiesce in difficult situations may give rise to cooperative, modest, conciliatory, and courteous orientations in social situations.

Although we are proposing that each SDS profile may be related to a relatively distinctive set of developmental consequences, the concept of multifinality in developmental psychopathology highlights the likelihood that there will be considerable variability in the outcomes of children who exhibit similar patterns of responding to interparental conflict (Cicchetti & Rogosch, Reference Cicchetti and Rogosch1996). Even within the class of mental health outcomes associated with any single SDS profile, the pathways outlined in Figure 3d are regarded as statistically probabilistic rather than certain. In accepting the principles of developmental psychopathology (Cicchetti, Reference Cicchetti1996), EST-R acknowledges that variability in children's developmental trajectories is attributable to the transactional interplay between dynamic child attributes in the context of dynamic interpersonal ecologies. Thus, although a systematic conceptual account of the specific parameters that serve as sources of heterogeneity in the mediational role of specific security profiles is premature at this early theoretical stage, a critical future direction is to articulate how the SDS operates within an open system in which familial and extrafamilial factors may alter the calibration of children's conflict reactions and their developmental sequelae (Keller & Nesse, Reference Keller and Nesse2006). However, at this juncture we believe our reformulation produces more proximal advantages in its potential to expand the utility of emotional security in advancing an understanding of children's ways of defending against threat in multiple contexts and applications. Therefore, in the final sections of the article, we address how an ethological and evolutionary framework may facilitate progress in both substantive and clinical areas of developmental psychopathology.

Expanding the Utility of EST-R: Translational Implications for Science

Accompanying the increasing theoretical precision and depth afforded by EST-R is the potential to foster multiple zones of scientific growth focused on the significance of the SDS system across multiple interpersonal contexts. The original formulation of EST defined emotional security as inextricably tethered to the context of interparental discord. Relying solely on signs of behavioral and psychological reactivity to interparental problems precludes attempts to expand the study of safety and security goals to broader interpersonal contexts. Conversely, in EST-R, the significance of interparental conflict is derived from its potential as a source of threat in stimulating the SDS to organize strategies to defend against the interpersonal risk. If the SDS organizes specific strategies that were designed over evolutionary time to defuse various configurations of threat across social networks, it stands to reason that it should be readily applicable to other forms of interpersonal threat. From this perspective, patterns of interpersonal discord, hostility, competition, or rejection across multiple relationships and social contexts are theorized to undermine children's safety and predictable access to resources and, in the process, shape children's specific profiles of security. Thus, by considering children's emotional security in relation to individual differences in the function and organization of the SDS, EST-R has the potential to significantly expand the scope of inquiry to multiple contexts. To illustrate the potential utility of our reformulation for multiple ecologies and levels of analysis in developmental psychopathology (Cicchetti, Reference Cicchetti2010; Masten Reference Masten2006), we provide a brief and selective overview of the potential of EST-R to inform an understanding of children's coping with other family relationships, peer dynamics, and community discord.

Translational Implications of EST-R for Clinical Initiatives

Although it is premature to offer authoritative recommendations for treatment and public policy at this early stage of research, future knowledge generated by EST-R may have important translational implications for developmental psychopathology (Cicchetti & Toth, Reference Cicchetti and Toth2006). For the sake of succinct illustration, we focus on the utility of EST-R as a guide in reducing the vulnerability of children exposed to interparental conflict. However, it is important to note that our rough and tentative blueprints for clinical translation should be applicable, with some adaptation, to multiple interpersonal contexts of threat (e.g., family, peers, community). If EST-R proves to be successful in generating greater precision in identifying ecological and developmental conditions underlying specific SDS profiles and their developmental costs, it may help to inform an understanding of treatment targets and therapeutic tools for protecting children against interpersonal discord.

As a fundamental clinical premise, EST-R strongly cautions against the dangers of using one size fits all, child-focused programs for altering children's coping patterns toward a singular standard of “healthy” adjustment. Our theory posits that children's SDS strategies are exquisitely designed to serve as adaptive solutions to configurations of threat cues that resemble those in our ancestral past. Because mobilizing, demobilizing, and dominant patterns of reactivity to conflict reflect effective ways of defending against specific configurations of family discord, interventions exclusively focused on enhancing children's security or coping skills in the face of interparental conflict may counterintuitively render children ill equipped to contend appropriately with protracted discord in their families. Thus, any intervention specifically targeting children's reactivity to interparental conflict should be implemented in tandem with a broader, family-wide intervention initiative that systematically alters the interparental and family sources of threat. Our pattern-based taxonomy underscores that interparental conflict is part of a broader constellation of family characteristics that serve to calibrate children's SDS toward specific ways of defending against threat. With a theoretical focus on protection and defense of children in emotion-laden family contexts, multicomponent interventions are needed that simultaneously improve family and child functioning (e.g., Johnston, Roseby, & Kuehnle, Reference Johnston, Roseby and Kuehnle2009) through integration of therapeutic tools from trauma, attachment, and family therapy programs (Coatsworth, Santisteban, McBride, & Szapocznik, Reference Coatsworth, Santisteban, McBride and Szapocznik2011; Lieberman, Van Horn, Ippen, Reference Lieberman, Van Horn and Ippen2005; Scheeringa, Weems, Cohen, Amaya-Jackson, & Guthrie, Reference Scheeringa, Weems, Cohen, Amaya-Jackson and Guthrie2011).

Although developing hybrid programs for reducing and managing family threats may ultimately provide an effective means of improving the welfare of children and their families, the resulting myriad of potential therapeutic targets and tools have the potential drawback of fostering clinical packages that are sprawling, dispersive, and unfeasible in scope. Without further theoretical and empirical guidance, any number of interparental, parent, or child processes could be targeted in such interventions. As knowledge on EST-R progresses, it has the potential to address these challenges in several ways. First, the distinct patterns of experiential histories theorized to underlie the qualitatively different patterns (e.g., mobilizing, demobilizing) of defending against threat can provide direction in sensitively identifying and targeting putative family and developmental conditions that give rise to specific forms of insecurity.

Second, EST-R emphasizes that the SDS, as a primary organizer of security responses, responds in a circumscribed manner to interpersonal threat cues (e.g., hostile expressions, aggression, disengagement). Consistent with this thesis, findings from two studies converge to support the hypothesis that exposure to destructive, but not constructive, interparental conflict increased children's risk of problems by specifically undermining their emotional insecurity in the interparental relationship (Davies et al., Reference Davies, Martin and Cicchetti2012). Thus, for treatment efforts to allay children's concerns about security in the family, theory and initial empirical work highlight the potential value of prioritizing the reduction of destructive, threatening family processes as a primary clinical objective. We do not mean to imply that enhancement of happiness and warmth is not an important part of the clinical approach. Rather, our point is that an emphasis toward eliminating threat relative to promoting happiness and bliss in the family will yield more clinical “bang for the buck” in high-conflict homes requiring SDS-driven interventions.

Third, our suggestion to focus on reducing threatening family processes should also not be misinterpreted to suggest that there is no place for targeting strengths and domains of competence in formulating treatment approaches. As Table 3 and Figure 3 highlight, EST-R proposes that each SDS strategy is part of a broader developmental profile with unique aptitudes and competencies in temperament, personality, and adjustment. Thus, any trauma- or attachment-based intervention component would do well to tailor the program to enhance and capitalize on the unique pattern of psychological strengths characterizing each profile.

However, limitations in time, resources, and the authority to intervene in family matters commonly prohibit practitioners from identifying and altering the complex transactions among children's coping strategies and the specific dynamics of their family systems. Under these conditions, how can we foster the mental health of children if EST-R advises against solely focusing on modifying children's patterns of coping with interparental conflict? Our recommendation is to consider interrupting the proliferation of downstream pathogenic processes that mediate associations between insecure profiles and child adjustment problems through three main approaches. To counteract the tendency for children to utilize old defensive strategies, developed within the family, as a way of interpreting, processing, and responding to novel, challenging, or complex settings outside the family, the first approach is geared toward encapsulating insecure response patterns to family settings. For example, toward the goal of increasing safety, predictability, and comfort in school and extracurricular contexts, administrative resources may be dedicated to (a) reducing interpersonal conflict and competition (e.g., cooperation-supporting reward contingencies; clear, consistent rules of conduct); (b) fostering flexible patterns of appraising, interpreting, and coping with extrafamilial relationships in ways that are tailored to the unique features and circumstances of the relational context; and (c) maximizing the accessibility of resources for all children (i.e., balanced adult attention and access to toys/school supplies; Webster-Stratton, Reid, & Hammond, Reference Webster-Stratton, Reid and Hammond2001; Webster-Stratton, Reid, & Stoolmiller, Reference Webster-Stratton, Reid and Stoolmiller2008).

Given that all insecure profiles are theorized to reflect dispositions to heavily prioritize defense over other important fitness goals (e.g., mastery of the social and physical environment), the second approach might consist of enhancing the operation of approach-oriented, ethological systems. Figure 2 is partly designed to provide a useful guidepost for intervention approaches. For example, elaboration of the affiliative and caregiving systems may be supported through social competence training and coaching, organizing interpersonal (e.g., peer) activities around cooperative achievement of a superordinate goal, and in vivo pairing with competent peers (e.g., Bierman & Furman, Reference Bierman and Furman1984; Bierman et al., Reference Bierman, Domitrovich, Nix, Gest, Welsh and Greenberg2008). Likewise, programs promoting language and literacy skills (e.g., Bierman et al., Reference Bierman, Domitrovich, Nix, Gest, Welsh and Greenberg2008) and executive functioning, such as working memory and inhibitory control skills (Diamond & Lee, Reference Diamond and Lee2011; Thorell, Lindqvist, Bergman, Bohlin, & Klingberg, Reference Thorell, Lindqvist, Bergman, Bohlin and Klingberg2008), may be utilized to enhance autonomous functioning, competency motivation, and problem-solving skills with the potential to prevent or weaken pathogenic cascades of insecurity.

Finally, our third proposed approach hinges on selectively tailoring different components from the first two approaches in order to maximally address the distinctive needs and strengths of children exhibiting specific SDS profiles. Table 3 and Figure 3 are designed to highlight some of the underlying advantageous and disadvantageous characteristics associated with each of the SDS profiles. For example, children with mobilizing tendencies are proposed to exhibit high levels of communion and interest in social connection but often possess poor social skills, difficulty regulating affect, and limited friendship networks to aid them in navigating the social world. Therefore, they may disproportionately benefit from an intervention program with a relatively heavy emphasis on social skills exercises, emotion regulation training, and pairing with a competent peer.