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This is to certify that the

thesis entitled

Social Connections, Perceived Support, and
Children's Adjustment Following Exposure
to Domestic Violence

presented by

Mei Chao

has been accepted towards fulﬁllment
of the requirements for

 

 

M . A . degree in Psychology

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Major professor

Date 2/19/03

 

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SOCIAL CONNECTIONS, PERCEIVED SUPPORT, AND CHILDREN’S
ADJUSTMENT FOLLOWING EXPOSURE TO DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

By

Mei Chao

A THESIS

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulﬁllment of the requirements
for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS
Psychology

2003

ABSTRACT

SOCIAL CONNECTIONS, PERCEIVED SUPPORT, AND CHILDREN’S
ADJUSTMENT FOLLOWING EXPOSURE TO DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

By
Mei Chao

Although exposure to domestic violence has been linked to a range of adjustment
problems for children, there has been little research on factors that may shield children
from these effects. Because natural support systems play such an important role in
assisting individuals in crisis and in stressﬁil events, it is necessary to examine the role
social support networks play in the lives of children exposed to domestic violence. This
study investigated the inﬂuence of social connection and perceived support on children’s
depression, emotional adjustment problems, behavioral adjustment problems, and
perceived self-competence. Participants in this study were 158 children (aged 4-13) who
had witnessed domestic violence within four months prior to their interviews. Results
indicated that the number of social connections children had in their surroundings
signiﬁcantly related to their levels of depression. On the other hand, perceived support
was signiﬁcantly related to children’s self-competence. In particular, emotional support
was positively related to children’s emotional adjustment problems; whereas high
network enjoyment was associated with fewer behavioral adjustment problems.
Furthermore, network enjoyment moderated the relationship between social connection
and children’s depression. Implications of this study’s ﬁndings for interventions,

community-based service delivery, service providers, and policy makers were discussed.

Copyright
by
Mei Chao
2003

To my mother who cultivated in me the love of ideas and learning
and

To the children who shared their experiences of adversity and resilience

iv

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to acknowledge a number of people who helped me in various
capacities to work toward the completion of my master’s thesis. I would like to thank my
committee members for their support, encouragement, and guidance throughout this
process. To my chair, Cris Sullivan, I thank her for her willingness to meet with me on a
regular basis and for reading numerous drafts of my thesis. Her comments and
suggestions were always constructive and helpful. I also appreciate the autonomy she has
given me to complete my work.

To Deborah Bybee, I am grateful for the assistance and support she has given
with data analysis and interpretation. I appreciate her ability to make statistics “fun.” I
also want to thank her for making herself available and for oﬁ‘ering incredibly helpful
feedback. .

To Stephen Yelon, I am grateﬁll for his generosity with his time, considering he
had already begun his retirement. I especially thank him for always challenging me to
think and write critically. His input was always thoughtful and helpful. I also want to
thank him for sharing with me useful strategies for dealing with impediments.

I would also like to thank Bill Davidson for being instrumental in the
development of my literature review. His critical input on the initial draft of my thesis
encouraged me to pursue the topic further.

I would like to extend my thanks to Alexander von Eye for his helpful input on

hierarchical multiple regression.

I am particularly grateﬁil for the support I have received from signiﬁcant people
in my social networks. To Lily, she is the most precious sister and friend a little sister
could have. To my big brother, Jay, I thank him for helping me put things in perspective
and envision my goals. To my big brother, Randy, I thank him for always challenging
me. Most of all, I thank Eric for his friendship, unﬂinching support, and encouragement,

especially during challenging times.

vi

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF TABLES ..................................................................... x
LIST OF FIGURES .................................................................... xii
INTRODUCTION ..................................................................... 1
Prevalence of Childhood’s Exposure to Domestic Violence .................. 3
Deﬁning a Witness .................................................................. 4
Impact of Domestic Violence on Children ...................................... 5
Variability in Children’s Adjustment ......................................... 10
Factors Moderating the Impact of Domestic Violence on Children 14
Social Support as a Moderator of Children’s Adjustment ..................... 16
Distinguishing Between Social Support and Social Networks ............ 17
How Social Support Relates to Adjustment ................................. 20
Studies on Social Support and Children’s Adjustment ..................... 21
Social Support and Children Exposed to Domestic Violence ............. 29
PURPOSE OF THE STUDY ......................................................... 34
METHODS .............................................................................. 36
Participants ........................................................................... 36
Procedure ............................................................................ 37
Measures ............................................................................. 38
Children’s Witnessing of Domestic Violence ............................... 39
Children’s Overall Adjustment ................................................ 39
Children’s Social Support Networks .......................................... 41
Data Analysis ........................................................................ 43
RESULTS ............................................................................... 45
Demographics of Participants ..................................................... 45
Severity of Children’s Exposure .................................................. 45
Children’s Social Connections .................................................... 48
Children’s Perceived Support ..................................................... 50
Relationships Among Control, Predictor, and Outcome Variables .......... 50
Relationships Among Social Connections, Perceived Support, and
Children’s Adjustment ......................................................... 53
Relationships Between Social Connection and Children’s Adjustment 53
Social Connection and Depression ....................................... 54
Social Connection and Behavioral Adjustment Problems ............. 55
Social Connection and Emotional Adjustment Problems .............. 56
Social Connection and Self-Competence ................................. 57
Relationships Between Perceived Support and Children’s Adjustment 58
Perceived Support and Depression ....................................... 59

vii

TABLE OF CONTENTS Continued...

Perceived Support and Behavioral Adjustment Problems ............. 6O
Perceived Support and Emotional Adjustment Problems .............. 61
Perceived Support and Self-Competence ................................. 62
Relationships Between Emotional Support and Children’s Adjustment 63
Emotional Support and Depression ....................................... 64
Emotional Support and Behavioral Adjustment Problems ............ 65
Emotional Support and Emotional Adjustment Problems ............. 66
Emotional Support and Self-Competence ................................ 67
Relationships Between Network Enjoyment and Children’s
Adjustment ................................................................... 68
Network Enjoyment and Depression ..................................... 69
Network Enjoyment and Behavioral Adjustment Problems ........... 70
Network Enjoyment and Emotional Adjustment Problems ............ 71
Network Enjoyment and Self-Competence .............................. 72
Relationships Between Perceived Support and Children’s Adjustment,
Controlling for Social Connection ............. '. .............................. 73
Relationships Between Emotional Support and Children’s Adjustment,
Controlling for Social Connection ............................................ 76
Relationships Between Network Enjoyment and Children’s Adjustment,
Controlling for Social Connection ............................................ 79
Moderation of Relationships between Social Connection and Children’s
Adjustment by Perceived Support ............................................. 83
Moderation of Relationships Between Social Connection and Children’s
Adjustment by Emotional Support ............................................ 84
Moderation of Relationships Between Social Connection and Children’s
Adjustment by Network Enjoyment .......................................... 86
DISCUSSION ........................................................................... 90
Social Connection and Children’s Adjustment .................................. 9O
Perceived Support and Children’s Adjustment ................................. 92
Moderation of Relationship Between Social Connection and Children’s
Adjustment by Network Enjoyment .......................................... 96
Current Research Limitations ..................................................... 97
Contributions and Implications of This Research .............................. 99
Directions for Future Research ................................................... 101
APPENDICES .......................................................................... 104
Appendix A: Mother’s Report on Children’s Witnessing of Domestic
Violence 104

viii

TABLE OF CONTENTS Continued...

Appendix B: Eyberg Child Behavior Inventory ................................ 105
Appendix C: Achenbach Child Behavior Checklist ........................... 107
Appendix D: Children Depression Inventory ................................... 108
Appendix E: Harter’s Scale of Perceived Self-Competence .................. 112
Appendix F: Social Support/Cohesion Scale .................................... 116
BIBLIOGRAPHY ...................................................................... 117

ix

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Means, Standard Deviations, and Medians of All Scales Used in the
Study

Table 2: Severity of Children’s Exposure to Domestic Violence
Table 3: Children’s Social Connection

Table 4: Correlation Matrix

Table 5: Hierarchical Regression of Depression on Social Connection

Table 6: Hierarchical Regression of Behavioral Problems on Social
Connection

Table 7: Hierarchical Regression of Emotional Problems on Social
Connection

Table 8: Hierarchical Regression of Self-Competence on Social Connection
Table 9: Hierarchical Regression of Depression on Perceived Support

Table 10: Hierarchical Regression of Behavioral Problems on Perceived
Support

Table 11: Hierarchical Regression of Emotional Problems on Perceived
Support

Table 12: Hierarchical Regression of Self-Competence on Perceived Support
Table 13: Hierarchical Regression of Depression on Emotional Support

Table 14: Hierarchical Regression of Behavioral Problems on Emotional
Support

Table 15: Hierarchical Regression of Emotional Problems on Emotional
Support

Table 16: Hierarchical Regression of Self-Competence on Emotional Support

Table 17 : Hierarchical Regression of Depression on Network Enjoyment

42

47

49

52

55

56

57

58

61

62

O\

3

65
66

67

LIST OF TABLES continued...

Table 18: Hierarchical Regression of Behavioral Problems on Network
Enjoyment

Table 19: Hierarchical Regression of Emotional Problems on Network
Enjoyment

Table 20: Hierarchical Regression of Self-Competence on Network
Enjoyment

Table 21a: Summary of Hierarchical Regression of Children’s Adjustment
on Perceived Support, Controlling for Social Connection

Table 21b: Summary of Hierarchical Regression of Children’s Adjustment
on Social Connection, Controlling for Social Connection

Table 22a: Summary of Hierarchical Regression of Children’s Adjustment
on Emotional Support, Controlling for Social Connection

Table 22b: Summary of Hierarchical Regression of Children’s Adjustment
on Social Connection, Controlling for Emotional Support

Table 23a: Summary of Hierarchical Regression of Children’s Adjustment
on Network Enjoyment, Controlling for Social Connection

Table 23b: Summary of Hierarchical Regression of Children’s Adjustment
on Social Connection, Controlling for Network Enjoyment

Table 24: Summary of Hierarchical Regression of Children’s Adjustment on
Interaction Between Social Connection and Perceived Support

Table 25: Summary of Hierarchical Regression of Children’s Adjustment on
Interaction Between Social Connection and Emotional Support

Table 26: Summary of Hierarchical Regression of Children’s Adjustment on
Interaction Between Social Connection and Network Enjoyment

Table 27: Hierarchical Regression of Children’s Depression on Interaction
Between Social Connection and Network Enjoyment

xi

7]

72

73

75

76

78

79

81

82

84

86

88

88

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: Conceptual Model: Relationships Among Social Connection,
Perceived Support, and Children’s Adjustment

Figure 2: Relationships Between Social Connection and Children’s
Adjustment

Figure 3: Relationships Between Perceived Support and Children’s
Adjustment

Figure 4: Relationships Between Emotional Support and Children’s
Adjustment

Figure 5: Relationships Between Network Enjoyment and Children’s
Adjustment

Figure 6: Moderation of Perceived Support on Relationships Between Social
Connection and Children’s Adjustment

Figure 7: Moderation of Emotional Support on Relationships Between Social
Connection and Children’s Adjustment -

Figure 8: Moderation of Network Enjoyment on Relationships Between
Social Connection and Children’s Adjustment

Figure 9: Moderation of Network Enjoyment on the Relationship Between
Social Connection and Children’s Depression

xii

35

54

59

64

69

83

85

87

89

INTRODUCTION

Only recently has much attention been given to the experiences of children
exposed to domestic violence. A recent estimate indicates that as many as 10 million
children are exposed to domestic violence each year (Straus, 1992). It is now widely
recognized that witnessing domestic violence is extremely upsetting and stressful for
children (Hughes & Luke, 1998). Such children are believed to be at risk for developing
a range of emotional and behavioral adjustment problems (for reviews, see Campbell,
1998; Kolbo, Blakely, & Engleman, 1996; Peled & Davis, 1995; Jaffe, Sudermann, &
Reitzel, 1992). A number of investigators in this area have reported that children who
have been exposed to domestic violence display more aggressiveness and conduct
behavior problems than children who have not witnessed domestic violence (F antuzzo,
DePaola, Lambert, Martino, Anderson, & Sutton, 1991; Hughes, 1988; Hughes,
Parkinson, & Vargo, 1989). Child witnesses have also been found to be at risk for lower
social competence than their peers. In addition, children who have witnessed domestic
violence are more likely to experience posttraumatic stress, anxiety, depression, and
somatic symptoms than comparison children (Hughes, 1988; Maker, Kemmelmeier, &
Peterson, 1998; Stemberg, Lamb, Greenbaum, Cicchetti, Dawud, Cortes, Krispin, &
Lorey, 1993).

However, some children are more profoundly affected by this exposure than
others (Sullivan, Juris, Bybee, Nguyen, & Allen, 2000; Edleson, 1999). Overall, while
some children demonstrate poor adjustment, others retain their well-being in spite of

exposure to domestic violence. In fact, some studies have found no differences in

witnesses’ behavioral and emotional adjustment when compared to other children. This
variability in children’s adjustment may be explained, in part, by various personal and
situational factors, including whether the child has personally experienced abuse and the
severity to which he or she has been exposed to domestic violence.

At this point, relatively little is known about factors which shield children from
the negative effects of witnessing domestic violence. In order to intervene successfully
on behalf of witnesses, it is particularly important to gain a better understanding of the
link between risk and protective factors that contribute to children’s positive adjustment.
Investigators focusing on children dealing with various adverse circumstances have long
stressed the importance of understanding the effects of negative life events on children
and the reasons those experiences elicit such divergent responses in different individuals
(Rak & Patterson, 1996; Garmezy, Masten, & Tellegen, 1984; Rutter, 1986; Meyer,
1957). Furthermore, Rutter has stated that “it is important ... [to] determine why it is so
and what it is that protects them from hazards they face” (Rutter, 1979, p. 70).

Previous research involving children dealing with various forms of adversity has
consistently shown that social support networks inﬂuence the behavioral and emotional
adjustment of children. This work has shown that the availability and quality of social
support are positively associated with children’s ability to cope and adjust with various
adverse circumstances, including parental mental illness, poverty, neglect, poor
parenting, and family conﬂict (Masten, Best, & Garmezy, 1990; Rutter, 1987). For
example, Wertlieb, Weigel, & Feldstein (1987) found elevated levels of stress were
signiﬁcantly correlated with greater adjustment problems among school-aged children

(N=159). More speciﬁcally, Wertlieb et. al. (1987) found that undesirable life events,

compared to desirable events, were more strongly related to adjustment problems.
However, these investigators found that social support mitigated these negative effects.

Unfortunately, few investigators have examined the role of social support
networks on children’s adjustment following exposure to domestic violence. In
particular, although investigators have stressed the importance of social support networks
for children, little is known about how these children’s connections with others and
perceived support from this network affect their well—being and adjustment (Beeman,
2001; Rhodes, 1994; Wilson, Cameron, Jaffe, & Wolfe, 1989). Berrera ( 1986)
maintained that social embeddedness, or being socially connected, is a critical component
in the psychological sense of community and, in turn, affects well-being and the ability to
cope with adversity. Thus, it is imperative to identify such factors that may shield
children from the potentially debilitating impact of domestic violence.
Prevalence of Childhood’s Exposure to Domestic Violence

Almost two decades ago, Carlson (1984) estimated that at least 3.3 million
children witness their mothers being physically and emotionally abused each year in the
United States alone. Her estimate was based on earlier studies that indicated about 3
million American families experience at least one episode of serious violence annually
(Straus, Gelles, & Steinmetz, 1980). Carlson explained that she had probably
underestimated the actual number of children exposed because her estimate only included
exposure to violence that would likely result’in injury. This number was also likely to be
very low because the study on which her estimates was drawn excluded families with
children under the age of 3. It also excluded families in which parents were separated or

divorced in which abuse was probably still occurring.

More recent studies have estimated a higher prevalence of children exposed to
domestic violence. For example, Straus (1992) has recently estimated that as many as 10
million children may be exposed annually. His estimate was drawn from a survey (Straus
& Gelles, 1990) in which adults were asked to reﬂect on “whether, during their teenage
years, their father had hit their mother and how often” (p. 98). A similar question was
asked regarding their mother. Straus indicated that one in eight of the respondents
(12.6%) recalled such an occurrence, with an average of 8.9 and a median of four violent
episodes. Approximately 50 percent of the respondents recalled their father hitting their
mother. In another study with adults, Silvern, Karyl, Waelde, Hodges, Starek, Heidt, and
Min (1995) found that 118 (41.1%) of the 287 female--and 85 (32.3%) of the 263 male--
undergraduate college students in their study had been exposed to domestic violence.

These ﬁndings are consistent with Fantuzzo, Boruch, Abdullahi, Atkins, and
Marcus’ (1997) study on the prevalence of children’s exposure to domestic violence in
ﬁve US. cities (Atlanta, Charlotte, Miami, Milwaukee, and Omaha). Using secondary
analysis of police arrests in these cities, they found that children were directly involved in
episodes of domestic violence from 9% to 27% of the time. Furthermore, children
younger than ﬁve years old were overly-represented in homes where domestic violence
occurred.

While estimates differ as to the number of children exposed to domestic violence
each year, it is evident that a large proportion of children encounter it annually (Edleson,
1999). Furthermore, many children are exposed to repeat episodes of violence against

their mothers (Straus, 1992; Margolin, 1998).

Deﬁning a Witness

Edleson (1999) described children’s witnessing of domestic violence as “directly
viewing the violence, hearing it, being used as a tool of the perpetrator, and experiencing
the aftermath of violence” (p. 844). As a result, they may also be directly involved (e.g.,
the assailant may take the child hostage to force the mother’s return to the home). But
typically, children are more likely to hear the violent episode and experience its
aftereffects (e.g., a mother who is injured and in need of help). Thus, it is crucial to
include these various ways in which children are exposed in a deﬁnition of children’s
witnessing of domestic violence (Edleson, 1999).

Impact of Domestic Violence on Children

Much of the literature to date focuses largely on establishing the relationship
between childhood exposure to domestic violence and a range of adjustment problems.
The impact of domestic violence is believed to persist over time, affecting various aspects
of children’s lives. The ﬁndings tend to indicate that, relative to non-witnesses, 30-40%
of all witnesses experience post-traumatic stress (Burman & Ellen-Meares, 1994;
Graham-Bermann & Levendosky, 1998; Devoe & Graham-Bermann, 1997; Malmquist,
1986) and suffer greater social, cognitive, emotional, and behavioral problems (for
reviews, see Kolbo, Blakely, & Engleman, 1996; Peled & Davis, 1995; Jaffe, Sudermann,
& Reitzel, 1992). Although it appears that domestic violence has far-reaching effects,
this study will focus more speciﬁcally on the behavioral and emotional adjustment of
children who have been exposed to domestic violence. Hence, reviews of speciﬁc studies
will be limited to these areas.

Before proceeding with a review of speciﬁc studies, it is important to note some

methodological problems with current studies, so that their ﬁndings will be interpreted

with caution. A major shortcoming in this research area is that many investigators did
not determine whether children in their studies were themselves abused, in addition to
witnessing domestic violence. Estimates of the degree of overlap between domestic
violence and child abuse could be anywhere from 40% (Straus, Gelles, & Steinmetz,
1980) to 70% (Appel, Angelelli, & Holden, 1997; Straus & Gelles, 1990; Bowker,
Arbitell, & McFerron, 1988). This factor presents a signiﬁcant confound because child
abuse is itself a major setback to children’s adjustment (Cicchetti & Carlson, 1989).
Thus, the negative adjustment reported by some children may be compounded by
additional experiences of abuse.

A second shortcoming involves the period in which children and their mothers
were assessed. Most research ﬁndings have been based largely on interviews with
children and their mothers while they were in crisis or living in shelters. If children
accompanied their mothers to a domestic violence shelter, it was likely that they had
recently witnessed a violent incident. Therefore, they were often experiencing additional
stressors and disruptions of routine, schooling, and social networks. Jaffe, Sudermann,
and Reitzel (1992) explained that it is important to account for “social disruptions in the
children’s lives, including home and school moves, changes in friends and extended
family relationships, and economic disadvantage” (p. 322). Therefore, “in this state of
desperation and need,” children’s adjustment during this period would not be
representative of their behavioral and emotional well-being in the long run (Campbell,
Sullivan, and Davidson, 1995, p. 23 8). Hence, making generalizations about the
adjustment of children based on a sample living in shelters and in immediate crisis would

beinvahd.

Lastly, another shortcoming in this research has to do with the sources from
which information is derived. Most studies have relied solely on mothers’ reports of their
children’s adjustment. However, notable discrepancies are likely to occur between child
and parent ratings of adjustment problems (Edleson, 1999; Perrin, Ayoub, & Willett,
1993). For example, several studies showed that witnesses of domestic violence and their
parents differed widely on the adjustment problems they reported (Hughes et al., 1989;
Stemberg, Lamb, & Dawud-Noursi, 1998). In terms of emotional states, it is often
difﬁcult for mothers accurately to report their children’s thoughts and feelings (e. g.,
sadness, depression). Similarly, mothers’ reports of their children’s behavioral
adjustment are conﬁned to the time they spend observing their children and may reﬂect
an interaction between the child and the mother rather than on the child’s overall
adjustment. Also, as Stemberg and his associates (1993) indicated, women who are
experiencing domestic violence may not judge their children’s behaviors with clarity due
to their own feelings of guilt, depression, or ﬁ'ustration. For these reasons, it is important
to gather data from multiple sources (e. g., mother and child) concerning children’s
adjustment.

Emotional and behavioral adjustment. At this point, a great deal of research has
focused on the emotional and behavioral dimensions of adjustment. Emotional problems
tend to be characterized as internalized symptoms such as sadness, withdrawal, somatic
complaints, fear, and anxiety. Alternatively, behavioral problems tend to be seen in
terms of extemalized symptoms such as aggression, cruelty to animals, disobedience,

destructiveness, and delinquency (Jaffe, Wolfe, & Wilson, 1990).

Some studies that focused on internalized or emotional problems have reported
that witnesses develop higher levels of anxiety and depression but lower levels of self-
esteem (e.g., Jaffe, Wolfe, Wilson, Zak, 1986b; Christopoulos, Cohn, Shaw, Joyce,
Sullivan-Hanson, Kraft, & Emery, 1987; Fantuzzo, DePaola, Lambert, Martino,
Anderson, & Sutton, 1991; F orsstrom-Cohen & Rosenbaum, 1985; Hershom &
Rosenbaum, 1985; Hughes, 1988; Hughes et al., 1989; Jouriles, Murphy, & O’Leary,
1989). For instance, Jaffe and his associates (1986) found that school-age boys in their
study (ages 4 to 16, N=32) received scores signiﬁcantly higher on the internalizing
subscale of the Child Behavior Checklist (e.g., complaining of loneliness, sadness,
worrying) than the comparison group. Although there were also other ﬁndings, of the
three groups of boys studied (witnesses, non-witnesses, and abused), witnesses displayed
patterns of emotional adjustment that were remarkably similar to those who had been
physically abused by their parents.

A number of studies that assessed the behavioral, or extemalized, dimension of
adjustment indicated that these children were more likely to evidence delinquency and
aggression than the comparison group (e. g., Holden & Ritchie, 1991; Hughes, 1988;
Hughes, Parkinson, & Vargo, 1989). For instance, Holden & Ritchie (1991), employing
the widely used Child Behavior Checklist, assessed the type and extent of behavior
problems exhibited by a sample of children ranging in age from 2 to 8 years old. Of
these children, those raised in domestic violence environments were more likely to show
difﬁcult temperaments and aggressiveness than the children raised in nonviolent

environments. However, in another study, which differentiated between abused and non-

abused witnesses, differences in extemalized behavior were signiﬁcant only if the
witnesses were also abused (Hughes, 1988).

Social competence. Although the number of studies is limited, researchers have
recently also assessed and studied levels of social competence as an important indicator
of children’s adjustment and development (e. g., Mathias, Mertin, & Murray, 1995; Jaffe
et al., 1990). This idea of social competence is derived from Bandura’s social cognitive
theory (1986), which maintains that children’s behavior is shaped by their sense of “self-
efficacy.” According to this theory, violence against their mothers could inﬂuence the
ways in which children view and compare themselves to other children. Being exposed
to and affected by domestic violence at home may lead these children to view themselves
as having inferior social competency than other children. As a result, they would behave
according to their views of themselves.

Several studies have reported that children exposed to domestic violence are
more likely to have lower social competence than children who have not been exposed
(e.g., Jaffe, Wolfe, et al., 1986b; Jaffe, Wilson et al., 1986; Wolfe, Zak, Wilson, & Jaﬁ’e,
1986; Kolbo, 1996; Spaccarelli, Sandler, & Rosa, 1994). Using the Achenbach Child
Behavior Checklist, recent witnesses residing in a domestic violence shelter received
lower scores on social competence, compared to non-witnesses or than those who were
exposed to domestic violence in the past. Wolfe and his associates (1986) noted that,
although witnesses in their study reported lower social competence than non-witnesses,
this pattern of adjustment may not characterize the majority of them. This is, in part,

because several extremely high scores in the study may have biased the results. In

addition, the investigators admitted that their ﬁndings were inconclusive given that the
study was based on a small sample size (N=23) (Wolfe, Zak, et al., 1986).

In a recent study of children’s witnessing of domestic violence, Mathias, Mertin,
and Murray (1995) assessed behavioral and emotional adjustment problems among 79
children (ages 6 to 12) who accompanied their mothers to 10 South Australian domestic
violence shelters. These investigators found that children’s witnessing of domestic
violence did not signiﬁcantly inﬂuence their adjustment. However, being directly
involved in these violent events was correlated with greater adjustment problems.
Similar to previous ﬁndings, this study reported that children who witnessed domestic
violence expressed lower social competence and more emotional problems than the
comparison group. However, unlike previous research, this study failed to ﬁnd any
differences in the number of children developing behavioral problems. Overall, Mathias
et al. (1995) found that a small proportion of children who resided in domestic violence
shelters with their mothers displayed negative adjustment and even fewer of these
children had low levels of social competence.
liability in Children’s Adjustment

Mathias et al. (1995) concur with other investigators’ ﬁndings that the alleged
link between domestic violence and children’s adjustment problems has been
inconsistent. Sullivan, Bybee, & Allen (2001), in an extensive review of the literature on
domestic violence, noted that although some studies have found signiﬁcant differences in
emotional and/or behavioral problems between witnesses and non-witnesses, the
differences were “modest and sometimes equivocal” (p. 4). For instance, 27% of

witnesses residing in shelters at the time of the study experienced negative adjustment of

10

clinical proportions--whereas only 10% of the comparison group reported similar
adjustment problems (Wolfe, Jaffe, Wilson, & Zak, 1985). As opposed to the 17%
difference Wolfe et a1. (1985) found, Christopoulos and his associates (1987) found only
small differences between a sample of 40 witnesses (ages 5 to 13) and a community
comparison group. Mothers rated their children (42 boys & 38 girls) more than one
standard deviation above the mean of the comparison group on both internalizing and
externalizing dimensions of adjustment on the Child Behavior Checklist. However, a
comparison group of boys from similar socio-economic backgrounds also reported
elevated scores on emotional or internalized problems. The children did not differ on
either their perceived social competence or IQ. These investigators indicated that their
common low socio-economic experience may be the most signiﬁcant variable accounting
for the children’s elevated scores on the internalizing subscale. Similarly, Hershon &
Rosenbaum (1985) indicated only small differences in adjustment between children
raised in happy marriages and children raised in either discordant or violent marriages.
Moreover, the researchers were not able to ﬁnd signiﬁcant differences between children
from discordant and violent marriages.

Interestingly enough, other investigators have failed to uncover the expected
relationships between childhood exposure to domestic violence and negative adjustment.
These studies reported no group differences either in emotional problems (Hughes &
Barad, 1983; Rosenbaum & O’Leary, 1981; Christopoulos et al., 1987; Hughes, 1988;
Jouriles, Barling, & O’Leary, 1987; Wolfe, Zak, et al., 1986) or in behavioral problems
(Hershon & Rosenbaum, 1985; Jouriles et al., 1987; Wolfe, Zak, et al., 1986). In fact, a

large proportion of the children in these studies appeared relatively undamaged by such

11

exposure. For example, Jouriles and his associates (1989) found that approximately one
half of the 87 witnesses in their study did not develop behavioral problems of clinical
proportions on the Behavioral Problem Checklist (BPC). Consistent with these ﬁndings,
Rosenbaum and O’Leary (1981) found that the majority of children from 53 domestic
violence families had normal emotional and behavioral adjustment scores on the BPC.
Even in those studies where damage was found, many of the children appeared to retain
typical adjustment. For instance, Porter and O’Leary (1980), in their study of children
living in shelters, reported adjustment differences only among boys, and only within the
area of conduct disorders. In addition, Wolfe, Zak, Jaffe, and Wilson (1986), although
indicating that children in shelters are more likely to have problems than non-witnesses,
found that domestic violence accounted for only 10% of the variance in children’s
negative adjustment.

The degree to which domestic violence inﬂuences children’s adjustment varies
widely. Not every child who witnesses domestic violence demonstrates poor adjustment.
While some do fare poorly in their adjustment, other children adjust remarkably well.
For example, employing a cluster analysis with a sample of children residing in a shelter,
Hughes and Luke (1998) recently discovered wide variability in children’s adjustment.
Based on both parent and child self-report measures, they found variation in distress
levels and variability in adjustment among this group of youngsters on dimensions of
behavioral problems, anxiety level, self-esteem, and depressive symptoms. Although the
children fell into ﬁve clusters (Hanging in There, Doing Well, High Behavior Problem,
High General Distress, and Depressed Kids), the majority of these children (60%) were in

the undistressed or very mildly distressed groups (Hanging in There & Doing Well).

12

These results are supported by several other studies, indicating that 50-70% of
witnesses do not exhibit negative adjustment (Jouriles et al., 1989; Milner & Gold, 1986;
Wolfe et al., 1986). In particular, Jouriles, Murphy, and O’Leary (1989) noted that 50%
of children (ages 5 and 12) of couples undergoing marital therapy “were not evidencing
problems at clinical levels” (p. 455). Furthermore, their adjustment did not differ from
that of community comparison children. This result remains constant even after
accounting for general marital discord. These ﬁndings are “consistent with research on
children in other high-risk populations in that many children appear relatively unaffected
by negative factors in their home environments” (Jouriles et al., 1989, p. 45 5).

In fact, other research focusing on social competence has indicated that children
exposed to domestic violence are just as socially competent as children who have not
been exposed (Bookless-Pratz & Mertin, 1990; Fantuzzo et al., 1991; O’Keefe, 1994b;
Christopoulous et al., 1987). Rosenberg (1984), for instance, reported that witnesses’
social competence in his study were comparable to levels of other children in general.
Other studies have found no differences in social competence between witnesses and
non-witnesses (e.g., Hughes & Hampton, 1984; Kraft, Sullivan-Hanson, Christopoulos,
Cohn, & Emery, 1984; Woods, 1981).

Given such variability in children’s adjustment, it is important to understand the
link between risk and protective factors that may contribute to children’s positive
adjustment. This is because the relationship between violence and its impact on children
is multifaceted (Peled & Davis, 1995). As Peled and Davis (1995) indicated, many
personal and situational variables (e. g., child abuse, severity of exposure, social support

networks) are likely to moderate the degree of impact on children. Although a small

13

proportion of witnesses (30—40%) appeared to experience negative adjustment, it was also
true that a signiﬁcant number (SO-70%) displayed remarkable adjustment. Therefore,
investigators are now beginning to underscore the critical need to examine the role of
protective factors that mitigate these negative effects (e. g., Sullivan et al., 2000; Hughes
& Luke, 1998; Campbell, 1998). Although Hughes and Luke (1998) were able to
document a wide range of variability in adjustment, they were only able to provide “some
speculative thoughts” on the “differences in adjustment among the children” (p.206).
They stressed, “It is now time to investigate in closer detail many of the factors that
are related to adjustment” (p. 185) in witnesses of domestic violence.

Factors Modem the Impact of Domestic Violence on Children

Some studies have suggested that the degree to which domestic violence affects
the emotional and behavioral adjustment of children is moderated by a number of factors.
While both personal and situational factors are likely to mitigate the impact of domestic
violence on children, much of the work to date has primarily focused on characteristics of
the child, such as age and gender. Other factors include whether the child has personally
experienced abuse and the severity to which he or she has been exposed.

m. The degree of overlap between domestic violence and child abuse could
be anywhere from 30% to 70% (Appel, Angelelli, & Holden, 1997; Straus & Gelles,
1990; Bowker, Arbitell, & McFerron, 1988). This factor presents a signiﬁcant confound
because child abuse is detrimental to positive adjustment (Cicchetti & Carlson, 1989). A
small number of studies that accounted for child abuse indicated that there are critical
differences between groups of abused and non-abused witnesses. Not surprisingly, those

children who also experienced physical or sexual abuse had higher distress levels than

14

children who only witnessed the violence but were not abused. They also were more
distressed than those who had not been exposed to domestic violence (Davis & Carlson,
1987; Fantuzzo et al., 1991; Hughes, 1988; Hughes et al., 1989; Jaffe, Wolfe, et al.,
1986b; Jouriles et al., 1989; Pfouts, Schopler & Hanley, 1981). O’Keefe (1995)
corroborated these ﬁndings, indicating that the impact is most pronounced for
externalizing behavior problems. Thus, child abuse compounds the adverse impact of
witnessing violence on the children.

Severity of exposure. Domestic violence varies in its impact on children
depending on the severity to which they are exposed. In the few studies that accounted
for types of exposure, investigators found that children who witnessed both verbal and
physical violence against their mothers suffered greater adjustment problems than
children who witnessed only verbal abuse. Previous research has also found that the
more prolonged the exposure to domestic violence, the greater the range of adjustment
problems (Peled & Davis, 1995).

Attributes of the child. Some studies have found that school-aged boys and girls
differ in their responses to domestic violence. For example, boys and girls in shelters
have been shown to differ in the ways they manifest and cope with stress (Christopoulo et
al., 1987; Jaffe, Wilson, et al., 1986; Rosenberg, 1984). In other studies, preschool girls
showed less empathy (Hinchey & Gavelek, 1982) or more anxiety (Hughes & Barad,
1983) than boys. While boys generally displayed more externalizing problem behavior,
such as hostility and aggression, girls manifested more internalized behavior problems,
such as depression and somatic symptoms (Stagg, Wills, & Howell, 1989). Thus, gender

is likely to be another important factor that moderates the adjustment of children who

15

witness domestic violence (Hughes et al., 1989). Moreover, these gender differences
seem to be connected to the age of the child.

For instance, among school-age children, some studies have suggested that girls
experience more overall behavioral problems, aggression (Christopherpoulos et al., 1987 ;
Davis & Carlson, 1987), and internalizing problems (Holden & Ritchie, 1991) than boys.
However, other studies found that school-age boys generally evidenced more behavioral
problems than girls, particularly with aggressiveness (Jaffe et al., 1986b; Jouriles et al.,
1989; Westra & Martin, 1981; Wolfe et al., 1985).

Some studies have reported that school-age children have more behavioral
problems than preschool children (Davis & Carlson, 1987; Holden & Ritchie, 1991;
Hughes et al., 1989). However, Hughes (1988) found that preschool children in shelters
were more likely to have more behavioral problems than school-age children. Preschool
children also reported more distress than older children (Hughes & Barad, 1983; Hughes,
1988a). In addition, the preschool-age children who had also been abused were
functioning less well than any of the other groups (Hughes, 1988). However, this ﬁnding
was not replicated in a later study in which abused children of younger and older school-
ages received higher behavior problem scores than preschool children (Hughes et al.,
1989)

Social Support as a Moderator of Children’s Adjustment

Domestic violence has been linked with the behavioral and emotional adjustment
of children. However, very little is known about factors or circumstances that mitigate
these effects. In order to intervene successfully on behalf of witnesses, moving beyond

assessing risk factors is needed in order to consider protective factors that contribute to

16

positive adjustment and well-being. Currently, increased attention has been given to the
situational factors that are characteristic of resilient children. In particular, investigators
have stressed the role of social support networks available to children and how these
relationships impact their adjustment (Garbarino, Dubrow, Kostelny, & Pardo, 1992;
Beeman, 2001).

Until recently, few studies have analyzed the role of social support networks on
children’s adjustment. The literature on adult populations has indicated that social
support can enable them to cope with various stressﬁil life events, including loss of a
loved one, chronic illness, or major life transitions (e. g., Cobb, 1976; Cohen & Wills,
1985). Social support has also been considered to enhance general adjustment and well-
being (Cauce, 1986; Flannery & Wieman, 1989). In addition, social support is thought to
help individuals in multiple ways, by providing them with “emotional sustenance,
informational guidance, or tangible assistance” (Hauser & Bowlds, 1990, p. 399).
Distinguishingalietween Social Support and Social Networka

Investigators have emphasized the importance of distinguishing between social
support and social networks, although the terms sometimes have been used
interchangeably. Social networks consist of “the broad collection of social ties of an
individual” (Beeman, 2001, p. 221). Similarly, social networks are “the cast of characters
in an individual’s social world” (Belle, 1989c, p. 1). Not all social networks are
necessarily supportive; they can also include negative or stressful ties (Crittenden, 1985;
Wellman, 1981). Under some circumstances, social networks may impede adjustment
(Stevens, 1988). Children’s networks typically consist of their parents, grandparents,

aunts or uncles, siblings, cousins, peers, teachers, counselors, and other adults.

17

On the other hand, social support represents the “supportive resources that are
available through social networks” (Beeman, 2001, p. 221). Social support may come in
the form of material and physical assistance, informational support, or emotional support.
In studies linking social support to adjustment, however, social support is usually deﬁned
as the quality of emotional support available to individuals.

Berrera (1986) distinguished between social embeddedness and perceived
support. Berrera described social embeddedness as the connections that individuals have
to signiﬁcant others in their surroundings. Therefore, social embeddedness is often
referred to as social connections. In his view, “Being socially connected is a central
element in one’s psychological sense of community and constitutes the ﬂip side of social
isolation and alienation, terms that historically have ﬁgured prominently in psychological
theories of psychological disorder” (Berrera, 1986, p. 415). One way to assess social
connections is through the use of social network analysis. This kind of analysis consists
of structured procedures for identifying people who have signiﬁcant relationships with
the children. The other way to assess social connections is to use broad indicators of the
presence of social ties or networks. Berrera (1986) noted that a limitation of social
connection measures is that they fail to elucidate the mechanism of social support’s
hypothesized inﬂuence on adjustment. As Wellman (1981) indicated, even though social
network analysis identiﬁes important social relationships, it would be incorrect to assume
that all such connections provide support.

On the other hand, perceived support is “the appraisal of being reliably connected
to others or the perception that one is loved, valued, and able to count on others if the

need arises” (Beeman, 2001, p. 221). Some investigators have argued that it is this

18

perception of being supported that is the most critical aspect of social support (e. g., Cobb,
1976; Berrera, 1986). Measures of perceived social support tended to integrate perceived
availability and adequacy of supportive networks. These measures differ from measures
of social embeddedness in that they do not quantify the number of supporters or the
amount of social contact. Rather, they try to capture individuals’ conﬁdence that
adequate support would be available if it was needed or to characterize an environment as
helpful or cohesive (Berrara, 1986).

Heller and Swindle (1983) similarly argued that the amount of support available
in one’s surrounding and the perception of support are separate constructs. They
proposed that perceived support represents a cognitive appraisal of support availability.
Thus, the positive effects of social support, in part, derive from one’s judgment that
support is available, in spite of the amount of support one may in fact receive from the
surrounding environment. As Cauce (1986) commented, “a particularly good strategy for
exploring the relationship between perceived support and the number and types of social
connections that an individual actually has would require assessing those connections
ﬁom more than one perspective” (pp. 609-610). Thus, perceived social support is
distinctively different from actual social. networks.

Realizing, however, that social support and social networks are related is useful in
several ways. For instance, focusing on the social network, the larger collection of social
ties, provides a point of reference from which to search for the resource of social support.
Furthermore, realizing that social support and social networks are not the same cautions
against assuming that increasing the number of people’s networks, or encouraging people

to rely on those they know, will necessarily help them (Beeman, 2001; Thompson, 1995).

19

This distinction between social embeddedness and perceived support has
important implications for studying children’s social support. In particular, it is possible
to discern which aspects of social support play a more critical role in mitigating negative
effects. At this point, it is not yet clear whether it is the number of supportive others or
the overall perception of being cared for that is more strongly related to children’s
adjustment and well-being (Beeman, 2001). It is also unclear how the size of social
network interacts with the perceived quality of social support to inﬂuence children’s
adjustment. In addition, understanding the relationship between social support and social
networks has practical implications. For instance, social support interventions may target
the amount of support (social embeddedness) or the quality of relationships or
interactions (perceived social support). Thus, a better understanding of how social
support works is important in developing effective interventions aimed at helping these
children (Beeman, 2001).

How Soci_a_l Support Relﬁates to Adjustment

At this point, there is no agreement as to exactly how social support works to
mitigate negative effects. Two main models have been proposed that link social support
and adjustment. One model assumes a direct or main effect in which social support has a
beneﬁcial effect on adjustment regardless of a person’s current level of stress. The other
model states that the negative effects of stress are ameliorated by the presence of social
support. The latter model is known as the stress-buffering hypothesis because it assumes
that social support alleviates the effects of life events on adjustment under high stress
circumstances. According to this model, social support serves as a buffer against stress

by affecting the way an individual appraises a stressful event and by enhancing the

20

individual’s coping response to the event (Cohen & Wills, 1985). For example,
individuals with high levels of social support may perceive negative events as being less
personally threatening, and they may efﬁciently use available support resources in
formulating responses. Thus, a person who experiences high levels of social support
might be more resilient in the face of life stress and might be less likely to experience
adjustment problems (Licitra-Kleckler & Was, 1993).

Cohen and Wills (1985), in an extensive review of this literature, indicated that
there is empirical support for both main effect and buffering models. However, the ways
in which measures of social support networks and stress are used in studies, and the ways
the data are analyzed, can often inﬂuence the results in favor of one model over the other.
For instance, measures that assess a person’s level of integration into a large network or
community (e.g., number of people in one’s social support network) are more likely to
support the main effect model. On the other hand, instruments that assess speciﬁc areas
of social support relevant to the stressor (e.g., social companionship, esteem) have a
greater chance of indicating a buffering effect. Studies assessing the presence of a
conﬁdant, or a person to whom the respondent can talk about private and personal issues,
also indicate consistent buffering effects. Although these are two competing models,
they both contribute to our understanding of the different ways in which social support
may operate to facilitate positive adjustment. Research in this area appears to indicate
that social support is vital regardless of levels of stress, but support is particularly critical
under high stress circumstances (Ystgaard, 1997).

Studies on Social Support and Children’s Adjustment

2]

Previous research has largely focused on how parental networks and parents’
social support shape their children’s adjustment. However, there are a growing number
of studies that indicate social support networks may buffer against the impact of stressful
life events on children and adolescents (Beeman, 2001). For example, in a study of 86
pregnant adolescents, Barrera (1981) found that those with good social support were less
affected by stressful life events and experienced lower levels of depression. Both the
amount and quality of perceived social support appeared to affect children’s adjustment
and well-being. Furthermore, some investigators emphasized the importance of social
support from diverse sources and types in the child’s ecological context (Dubois, Felner,
Brand, Adan, & Evans, 1992).

For the most part, studies indicated the important role of family support in the
adjustment of children. For example, Licitra—Kleckler and Was (1993) assessed the
inﬂuence of perceived family support on the adjustment of children (N=505) coping with
various stressful life events. Both internalizing (e.g., depression) and externalizing (e. g.,
delinquency) dimensions of adjustment were assessed using the Reynolds Adolescent
Depression Scale and a 64-item Delinquency Scale, respectively. In addition, children
completed a 40-item Perceived Social Support Scale and the Life Events Checklist in
their classrooms. This study found that children with high levels of perceived family
support experienced lower levels of depression and delinquency than adolescent with low
family support.

In particular, Walker and Greene (1987) found that family closeness correlated
with adolescents’ (ages 11 to 19) adjustment to high stress circumstances. Those who

perceived their families as low in cohesion generally reported greater adjustment

22

problems than those with high family cohesion. These ﬁndings are similar to Cauce,
Felner, and Primavera’s (1982) study, suggesting that family support was the most
important type of social support among a group of low-income children.

Some studies have suggested that having a positive relationship with at least one
parent is an important source of support for children, helping them to understand and
cope with adversity (Garbarino et al., 1992; Garmezy, 1983). In her extensive review of
the literature on the impact of parental discord and divorce on children, Emery (1982)
reported that a caring relationship with a parent can protect children from negative
effects, such as aggression, conduct problems, and anxiety. Typically, a caring
relationship was deﬁned in studies as involving “both positive warmth and a lack of
negative feelings” (Emery, 1982, p. 318). For example, in one study of children coping
with parental conﬂict, Hess and Camara (1979) found that those who had a good
relationship with a parent coped better than those who did not. In fact, the quality of the
parent-child relationship explained a larger proportion of the variance in children’s
adjustment than did parental discord.

These ﬁndings are substantiated by a number of other studies in diverse
situations. Children who have positive relationships with their mothers have been found
to have high academic achievement and healthy adjustment, and positive father-child
relationships are associated with high self esteem and satisfactory peer relations (Parke,
1981). In addition, children coping with stress associated with poverty appear to cope
better if they have a close relationship with a parent (Garmezy, 1983). Finally, a good or

warm relationship with at least one parent has been identiﬁed as a protective factor that

23

buffers children from the potential adverse effects of parental conﬂict, parental mental
illness, and social disadvantage (Rutter, 1987).

Although social support from parents is a vital factor in protecting children
against stressful events, other family members can also shield the children from negative
effects. Siblings have been shown to be a vital protective factor for children at risk
(Werner & Smith, 1982). Similarly, Sandler (1980) assessed social support in terms of
having or not having an older sibling in 71 low-income children (grade 3). These
children had been referred by their teachers because they were experiencing adjustment
problems. This study found that children with older siblings were more likely to be
protected from the negative impact of stressful life events than children who did not have
an older sibling. As Sandler (1980) commented, these ﬁndings strongly show the
supportive role of older siblings for younger siblings during high stress circumstances.

There is also some empirical evidence showing that members of the extended
family are important sources of support for children. In her study of resilient children,
Werner (1990) discovered that the extended family can lessen stress, encourage coping
behavior, and facilitate the child’s working through stressful events by providing the
child with additional positive and caring role models. If a parent is harmed or
unavailable, other signiﬁcant people in a child’s life can play a beneﬁcial role, whether
they are aunts, uncles, grandparents, or other extended family (Garbarino et al., 1992;
Werner, 1990).

For example, Cochran, Lamer, Riley, Gunnarsson, and Henderson (1990) found
among boys in families with only the mother as the parent, school success was associated

with the amount of task-oriented interaction with adult male relatives. In addition,

24

children who were inﬂuenced by their grandparents were less likely to drop out of school.
These ﬁndings point to the signiﬁcance of extended family in providing “continuity and
support” in the lives of at-risk children (Rhodes, 1994). Under certain circumstances,
Rutter and Giller (1983) stated “good relationships outside the [immediate] family can
have a protective effect similar to that which apparently stems from within the immediate
family” (p. 237).

Although less attention has been given to support from persons outside the family,
preliminary results illustrate that support from teachers and other adults in the school
setting showed a positive correspondence to children’s adjustment. For example, in a 2-
year longitudinal study with 166 adolescents (mean age=l3), Dubois, Felner, Brand,
Adan, and Evans (1992) assessed the links among stressful life events, social supports,
and psychological distress. Although preliminary, they discovered promising results.
Those who had relatively high levels of support from teachers and other school personnel
experienced lower psychological distress than those who had low levels of support.
Interestingly, this study found a compensatory role for positive ties with school personnel
for youth who had a relatively low level of family support. That is, school support played
a stronger role in reducing distress for youth with low levels of family support than for
those with higher levels of family support.

These results are similar to several other studies that have included support from
teachers and other adults at school (Cauce et al., 1982; Dubow & Tisak, 1989; Rowlison
& Felner, 1988). In one study of 682 adolescents (Grades 7-12), Rowlison and Felner
(1988) found that each of the three sources of support they assessed (i.e., family, friend,

teacher and other school personnel) was related to children’s self-reported adjustment. In

25

another study of low-income children, Cauce et a1 (1982) reported that support from
teachers was positively related to school performance. Taking these ﬁndings into
account, Dubois et al. (1992) emphasized the important contribution of support from
teachers and other school personnel in inﬂuencing children’s adjustment.

Finally, a number of studies have suggested that support from peers is an
important factor in children’s adjustment. For example, Wasserstein and La Greca
(1996) hypothesized that support from close friends and classmates would moderate the
adverse impact of marital conﬂict on 96 ethnically diverse children (grade 4 to 6).
Children were asked to complete the Social Support Scale for Children and Adolescents
(Harter, 1985) in their classrooms. In addition, they were interviewed individually about
their parents’ marital conﬂict. Their teachers also reported on the children’s behavioral
adjustment. Investigators found that close friends in the study provided emotional
support in both home and school situations, while classmates only provided support
within the classroom setting. In addition, close friends provided signiﬁcantly higher
levels of emotional support than classmates. For these reasons, it was concluded that
support from close friends, rather than from classmates, was a signiﬁcant moderator of
children’s adjustment. Consistent with these results, Cauce (1986) found that perceived
emotional support from friends signiﬁcantly related to school performance among 98
African American children from low-income families.

As discussed earlier, the study by Licitra-Kleckler and Was (1993) assessed peer
support in addition to family support. Although perceived peer support was not a strong
predictor of delinquency, it was signiﬁcantly related to levels of depression. Those who

viewed their ﬁiends as supportive tended to experience less depression than those who

26

reported low or no peer support. The important role of perceived peer support found in
this study is consistent with Greenberg, Siege], and Leitch (1983), who found that the
nature and quality of adolescents’ relationships with peers was strongly associated with
self-esteem and life satisfaction. These investigators noted that peer groups, “which offer
friendship, a sense of worth, and a feeling of belonging,” may help to support children
during periods of high stress (Licitra-Kleckler & Waas, 1993, pp. 395-396).

In addition, Walker and Greene (1987) found that peer support had differential
impacts on the adjustment of male and female adolescents. As negative life events
increased, males with low peer support reported more adjustment problems, while males
with high support remained relatively unaffected. At low levels of negative life events,
peer support was unrelated to males’ adjustment. Walker & Greene (1987) argued that
these ﬁndings seemed to suggest peer support becomes critical for males only when there
is a pileup of negative events. In contrast to male adolescents in the study, peer support
was important to females’ well-being irrespective of the level of negative life events.
Females with low support had consistently high levels of adjustment problems.
According to Walker and Greene (1987), social isolation represents a stressor in itself and
contributes to females’ adjustment even in the absence of discrete life events. Females
with high support, however, had few adjustment problems when negative life events were
infrequent. As negative life events increased, females with high peer support and those
with low peer support were similar in their adjustment, thus indicating an absence of a
buffering effect. As Walker and Greene (1987) indicated, these ﬁndings do not
necessarily identify buffers of negative life events but point to resources that may

inﬂuence adolescents’ adjustment regardless of such events. After all, peer support was

27

among the variables (personal efﬁcacy and family support variables) that explained a
large proportion of the variance in adjustment over and above that accounted for by sex
and negative life events (Walker & Greene, 1987. Overall, these ﬁndings suggest that
peer social networks are important factors in children’s adjustment.

Interestingly, in a group of 139 sixth grade German students (age 12), Van Aken
and Asendorpf (1997) investigated whether support from one type of relationship can be
compensated for by support from other relationships (mother, father, grandparent, other
adult, sibling, classmate, non-school peer, and young child). This study reported several
interesting results. First, level of social support was fairly speciﬁc to particular kinds of
network members, and low support within the nuclear family was fairly independent of
low support from other relationships. Second, children with low support from their
mother or father experienced a general low self-worth, but those with low support from
siblings or non-school peers did not. Third, low support from one parent could be
compensated for only by support from the other parent. Finally, low support by
classmates was not compensated by support from other children. Thus, these results
highlighted that social support is highly speciﬁc to relationships, with mothers playing a
particularly critical role in providing support for children.

However, some investigators have reported that support from peers, rather than
from the family, is an important buffer against stressful experiences (Kaplan, Robbins,
and Martin, 1983). Interestingly enough, other investigators have found that parental
support worsened the impact of stressful life events on children and adolescents
(Hotaling, Atwell, & Linsky, 1978). This variability in the literature indicates that to

specify the importance of social support to children, it will be necessary to explore the

28

separate contributions of various sources of support in moderating between stressful life
events and adjustment (Walker & Greene, 1987).

Nevertheless, these studies collectively indicate that social support serves as a
signiﬁcant moderator for high-risk groups of children. Furthermore, this research
highlights the inﬂuence of social support, both inside and outside the family, in
protecting children from the adjustment problems associated with stressful life
experiences. However, “the differential adaptive signiﬁcance and contributions of the
diverse sources and types of support that deﬁne the ecological contexts of children’s lives
have not been adequately considered” (Dubois et al., 1992, p. 544). The small number of
current studies has typically focused on the contributions of support from family
members and peer friends. Much less attention has been given to other key sources of
support for children, such as teachers, counselors, and other adults in the child’s life.
Several studies that have broadened their focus to consider support from the school
setting have reported promising results, with support from teachers and other adults at
school correlating positively with children’s overall adjustment (Dubois et al., 1992).
These ﬁndings, although preliminary, encourage further exploration into how children’s
relationships with various individuals in their surroundings impact their adjustment after
exposure to domestic violence.

Social Support and Children Exposed to Domestic Violence

Most studies reviewed in this paper tended to involve stress coming from outside
the family. In the case of domestic violence, when a family member generates the source
of stress, those more afﬁrming features of family relationships may not be as supportive.

Because children typically reside with their mothers after domestic disturbances, mothers

29

are sources of nurturance and guidance for the children (J affe, Hurley, & Wolfe, 1990).
However, research with women who have experienced domestic violence has indicated
that such women remain particularly vulnerable because they are often isolated from
friends, family, and social services, by the assailant, and by the abuse (e. g., Nielsen,
Endo, & Ellington, 1992; Sullivan, Tan, Basta, Rumptz, & Davidson, 1992). Sullivan,
Campbell, Angelique, Eby, & Davidson (1994) indicated that the presence of social
support networks enabled women to cope more positively with their situations. However,
the role of social support networks for their children is less clear. Thus, it becomes
important to determine and understand the degree to which their children are connected
or isolated from signiﬁcant others in their surroundings. It is also particularly important
to explore how social networks interact with the degree to which children perceive social
support and, in turn, impact their adjustment.

Although the literature in this ﬁeld emphasizes the importance of social support
from persons outside the home to children exposed to domestic violence, there have been
few studies on the role social support networks play in children’s adjustment. Some
researchers have examined the child’s relationships with his or her mother or the
battering father, primarily exploring how their relationships changed as a result of the
violence (Beeman, 2001). Only a few investigators have looked beyond the parental
relationship to relationships with other adults or peers. The results, although preliminary,
tend to suggest that social support may mitigate negative effects.

In one small study of children who grow up in homes characterized by domestic
violence, several investigators examined the role of social support in responses to crisis

incidents (Blanchard, Molloy, & Brown, 1992). Eighteen children were asked where

30

they went for help during a crisis and right after a violent episode at home. This study
found that, although some children reported their mothers as a source of support, others
noted that their mothers were too overwhelmed to assist them. According to the children,
a good source of support for them was a caring adult with whom they could talk openly
and safely about their situations. Interestingly, they identiﬁed this support as coming
from various sources, including neighbors, relatives, teachers, and adult domestic
violence workers. Unfortunately, these children realized that most people would not
respond to their requests for help, as people generally did not understand or want to know
about domestic violence. Yet, they expressed a need for support to deal with the violence
at home.

Using the Supportive Relationship Questionnaire (SRQ), Kolbo (1996) assessed
the impact of social support networks on the adjustment of 60 child witnesses, ranging in
ages from 8 to 11. Their mothers completed a modiﬁed version of the Conﬂict Tactics
Scale (CTS), indicating the severity and frequency of the violence to which they were
exposed. Measures of child behavior using the CBCL and child self worth were also
used to assess the relationship between exposure to violence, social support networks,
and adjustment.

Paradoxically, children in this study had signiﬁcantly higher levels of behavioral
adjustment problems but felt higher levels of self worth than the children in the
comparison group. There was a strong relationship between high levels of social support
and ratings of self-worth, but only in boys. It is important to note that, regardless of the

level of social support, low levels of exposure to violence were associated with higher

31

ratings of self-worth for all children; whereas exposure to higher levels of violence
produced more variability in children’s self-worth ratings.

Kolbo (1996) explained that the lack of buffering for girls may have to do with
the care-giving role that girls take in these circumstances, further increasing their own
psychological stress. This study was limited in that, although children were asked who
they would like to have ﬁm with, the support they receive for problems or interpersonal
difﬁculties was not examined. Therefore, it is conceivable that the adverse impact of
domestic violence on girls was shielded by social support in some of these other areas
and that the ﬁndings may be reﬂecting a gender difference in the kind of support that was
sought or received by girls and boys, rather than a gender difference in the buffering role
of social support in general.

In another study (Rawlins, 1993), the role of social support networks on the
adjustment of children exposed to domestic violence was assessed with seventy-one
children. Half of these children resided in domestic violence shelters and the other half
was ﬁom the community, serving as the comparison group. Using both the Self
Perception Proﬁle and CBCL, Rawlins (1993) assessed social competency and child
behavioral problems as outcomes associated with domestic violence. No differences
were found between witnesses and non-witnesses as a function of the size of social
support networks. Interestingly, the social support networks of children who were not
exposed to domestic violence were more likely to include their mother, father, and other
family members. Holding groups constant, children with larger support networks
received higher competency scores, with the lowest social competency scores being

received by children who were exposed to violence and simultaneously had small social

32

support networks. Consistent with the results of Kolbo’s study, social support did not
affect behavioral scores for either group of children. However, neither study examined
the quality of the social support they received ﬁ'om the different people they reported, nor
did either evaluate how different sources (e. g., mothers vs. teachers) of social support
may have moderated the children’s adjustment.

The positive inﬂuence of social support on children is ﬁrrther evidenced by
O’Keefe’s ﬁndings (1994b). This study assessed both the impact of social support
received by the child’s family from agencies and outside individuals, and the quality of
the parent-child relationship as rated by both parents and children. It was found that both
higher quality levels of family support protected children from the negative effects of
domestic violence.

Interestingly, some investigators did not ﬁnd the beneﬁcial inﬂuence of social
support among children. For example, McCloskey, F iguerdo, and Koss (1995) included
social support measures in their studies but did not ﬁnd that social support shielded
children from the violence they witnessed. However, only parental and sibling supports
were assessed in this study, limiting the conclusions to these types of social support. It is
also important to note that this study found children from violent homes to report less
overall social support than children from the comparison group. The study is also limited
in that it did not assess social support in a comprehensive manner. Respondents were
only asked about the number of relatives living in close proximity. As a result, it is
impossible to determine whether these relatives even play a role in the children’s lives. It
is also unclear whether they served as a source of social support or as a source of stress

and aggravation for the children.

33

Given the limitations of the studies cited above and their small number, it is too
premature to draw conclusions from their research. Instead, these preliminary ﬁndings
serve to suggest additional directions for research.

Purpose of The Study

Since network size alone is not necessarily representative of supportiveness, it is
critical to investigate both the breadth/scope of children’s social connections and the
quality of their social support as they relate to their adjustment (Crittenden, 1985).
Speciﬁcally, the aims of this study were twofold. The ﬁrst aim was to investigate the
degree to which children in the study were connected to signiﬁcant individuals in their
ecological context (social connection). The second aim was to examine relationships
among social connection, perceived emotional support, and children’s adjustment after
exposure to domestic violence. Figure 1 illustrates the conceptual model of this study. In
particular, the current study investigated the following questions:

1. To what extent are children in the study connected to signiﬁcant others
in their surrounding (social connection)? In other words, how many

types of signiﬁcant others are in these children’s lives?

2. To what extent is children’s adjustment inﬂuenced by the degree to
which they are socially connected with others?

3. To what extent is children’s adjustment inﬂuenced by perceived
support from others?

4. To what extent does the scope of children’s social connection interact
with perceived support and, in turn, inﬂuence their adjustment?

34

Figure 1: Conceptual Model:
Relationships Among Social Connection, Perceived Support, and Children’s Adjustment

 

 

Emotional Network
Support \ / Enjoyment
Perceived
Support
Depression
Children’s Behavioral Problems
Social Connection 4r Adjustment

Emotional Problems

Self-Competence

 

In order to isolate the effects of social support on adjustment, it was necessary to
control for initial differences in age, gender, and severity of their exposure. These factors
have been found to moderate the relationship between exposure to domestic violence and
children’s adjustment (Sullivan et al., 2000; Edleson, 1999; Jouriles et al., 1989). In
particular, it is important to recognize that domestic violence varies in its impact on
children depending on the severity to which they are exposed. For example, investigators
have found that children who witnessed both verbal and physical domestic violence have
greater adjustment problems than children who have witnessed only verbal abuse (Peled
& Davis, 1995). Therefore, this study controlled for initial differences in gender, age,
and severity of exposure in order to assess the unique impact of social support on the
adjustment of children exposed to domestic violence.

Having accounted for these initial differences, it was hypothesized that social
connection and perceived support would have beneﬁcial effects on the emotional and

behavioral adjustment of children who had witnessed domestic violence. The ﬁrst

35

expectation was that the greater the number of social connections in these children’s
lives, the more shielded they would be from the adverse impact of domestic violence.
For instance, children who had small networks, or those with a limited number of social
connections, were expected to display more emotional and behavioral problems.
Children with a large number of social connections were expected to experience fewer
adjustment problems in spite of domestic violence. Second, it was hypothesized that the
higher the quality of perceived social support, the fewer adjustment problems they would
have. Finally, it was hypothesized that the effects of social connection on children’s

well-being would be moderated by the level of support received from others around them.

Method

This study was part of a larger project designed to understand the experiences of
children and their mothers who have experienced domestic violence. The larger study is
a longitudinal investigation evaluating the long-term impact of an advocacy intervention
program for women with abusive partners and their children. However, analyses in this
study were only based on data collected during the initial interview.

Participants

Participants in this study consisted of 158 children who had been exposed to some
form of domestic violence within the four months prior to their interviews. Additional
information about the children’s emotional and behavioral adjustment was gathered from
the perspectives of their 158 mothers who had experienced domestic violence within the

four month period. Families were recruited from various local community agencies

36

providing services to low-income families who have experienced domestic violence.
These places included a legal aid office (n=15), two domestic violence victim service
programs (n=33), a law enforcement emergency response team (n=74), and a personal
protection order ofﬁce (n=3 6).

Procedure. Through these various local community agencies, two staff recruiters
approached women with at least one child between the ages of 5 and 12 living with them,
who had experienced domestic violence within the last four months. The women and
their children within the speciﬁed age range were invited to participate in the study. If
more than one child in the age range in the family participated in the study, data analyses
were conducted on only one of the children who had been chosen randomly to be the
focus of investigation. They were told that participation in this study was entirely
voluntary. The women and their children were free to reﬁrse to be in the study, and their
refusal did not inﬂuence the services they received from the local agency. Furthermore,
they were able to withdraw their consent and stop participation in this study at any point
of the interview without penalty to them. Only after women consented to participate in
the study were the children approached separately and had the study explained to them.
Prior to their interview, participants were told that the interview would be strictly
conﬁdential and that their information would not be shared with anyone.

Participants were given a numeric identiﬁcation in order to protect their
conﬁdentiality. Their names were not associated with their numeric identiﬁcation.
Information linking the participants’ names to their identiﬁcation numbers was kept in a

locked ﬁle. Only the investigators could have access to this ﬁle.

37

Interviewers consisted of female undergraduate students who participated in the
project for college course credit. Based on a manual developed for this project (Sullivan,
Juris, Gauthier, Nguyen, & Prewitt, 1997), the interviewers received intensive training in
interviewing skills for both adults and children, in sensitivity training in working with a
diverse community population, and in knowledge about domestic violence. Prior to
conducting interviews with participants, inter-rater agreement among the interviewers
had to reach at least .90. All interviews were organized in teams of two or more,
consisting of adult interviewers, child interviewers, and babysitters for younger children.

Most of the interviews were completed in the women’s homes. The remainder
were conducted in places that were safe and convenient for the families (e.g., the project
office on campus, a domestic violence shelter). To ensure privacy and conﬁdentiality,
interviews were carried out in separate rooms for each member of the family. The length
of the children’s interview ranged from 55 minutes to 180 minutes, with an average of
90 minutes. Interviews with mothers tended to be longer, ranging from 80 minutes to
300 minutes, with an average of 120 minutes. Women were compensated $20 and
children were given either $5.00 or a toy of an equivalent value, at their choosing.
Measures

This study employed a number of preexisting standardized measures as well as
some that were designed or modiﬁed speciﬁcally for this research. Measures were
selected and/or created to assess children’s witnessing of domestic violence, overall
adjustment, as well as their social support networks. Table 1 presents means, standard

deviations, and medians for all measures included in this study.

38

Children’s witnessirg of domestic violence. Mothers were asked to indicate how
much their children witnessed their emotional abuse, physical abuse, and threats against
them. They were asked to respond to a total of 3 items, using a 6-point Likert scale (1 =
“never” to 6 = “more than 4 times a week”). The ﬁrst question asked mothers to respond
to how often their children had seen or heard the assailant ridicule, criticize, control, or
humiliate them. The second question asked how often their children had seen or heard
them being threatened. The third question asked how many times their children had seen
or heard physical assaults against them. The severity of children’s exposure to domestic
violence was created based on mothers’ responses to these three items. Due to a small
number of items, this measure has a coefﬁcient alpha of .62. This measure is located in
Appendix A. I

Children’s overall adjustment. Children’s internalizing and externalizing
behaviors, and perceived self-competence, were assessed in order to obtain an assessment
of their overall adjustment. Intemalizing symptoms were characterized in terms of
emotional problems such as sadness, withdrawal, somatic complaints, fear, and anxiety.
Alternatively, externalizing symptoms included behavioral problems such as aggression,
disobedience, opposition, and destructivenss (Jaffe, Wolfe, & Wilson, 1990).
Internalizing and externalizing behaviors were assessed in several ways.

The Eyberg Child Behavior Inventory (ECBI; Robinson, Eyberg, & Ross, 1980)
is a 36-item questionnaire of externalizing problems. Completed by mothers, this
measure was designed to assess children’s behavior on two dimensions, the frequency of
emotional and behavioral symptoms and the identiﬁcation of these symptoms as

problems. The frequency ratings were based on a 7-point Likert scale (1 = “never” to 7 =

39

“always”). The ﬁequency items were tallied to yield an overall problem behavior
Intensity Score. The problem identiﬁcation measure involved having the mother answer
“yes” or “no” when asked, “Is this behavior a problem for you?” The total Problem
Score (between 1 and 36) was calculated by taking the total number of problems the
mother conﬁrmed. Only the Frequency/Intensity scale was analyzed in this study and has
a coefﬁcient alpha of .92. This measure is located in Appendix B.

A measure was developed based on the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL;
Achenbach, 1986) to assess internalized dimensions of adjustment. Using a 7-point
Likert scale, mothers were asked to rate the frequency of emotional symptoms and
identify whether they perceived these symptoms as problematic in their children. The
coeffrcient alpha for this measure is .82. This measure is located in Appendix C.

The Children’s Depression Inventory (CDI) is a 27-item self-report questionnaire
for children ages 7-17 (Kovacs, 1983) derived from the Beck Depression Inventory
(Beck, 1967). It was designed to assess the presence and severity of depressive
symptoms such as sadness, suicidal thoughts, and sleep and appetite disturbance. This
scale has been shown to have satisfactory internal consistency, and adequate test-retest
reliability (Kovacs, 1983). Coefﬁcient alpha for the CDI is .85. This measure is located
in Appendix D.

Perceived self-competence was measured by Harter’s (1985) Scale of Perceived
Self-Conﬁdence, given directly to the children. The six subscales, measuring children’s
perceptions of their own scholastic competence, social acceptance, athletic competence,
physical appearance, behavioral conduct, and global self-worth, have acceptable

reliability (.73 to .83). Moreover, they have been used with other children exposed to

40

domestic violence. The coefﬁcient alpha for this scale is .86. This measure is located in
Appendix E.

Children’s social support networks. Social connection and perceived social
support were assessed with a modiﬁed version of the Social Support/Cohesion Scale
(Seidman, Allen, Aber, Mitchell, Feinman, Yoshikawa, Comtois, Golz, Miller, Ortiz-
Torres, & Roper, 1995). This measure contained 14 items, with three parts to each
question. First, children were asked to indicate whether various categories of
relationships were present in their lives. If they indicated yes, they were asked to respond
to whether each person was important to them. Second, children indicated how much fun
it was to be with each of them. Finally, children indicated how helpful they found each
person to be when they felt “sad or upset.”

Part one of each question addressed the extent to which children were socially
connected to signiﬁcant others in their environment. In this study, social connection was
assessed by the presence of signiﬁcant social ties with various categories of individuals.
More speciﬁcally, social connections were classiﬁed according to relationship to the
child (mother, assailant, father, grandparent, aunt or uncle, sibling, cousin, peer, teacher
or principal, counselor, best friend, close friend, other child with whom they spend time,
other adult living in their household, and other adult outside of the family). In this way,
measures of social connections were counts of the number of categories of signiﬁcant
people summed across the 14 items.

The subscale for “firn and enjoyment” was created based on responses to
questions from part two; whereas the emotional support scale was created from part three

of each question. These two subscales (fun and enjoyment and emotional support) were

41

then combined to create an overall scale “satisfaction with social support.” Coefﬁcient
alpha for the scales could not be determined because some items were not applicable due
to the absence of speciﬁc types of individuals from some children’s networks (e. g.,
having no siblings, having no cousins). The Social Support/Cohesion Scale is located in

Appendix F.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Table 1
Means, Standard Deviations, and Medians of All Scales Used in the Study
N=158
Standard
Mean Median Deviation
EXPOSURE
Severity of Exposure 3 .97 3 .67 1.56
SOCIAL SUPPORT
Social Connection 7.86 8.00 1.88
Perceived Support 3.41 3.45 0.40
Emotional Support 3.20 3.33 0.57
Fun and Enjoyment 3.61 3.71 0.35
ADJUSTMENT
Depression 9.20 8.00 7.06
Behavioral Problems 3. l9 3 .07 O. 10
Emotional Problems 2.50 2.22 1 . 14
Self-Competence 3 .06 3. 12 0.48

 

 

42

Data Analysis

My data analysis ﬁrst involved examining the distribution of responses of items to
assess both normality and adequate variability of responses. I conducted a conﬁrmatory
factor analysis (CF A) on the Social Support/Cohesion Scale to analyze internal
consistency. If the CF A indicated any items that did not load on the latent construct, they
were omitted. On the Eyberg Child Behavior Inventory (ECBI), Children Depression
Inventory, and the Harter’s Perceived Competence Scale, I conducted conﬁrmatory factor
analyses to analyze their internal consistencies. Again, if the CF A indicates items that
did not load on the latent constructs, they were omitted. No item was omitted in all of
these analyses.

After examining the distribution of measures statistically and graphically, I
analyzed the demographic data, correlating the relationships between demographic
variables and perceived support as well as children’s overall adjustment. For example, I
assessed potential differences with regard to age and gender of the children.

Finally, I employed hierarchical multiple regression to examine relationships
among social connection, perceived support, and children’s adjustment after exposure to
domestic violence. Because hierarchical multiple regression allows the investigator to
control the order of entry of variables, “nuisance” variables were given higher priority for
entry (Tabachnick & F idell, 1996). I ﬁrst entered gender, age, and severity of exposure
variables. Then the social support variable was evaluated for what it added to the
prediction over and above gender, age, and severity of exposure variables. In so doing, I

was able to predict children’s overall adjustment (the DV) from social support (the IVs)

43

 

while holding constant initial differences in child abuse and severity of exposure (the
nuisance IVs).

The contribution of the interaction between social connection and perceived
support to child adjustment was tested by adding the interaction term to the regression.
This was completed after entering the control variables and the main effects of the two
social support variables that form the interaction. Methods recommended by Aiken and
West (1991) were used for conﬁguring and interpreting the direction of the interaction

effect.

44

Results

Demographics of Participants

Analyses for this study were based on sixty-four girls and ninety-four boys who
had witnessed domestic violence within four months prior to their interviews (N=158).
In addition, information about the children’s behavioral and emotional adjustment
problems was gathered from their own and their mothers’ perspectives. The children’s
age ranged from 4 to 13 years old, with a mean age of 8. The ethnic/racial composition
of the children in the sample indicated that approximately 39% were identiﬁed by their
mothers as Aﬁ'ican-American; 32% were non-Hispanic white or Caucasian; 4% were
Hispanic/Chicana/Latina; and 25% were bi-racial. Similarly, 38% of the children’s
mothers were African-American; 45% were white or Caucasian; 7% were
Hispanic/Chicana/Latina; 1% were Native American; and 9% were bi-racial.

Seventy-two percent of the mothers had at one time been employed within the
four months prior to their participation in this study. However, only ﬁfty-four percent of
the mothers were employed at the time of their interviews. Forty percent of the mothers
had completed some college education; 23% were high school graduates; 20% had less
than high school education; 10% had an Associate degree; 3% had a Bachelor degree;
and 6% had graduated from a trade school. The average total family income was
$1638.95 per month. The lowest total family income was $232.00 per month, while the
highest income was $6800.00, with a median of $1461 .00 per month. On average, this
income supported the mother and four children.

Severity of Children’s Bingosure to Domestic Violence

45

Fifty percent of the children had witnessed abuse against their mothers between
one and four times within the prior four months. Thirty percent had witnessed abuse at
least two to three times a month, with 12% of these witnessing their mother being abused
at least one to two times a week.

More speciﬁcally, the sample mean of children’s exposure to verbal/emotional
abuse (ridiculing and threats) was 3.56 (sd=1.68). F ifty-seven percent of the children had
seen or heard the assailant ridicule their mothers at least two to three times a month, with
14% of these witnessing her being ridiculed more than four times a week. Thirty-six
percent had witnessed the assailant ridicule their mothers between one to four times
within the four months prior to their interviews. Only about 6% of the children in this
study had not seen or heard the assailants ridicule their mothers within the four month
period. Furthermore, 40% of the children had seen or heard the assailant threaten their
mother, ranging from two to three times a month to more than four times a week. Thirty-
seven percent had witnessed the assailant threaten their mothers between one to four
times within the four month period. Twenty-three percent had not seen or heard the
assailant threaten their mothers.

In addition to witnessing verbal/emotional abuse toward their mothers (ridiculing
and threats), children also had witnessed physical assaults against them. The sample
mean of children’s exposure to physical abuse was 2.60 (sd=l .35). Twenty percent of the
children had seen or heard the assailant physically harm their mothers from at least two
times a month to more than four times a week. Fifty-seven percent saw or heard physical
abuse against their mothers one to four times within the four month period. Twenty-four

percent had not seen or heard physical abuse against their mothers. Although children

46

had been exposed to varying degrees of domestic violence, all children in this study had
mothers who had experienced domestic violence within the four month period. There
was one missing case due to interviewer errors. See Table 2 for a description of

children’s exposure to violence against their mothers.

Table 2

Severity of Children’s Exposure to Domestic Violence within Prior Four Months
N=157

Children’s Exposure to Ridicule against Their Mothers within Prior Four Months

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

n %
Never 10 6
Once/one 27 17
Once a month or less (2 to 4 times) 31 20
Two to three times a month 33 21
One or two times a week 22 14
Three or four times a week 12 8
More than four times a week 22 14

 

Children’s Exposure to Threats against Their Mothers within Prior Four Months

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

n %
Never 36 23
Once/one 32 20
Once a month or less Q to 4 times) 27 17
Two to three times a month 22 14
One or two times a week 22 14
Three or four times a week 11 7
More than four times a week 7 5

 

47

 

 

Children’s Exposure to Physical Abuse against Their Mothers within Prior Four Months

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

n %
Never 37 24
Once/one 42 27
Once a month or less (2 to 4 times) 47 30
Two to three times a month 18 11
One or two times a week 6 4
Three or four times a week 5 3
More than four times a week 2 1

 

Children’s Overall Exposure to Domestic Violence within Prior Four Months

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

n %
Never 30 19
Once/one 40 26
Once a month or less (2 to 4 times) 38 24
Two to three times a month 22 14
One or two times a week 19 12
Three or four times a week 7 4
More than four times a week 1 1

 

Children’s Social Connections

Research question #1 pertained to the degree to which children were connected to
signiﬁcant others in their surroundings. Social connection was assessed by the presence
of signiﬁcant ties to 14 categories of people rather than by the number of people within
these categories. Excluding their mothers, the lowest number of social connections
children had was one, while the highest was 12, with a median of seven. These results
suggest that most children in this study were connected to a number of types of
signiﬁcant individuals in their environment. Thirty-nine percent of the children endorsed
between 9 and 12 social connections; 55% had between 5 and 8; and 6% had between 1
and 4 social connections (See Table 3).

Mothers were automatically presumed to be important social connections in their

children’s lives. Therefore, children were not asked whether their mother was important

48

 

 

to them. Seventy percent of the children reported that the assailant was important to
them; 42% reported their biological father, if different from the assailant; 91% reported a
grandparent; 89% reported a sibling; 86% reported an adult relative; 84% reported a child
relative; 75% reported a teacher or a principal; 34% reported a counselor; 91% reported a
best friend; 67% reported a close friend; 48% reported at least one other child with whom
they spent time; 7% reported an important adult living in the same household (parent’s
friend, aunt’s friend/boyfriend, babysitter, patients for whom their mothers care); and 6%
reported an important adult outside the family (stepfather, tutor, neighbor, friend’s

parents, mother’s friend, bus driver).

Table 3

Children’s Social Connection

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SOCIAL CONNECTIONS n %
Mother 158 100
Grandparent 144 91
Best friend 144 91
Sibling 141 89
Adult relative 136 86
Child relative 132 84
Teacher or principal 119 75
Assailant 105 67
Close friend 105 67
Other child 75 48
Biological father
(if different ﬁ'om assailant) 66 42
Counselor 54 34
Other adult in household 11 7
Other adult not in household 10 6

 

 

49

Children’s Perceived Social Support

Ninety-seven percent of the children reported some satisfaction with their overall
perceived social support, with 3% reporting a high level of satisfaction. The sample
mean of the emotional support subscale was 3.20 (sd=0.57). Ninety-one percent of the
children reported some satisfaction with emotional support, with 6% reporting a high
level of satisfaction. Only 3% of the children reported that they were not at all satisﬁed
with perceived emotional support they received. The sample mean for the enjoyment
subscale was 3 .61 (sd=0.35). Eighty-four percent of the children reported that they had
“some ﬁrn” with their social connections, with 16 % reporting “a lot of ﬁrn.”
Relationships among Control, Predicton and Outcome Variables

As can be seen in Table 4, a number of signiﬁcant relationships among the
control, predictor, and outcome variables were found. First, there was a moderate to high
correlation among the predictor variables. It was found that the more socially connected
the children, the higher their perceived support (r=.31; p<.01), emotional support (r=.30;
p<.01), and enjoyment of this network (r=.23; p<.01). There were also signiﬁcant
correlations among the outcome variables. A high inverse correlation emerged between
children’s depression and perceived self-competence (r=-.62; p<.01). That is, children
who had lower levels of depression also reported signiﬁcantly higher perceived self-
competence. Moreover, children’s emotional adjustment problems correlated positively
with behavioral adjustment problems (r=.50; p<.01); whereas the relationship between
emotional adjustment problems and perceived self-competence was negative (r=-.28;
p<.01). Essentially, children with fewer emotional adjustment problems also had fewer

behavioral adjustment problems and higher perceived self-competence. Additionally,

50

although the severity of children’s exposure to domestic violence has been linked with
children’s adjustment, it was not signiﬁcantly related to depression, emotional adjustment
problems, or perceived self-competence for this sample of children.

Lastly, correlations were conducted to examine whether the age of the children in
the study was related to any of the predictor and outcome variables. T-tests were
conducted to examine whether there were differences between boys and girls on any of
the predictor and outcome variables. It was found that age was signiﬁcantly related to
social connection (r=.21; p<.05). That is, in general, as the children’s age increased so
did the number of social connections they had in their surroundings. In addition, girls
reported greater satisfaction with perceived support (t(156)=2.49; p<.05; girls’
mean=3.50; boys’ mean=3.34) and emotional support (t(156)=2.90; p<.05; girls’
mean=3.56; boys’ mean=3.09) than did boys. These results indicated that, although age
and gender were theoretically important, these demographic factors were not signiﬁcantly

related to any of the outcome variables, in the current study.

51

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Relationships Among Social Connections, Perceived Support, and Children’s Adjustment

Hierarchical multiple regression analyses were conducted to examine the
inﬂuence of social connection and satisfaction with perceived support on each of the four
outcome variables: depression, behavioral adjustment problems, emotional adjustment
problems, and perceived self-competence. A total of ten models were tested to examine
relationships among social connections, perceived support, and children’s adjustment
after exposure to domestic violence.
mtionships between Social Connection and Children’s Adjustment

Model 1 regressed the adjustment scores upon the social connections scale scores.
This model addressed the second research question about whether children’s social
connection was related to their depression, behavioral adjustment, emotional adjustment,
and perceived self-competence (See Figure 2). Variables for this model were entered in
three blocks. In the ﬁrst block, children’s gender and age were entered as controls
because these variables were theoretically related to outcome variable. In the second
block, the severity of their exposure was entered. In the third block, the score from the

social connection scale was entered.

53

Figure 2: Relationships between Social Connection and Children’s Adjustment

 

Depression

Children’s Behavioral Problems
Social Connection > Adjustment

 

Emotional Problems

Self-Competence

 

Social Connection and Depress_io_r_r. This model addressed the extent to which
social connection was related to children’s depression. Results indicated that this model
accounted for approximately 6% (R2=.05 8) of children’s variance in depression. Beta
was -. 19, indicating a negative direction of inﬂuence with one standard deviation increase
in social connection scores associated with a -.19 standard deviation decrease in
depression score. The R2 change associated with the inclusion of social connections scale
was .03, signiﬁcant at p<.05 (see Table 5). In other words, after accounting for initial
differences in gender, age, and severity of exposure, social connection explained an
additional 3% of the variance in depression. Therefore, children who had more social
connections reported lower levels of depression than children who had fewer social

connections.

54

Table 5: Hierarchical Regression of Depression on Social Connection (N=152)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Standardized Full Model
Beta at Block Standardized t R2 Change
of Entrya Betab

Block 1: Controls
Gender - .046 - .075 - 0.579
Age - .149 - .110 - 1.864 0.026
Block 2: Control
Severity of exposure .021 .029 0.267 0.000
Block 3:
Social connection - .185 - .185 - 2.271 0032*
Total R2 0.058
Total F (4,152) 2.350

 

* p<.05 ** p<.01
a. Beta in this column is associated with the block of entry for each variable.

b. Beta in this column is associated with the ﬁnal block when all variables had been
entered.

§p_c_ial Connection gm Behavioral Adjuatment Problems. This model addressed
the extent to which social connection was related to children’s behavioral adjustment
problems. Results indicated that this model accounted for approximately 5% (R2=.047)
of the variance in behavioral adjustment problems. Beta was .01, indicating that there
was no relationship between social connection and behavioral adjustment problems score.
The R2 change associated with the inclusion of social connections scale was .00,
indicating no signiﬁcant change (see Table 6). After accounting for gender, age, and
severity of exposure, social connection did not explain any additional variance in
children’s behavioral adjustment problems. Although gender, age, and severity of
exposure were theoretically important, these factors were not signiﬁcantly related to the

dependent variable.

55

 

Table 6: Hierarchical Regression of Behavioral Problems on Social Connection (N=152)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Standardized Full Model
Beta at Block Standardized t R2 Change
of Entry Beta

Block 1: Controls
Gender .087 .091 1.081
Age - .141 - .139 - 1.758 0.025
Block 2: Control
Severity of exposure .148 .148 1.875 0.022
Block 3:
Social connection .008 .008 0.093 0.000
Total R7 0.047
Total F (4,152) 1.861

 

* p<.05 ** p<.01

Schal Connection a_ncj Emotiorml Adjustment Problems. This model addressed
the extent to which social connection was related to children’s emotional problems.
Results indicated that this model accounted for about 2% (R2=.023) of the variance in
emotional adjustment problems. Beta was .03, indicating that there was no signiﬁcant
relationship between social connection and emotional adjustment problems. The R2
change associated with the inclusion of social connections scale was .00, indicating no
signiﬁcant change (see Table 7). After accounting for the control variables, social
connection did not explain any additional variance in children’s emotional adjustment

problems.

56

 

Table 7: Hierarchical Regression of Emotional Problems on Social Connection (N=152L

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Standardized Full Model
Beta at Block Standardized t R2 Change
of Entry Beta

Block 1: Controls
Gender .050 .058 0.619
Age .015 .012 0.184 .003
Block 2: Control
Severity of exposure .139 .138 1.738 .019
Block 3:
Social connection .030 .030 0.365 .001
Total R2 .023
Total F (4,152) .897

 

* p<.05 ** p<.01

Social Connection and Self-Competence. This model addressed the extent to

which social connection was related to children’s perceived self-competence. Results

indicated that this model accounted for about 3% (R2=.032) of the variance in perceived

self-competence. Beta was .02, showing that there was no correlation between social

connection and erceived self-competence. The R2 chan e associated with the inclusion
P 8

of social connection scale was .00, indicating no signiﬁcant change (see Table 8). After

accounting for the control variables, social connection did not explain additional variance

in perceived self-competence.

57

 

Table 8: Hierarchical Regression of Self-Competence on Social Connection (N=93)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Standardized Full Model
Beta at Block Standardized t R2 Change
of Entry Beta

Block 1: Controls
Gender .144 .147 1.418
Age - .052 - .040 - 0.509 .022
Block 2: Control
Severity of exposure .095 .096 .934 .009
Block 3:
Social connections .019 .019 . 1 82 .000
Total R2 .032
Total F (4,93) .760

 

* p<.05 ** p<.01

The results of model 1 supported, in part, the hypothesis that social connection
would have a beneﬁcial inﬂuence on children’s well-being. While social connection was
found to be signiﬁcantly related to children’s levels of depression, it was not related to
children’s behavioral or emotional adjustment problems, nor was it predictive of
children’s overall perceived self-competence.

R_el_ationships between Perceived Support apd Children’s Adjustment

Model 2 regressed the adjustment scores upon the satisfaction with perceived
social support scale scores. This model addressed the third research question about the
extent to which children’s adjustment was inﬂuenced by their satisfaction with perceived
social support (See Figure 3). Variables for this model were also entered in three blocks.
In the ﬁrst block, gender and age were entered as controls. In the second block, scores
from the severity of their exposure scale were entered. In the third block, satisfaction

with perceived social support scale was entered.

58

 

Figure 3: Relationships Between Perceived Support and Children’s Adjustment

Depression

Children’s Behavioral Problems
Perceived Support 4' Adjustment

 

Emotional Problems

Self-Competence

 

Perceived Support and Depression. This model addressed the extent to which
satisfaction with perceived support was related to children’s depression. This model
accounted for about 3% (R2=.034) of the variance in depression. Beta was -.O9,
indicating no signiﬁcant change. The R2 change associated with the inclusion of
perceived support scale was .008, indicating no signiﬁcant change (see Table 9). After
accounting for the control variables, perceived support did not explain additional variance

in depression.

59

Table 9: Hierarchical Regression of Depression on Perceived Support (N=152)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Standardized Full Model
Beta at Block Standardized t R2 Change
of Entry Beta

Block 1: Controls
Gender - .046 - .066 - 0.579
Age - .149 - .140 - 1.864 0.026
Block 2: Control
Severity of exposure .021 .017 0.267 0.000
Block 3:
Satisfaction with
Support - .091 - .091 - 1.107 0.008
Total RT 0.034
Total F(4,152) 1.340

 

* p<.05 ** p<.01

Perceived Support and Behayioratl Adjustment Problems. This model addressed
the extent to which satisfaction with emotional support was related to children’s
emotional adjustment problems. This model accounted for about 5% (R2=.047) of the
variance in behavioral adjustment problems. Beta was .00, indicating no signiﬁcant
change. The R2 change associated with the inclusion of perceived support was .000,
indicating no signiﬁcant change (see Table 10). After accounting for the control
variables, perceived support did not explain additional variance in children’s behavioral

adjustment problems.

60

 

Table 10: Hierarchical Regression of Behavioral Adjustment Problems on Perceived
Support (N=152)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Standardized Full Model
Beta at Block Standardized t R2 Change
of Entry Beta
Block 1: Controls
Gender .087 .091 1.081
Age - .141 - .138 - 1.758 0.025
Block 2: Control
Severity of exposure .148 .148 1.875 0.022
Block 3:
Satisfaction with f
Support .004 .004 0.046 0.000 g'
Total R2 0.047 1‘
Total F(4,152) 1.859 ‘
* p<.05 ** p<.01 L
;

Perceived Support and Emotional Adjustment Problems. This model addressed
the extent to which satisfaction with emotional support was related to children’s
emotional adjustment problems. This model accounted for about 4% (R2=.O3 8) of the
variance in emotional adjustment problems. Beta was .13, indicating a positive direction
of inﬂuence with one standard deviation increase in perceived support scores associated
with .13 standard deviation increases in emotional adjustment problems. The R2 change
associated with the inclusion of perceived support scale was .02, indicating no signiﬁcant
change (see Table 11). After accounting for the control variables, perceived support did

not explain additional variance in children’s emotional adjustment problems.

61

Table 11: Hierarchical Regression of Emotional Adjustment Problems on Perceived
Support (N=152)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Standardized Full Model
Beta at Block Standardized t R2 Change
of Entry Beta

Block 1: Controls
Gender .050 .082 0.618
Age .015 - .005 0.184 0.003
Block 2: Control
Severity of exposure .139 .145 .1738 0.019
Block 3:
Satisfaction with
Support .130 .130 1.593 0.016
Total R2 0.038
Total F(4,152) 1.511

 

* p<.05 ** p<.01

Perceived Srmport aprd Self-Competence. This model addressed the extent to
which satisfaction with emotional support was related to children’s perceived self-
competence. This model accounted for about 10% (R2=.097) of the variance in perceived
self-competence. Beta was .27, indicating a positive direction of inﬂuence with one
standard deviation increase in perceived support associated with .27 standard deviation
increase in perceived self-competence. The R2 change associated with the inclusion of
perceived support scale was .07, signiﬁcant at p<.05 (see Table 12). After accounting for
the control variables, perceived support explained an additional 7% of variance in
perceived self-competence. Therefore, children with greater satisfaction with perceived
emotional support reported higher perceived competence than children with lower

perceived support.

62

 

Table 12: Hierarchical Regression of Self-Competence on Perceived Sup orth=93)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Standardized Full Model
Beta at Block Standardized t R2 Change
of Entry Beta

Block 1: Controls
Gender .144 .198 1.418
Age - .052 - .025 - 0.509 0.022
Block 2: Control
Severityof exposure .095 .144 0.934 0.009
Block 3:
Satisfaction with
Support .266 .266 2.598 0066*
Total R2 0.097
Total F(4,93) 2494*

 

* p<.05 ** p<.01

The results of model 2 provided some support for the hypothesis that satisfaction
with perceived social support would be beneﬁcial to children’s well-being. It was found
that perceived support was signiﬁcantly related to children’s perceived self-competence.
However, none of the children’s behavioral, emotional, or depression problems were
signiﬁcantly inﬂuenced by overall perceived social support. However, because
children’s assessment of enjoyment with their social connections may be distinctively
different from their assessment of emotional support, these factors may have differential
inﬂuences on children’s adjustment. Therefore, the next logical step was to examine

children’s perception of network enjoyment and emotional support separately.

 

Relationships Between Emotional Support and Children’s Adjustment

Model 3 regressed the adjustment scores upon the satisfaction with perceived
emotional support subscale scores. This model tested whether children’s satisfaction
with emotional support was related to their depression, behavioral adjustment, emotional

adjustment, and perceived self-competence (See Figure 4). Variables for this model were

63

 

also entered in three blocks. In the ﬁrst block, gender and age were entered as controls.
In the second block, scores from the severity of their exposure scale were entered. In the

third block, the emotional support subscale was entered.

Figure 4: Relationships Between Emotional Support and Children’s Adjustment

Depression

Children’s Behavioral Problems
Emotional Support > Adjustment

 

Emotional Problems

Self-Competence

 

Emotional Support and Depression. This model addressed the extent to which
satisfaction with emotional support was related to children’s depression. Results
indicated that this model accounted for about 3% (R2=.028) of the variance in depression.
Beta was -.04, indicating no signiﬁcant change. The R2 change associated with the
inclusion of emotional support scale was .00, indicating no signiﬁcant change (see Table
13). After accounting for the control variables, emotional support did not explain

additional variance in depression.

64

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Table 13: Hierarchical Regression of Depression on Emotional Support =152)

Standardized Full Model

Beta at Block Standardized t R2 Change

of Entry Beta
Block 1: Controls
Gender - .046 - .056 - .579
Age - .149 - .144 - 1.864 .026
Block 2: Control
Severity of exposure .021 .019 .267 .000
Block 3:
Emotional support
- .042 - .042 - .504 .002

Total R2 .028
Total F (4, 152) 1 .090

 

* p<.05 ** p<.01

Emotional Support and Behavioral Adjustment Problems. This model addressed

the extent to which satisfaction with emotional support was related to children’s

emotional adjustment problems. This model accounted for about 6% (R2=.056) of the

variance in behavioral adjustment problems. Beta was .10, indicating a positive direction

of inﬂuence with one standard deviation increase in emotional support score associated

with with .10 standard deviation increase in behavioral adjustment. The R2 change

associated with the inclusion of emotional support was .01, indicating no signiﬁcant

change (see Table 14). After accounting for the control variables, emotional support did

not explain additional variance in children’s behavioral adjustment problems.

65

 

Table 14: Hierarchical Regression of Behavioral Adjustment Problems on Emotional
Support (N=152)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Standardized Full Model
Beta at Block Standardized t R2 Change
of Entry Beta

Block 1: Controls
Gender .087 .115 1.081
Age - .141 - .149 - 1.758 0.025
Block 2: Control
Severity of exposure .148 .153 1.87 5 0.022
Block 3:
Emotional support .098 .098 1. 197 0.009
Total R2 0.056
Total F(4, 152) 2.234

 

* p<.05 ** p<.01

Emotional Support and Emotiorﬁ Adjustment Problems. This model addressed
the extent to which satisfaction with emotional support was related to children’s
emotional adjustment problems. Results indicated that this model accounted for about
7% (R2=.067) of the variance in emotional adjustment problems. Beta was .22,
indicating a positive direction of inﬂuence with one standard deviation increase in
emotional support score associated with .22 standard deviation increase in emotional
adjustment. The R2 change associated with the inclusion of emotional support scale was
.05, signiﬁcant at p<.01 (see Table 15). After accounting for the control variables,
emotional support explained an additional 5% of variance in children’s emotional
adjustment problems. Interestingly, children with greater emotional support reported

more emotional adjustment problems than children with lower emotional support.

66

 

Table 15: Hierarchical Regression of Emotional Adjustment Problems on Emotional
Support (N=152)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Standardized Full Model
Beta at Block Standardized t R2 Change
of Entry Beta

Block 1: Controls
Gender .050 .108 0.619
Age .015 - .020 0.182 0.003
Block 2: Control
Severity of exmsure - .110 - .087 - 1.362 0.019
Block 3:
Emotional support

.200 .200 2.435 0045*
Total R2 0.067
Total F(4, 152) 2743*

 

* p<.05 ** p<.01

Emotional Support and Perceived Self-Competence. This model addressed the
extent to which satisfaction with emotional support was related to children’s perceived
self-competence. Results indicated that this model accounted for about 7% (R2=.074) of
the variance in perceived self-competence. Beta was .22, indicating a positive direction
of inﬂuence with one standard deviation increase in emotional support associated with
.22 standard deviation increase in perceived self-competence. The R2 change associated
with the inclusion of satisfaction with support scale was .04, indicating no signiﬁcant
change (see Table 16). After accounting for the control variables, emotional support did

not explain additional variance in perceived self-competence.

67

 

Table 16: Hierarchical Regression of Perceived Self-Competence on Emotional Support

(N=93)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Standardized Full Model
Beta at Block Standardized t R2 Change
of Entry Beta

Block 1: Controls
Gender .144 .197 1.418
Age - .052 - .042 - 0.509 0.022
Block 2: Control
Severity of exposure .095 .137 0.934 0.009
Block 3:
Emotional Support

.216 .216 2.069 0043*
Total R2 0.074
Total F(4,93) 1.856

 

* p<.05 ** p<.Ol

The results of model 3 did not provide further support for the hypothesis that
emotional support would be positively related to children’s adjustment. To the contrary,
the higher the satisfaction with emotional support, the greater the emotional adjustment
problems children in study experienced. Surprisingly, children’s depression, behavioral
adjustment problems, and perceived self-competence were not signiﬁcantly related to
satisfaction with emotional support.

Reﬂationshiﬁps between NetworkEnjoyment and Children’s Adjustment

Model 4 regressed the adjustment scores upon the network enjoyment scale
scores. This model tested whether network enjoyment was related to children’s
adjustment (See Figure 5). Variables for this model were also entered in three blocks. In
the ﬁrst block, gender and age were entered as controls. In the second block, scores from
the severity of their exposure scale were entered. In the third block, network enjoyment

scale was entered.

68

 

Figure 5: Relationships Among Network Enjoyment and Children’s Adjustment

 

Depression
Network > Children’s Behavioral Problems
Enjoyment Adjustment
Emotional Problems

Self-Competence

 

Network Enjoyment and Depression. This model addressed the extent to which
network enjoyment was related to children’s depression. Results indicated that this
model accounted for about 4% (R2=.O44) of the variance in depression. Beta was -.13,
indicating a negative direction of inﬂuence with one standard deviation decrease in
network enjoyment scores associated with -. 13 standard deviation decrease in depression
scores. The R2 change associated with the inclusion of network enjoyment subscale was
.02, indicating no signiﬁcant change (see Table 17). After accounting for the control

variables, network enjoyment did not explain additional variance in depression.

69

Table 17: Hierarchical Regression of Depression on Network Enjoyment (N=152)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Standardized Full Model
Beta at Block Standardized t R2 Change
of Entry Beta
Block 1: Controls
Gender - .046 - .057 - 0.579
Age - .149 - .146 - 1.864 0.026
Block 2: Control
Severity of exposure .021 .018 0.267 0.000
Block 3:
Network Enjoyment
- .133 - .133 - 1.675 0.018

Total P? 0.044
Total F(4,152) 1.746

 

* p<.05 ** p<.01

Network Enjoyment and Behavioral Adjustment Problems. This model addressed
the extent to which network enjoyment was related to children’s behavioral adjustment
problems. Results indicated that this model accounted for about 7% (R2=.067) of the
variance in behavioral adjustment problems. Beta was -. 14, indicating a negative
direction of inﬂuence with one standard deviation increase in network enjoyment
associated with -. 14 standard deviation decrease in behavioral adjustment problems. The
R2 change associated with the inclusion of network enjoyment was .02, indicating a
marginal signiﬁcant change (see Table 18). After accounting for the control variables,
network enjoyment explained additional 2% of the variance in children’s behavioral

adjustment problems.

70

 

Table 18: Hierarchical Regression of Behavioral Adjustment Problems on Network
Enjoyment (N=152)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Standardized Full Model
Beta at Block Standardized t R2 Change
of Entry Beta

Block 1: Controls
Gender .087 .077 1.081
Age - .141 - .135 - 1.758 0.025
Block 2: Control
Severity of exposure .148 .145 1.875 0.022
Block 3:
Network Enjoyment - .143 - .143 - 1.821 0020‘
Total R2 0.067
Total F(4,152) 2728*

 

t<.10 * p<.05 ** p<.01

Network Enjoyment and Emotional Adjustment Problems. This model addressed
the extent to which network enjoyment was related to children’s emotional adjustment
problems. Results indicated that this model accounted for about 3% (R2=.025) of the
variance in emotional adjustment problems. Beta was -.06, indicating no signiﬁcant
change. The R2 change associated with the inclusion of network enjoyment scale was
.00, indicating no signiﬁcant change (see Table 19). After accounting for the control
variables, network enjoyment did not explain additional variance in children’s emotional

adjustment problems.

71

 

Table 19: Hierarchical Regression of Emotional Adjustment Problems on Network
Enjoyment (N=152)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Standardized Full Model
Beta Standardized t R2 Change
Beta

Block 1: Controls
Gender .050 .048 0.618
Age .015 .019 0.184 .003
Block 2: Control
Severity of exposure .139 .138 1.738 . .019
Block 3:
Network Enjoyment

- .057 - .057 - 0.705 .003
Total R2 .025
Total F(4,152) .990

 

* p<.05 ** p<.01

Network Enjoyment and Self-Competence. This model addressed the extent to
which network enjoyment was related to children’s perceived self-competence. Results
indicated that this model accounted for about 8% (R2=.077)of the variance in perceived
self-competence. Beta was .22, indicating a positive direction of inﬂuence with one
standard deviation increase in network enjoyment associated with .22 standard deviation
increase in perceived self-competence. The R2 change associated with the inclusion of
network enjoyment scale was .046, signiﬁcant at p<.05 (see Table 20). After accounting
for the control variables, network enjoyment explained an additional 5% of variance in
perceived self-competence. Therefore, children with greater network enjoyment reported

higher perceived self-competence than children with lower network enjoyment.

72

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Table 20: Hierarchical Regression of Self-Competence on Network Enjoyment (N=93)

Standardized Full Model

Beta Standardized t R2 Change
Beta

Block 1: Controls
Gender .144 .153 1.418
Age - .052 - .011 - 0.509 0.022
Block 2: Control
Severity of exposure .095 .112 0.934 0.009
Block 3:
Network Enjoyment

.217 .217 2.153 0046*
Total R2 0.077
Total F(4,93) 1.948

 

* p<.05 ** p<.01

The results of model 4 provided limited support for the hypothesis, indicating
some beneﬁcial effects of network enjoyment. It was found that children’s network
enjoyment was signiﬁcantly related to perceived self-competence. However, children’s
depression, behavioral problems, and emotional problems were not signiﬁcantly related
to network enjoyment. The next models were designed to examine whether social
connection or social support was the stronger predictor of children’s adjustment.

Rilationahip between Perceived Support apd Children’s Adjustment. Controlling for
Social Co_nnection

Model 5 regressed the adjustment scores upon the social connection and
perceived support scales. This model tested whether satisfaction with perceived support
was related to children’s adjustment, after accounting for social connection. Variables
for this model were entered in four blocks, with the social connection scale scores entered
third and scores for the satisfaction with perceived support scale entered fourth.

Similarly, in order to assess whether social connection was related to children’s

adjustment after accounting for perceived support, a separate test was conducted in which

73

 

the order of entry was changed between the two predictor variables. In this test,
perceived support was entered before social connection in block 3 and 4 consecutively.

Results of model 5 are presented in Table 218 and 21b, respectively. The
inﬂuence of perceived support on children’s self-competence remained signiﬁcant, even
after controlling for social connection. Speciﬁcally, perceived support explained an
additional 7% of variance in children’s self-competence. This ﬁnding indicated that
perceived support was a stronger predictor of children’s perceived self-competence than
was social connection. In addition, after controlling for social connection, no signiﬁcant
relationship was found between perceived support and children’s depression, behavioral
problems, or emotional problems.

On the other hand, after controlling for perceived support, social connection
continued to have a signiﬁcant inﬂuence on children’s depression. Social connection
explained an additional 3% of variance in children’s depresSion. This result indicates that
social connection was a stronger predictor of children’s depression than was perceived
support. Furthermore, after controlling for perceived support, no signiﬁcant relationship
was found between social connection and children’s behavioral problems, emotional
problems, or self-competence.

Although these analyses indicated that social connection and overall support
related differently to children’s adjustment, additional analyses were conducted to assess
whether the subscales emotional support and network enjoyment were stronger predictors
of children’s adjustment than was social connection. Thus, model 6 and 7, respectively,

were tested to elucidate these relationships.

74

Table 21a: Summary of Hierarchical Regression of Children’s Adjustment on Perceived
Support, Controllirﬁfor Social Connection

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

’ R2 change in this column is associated with the block of entry at which social
connection was entered.

Dependent R2 R2
Variable for Standardized Change Change
Each Beta at t at at at
Analysis Block 4 Block 4 Total F Total R2 Block 31 Block 42
Depression - .045 - .531 1.927 .060 032* .002
Behavioral .002 .022 1 .479 .047 .009 .000
Problems
Emotional .132 1.546 1.202 .038 .001 .015
Problems
Self- .272 2.596 1.994 .098 .000 066*
Competence
* p<.05 ** p<.01

2 R2 change in this column is associated with the ﬁnal block of entry at which perceived
support was entered. ,

75

 

Table 21b: Summary of Hierarchical Regression of Children’s Adjustment on Social
Connection, Controlling for Perceived Support

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dependent R2 R2
Variable for Standardized Change Change
Each Beta at t at Final at at
Analysis Block 4 Block Total F Total R2 Block 31 Block 42
Depression - .173 - 2.041 1.927 .060 .008 026*
Behavioral .007 0.084 1 .479 .047 .000 .000
Problems
Emotional - .005 - 0.061 1.202 .038 .016 .000
Problems
Self- - .030 - 0.298 1.994 .098 066* .001
Competence

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

* p<.05 ** p<.01

’ R2 change in this column is associated with the block of entry at which perceived

support was entered.
2 R change in this column is associated with the ﬁnal block of entry at which social
connection was entered. .

Reﬁtionahip between Emotional Support and Children’s Adjustment, Controlling for
Social Connection

 

Model 6 regressed the adjustment scores upon the social connection and
emotional support scale. This model tested whether satisfaction with emotional support
was related to children’s adjustment, after accounting for social connection. Variables
for this model were entered in four blocks, with the social connection scale scores entered
third and scores for the emotional support scale entered fourth. In addition, in order to
assess whether social connection was related to children’s adjustment after controlling for
emotional support, a separate test was conducted in which the order of entry was changed
between the two predictor variables. In this test, emotional support was entered before

social connection in block 3 and 4 consecutively.

76

Results of model 6 are presented in Table 228 and 22b, respectively. After
controlling for social connection, the inﬂuence of emotional support on both children’s
emotional adjustment problems and self-competence remained signiﬁcant. Emotional
support explained an additional 5% of variance in children’s emotional adjustment
problems. Similarly, emotional support explained an additional 4% of variance in
children’s self-competence. These results indicated that emotional support was a stronger
predictor of children’s emotional adjustment problems and self-competence than was
social connection. No signiﬁcant relationship was found between social connection and
children’s depression or behavioral problems, after controlling for emotional support.

After controlling for emotional support, on the other hand, social connection
explained an additional 3% of variance in children’s depression. This result shows that
social connection was a stronger predictor of children’s depression than was emotional
support. No signiﬁcant relationship was found between social connection and children’s
behavioral problems, emotional problems, or self-competence, after controlling for

emotional support.

77

Table 22a: Summary of Hierarchical Regression of Children’s Adjustment on Emotional
Support, Controllingfor Social Connection

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dependent R2 R2
Variable for Standardized Change Change
Each Beta at t at at at
Analysis Block 4 Block 4 Total F Total R2 Block 31 Block 42
Depression .004 0.045 1 .868 .058 032* .000
Behavioral . 102 1 .207 1 .784 .056 .000 .009
Problems
Emotional .227 2.695 2. 199 .068 .001 .045"
Problems
Self- .219 2.057 1.475 .074 .000 043*
Competence
* p<.05 ** p<.01

’ R2 change in this column is associated with the block of entry at which social

connection was entered.
2 R2 change in this column is associated with the ﬁnal block of entry at which emotional
support was entered. -

78

 

Table 22b: Summary of Hierarchical Regression of Children’s Adjustment on Social
Connection, Controlling for Emotional Support

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dependent R‘ R2
Variable for Standardized Change Change
Each Beta at t at at at
Analysis Block 4 Block 4 Total F Total R2 Block 31 Block 42
Depression - .186 - 2.206 1.868 .058 .002 .030*
Behavioral - .017 - 0.205 1.784 .056 .009 .000
Problems
Emotional - .025 - 0.299 2.199 .068 .045" .001
Problems
Self- - .017 - 0.170 1.475 .074 .043* .000
Competence
* p<.05 ** p<.01

1 R2 change in this column is associated with the block of entry at which emotional
support was entered.

Rchange 1n this column 1s associated with the ﬁnal block of entry at which social
connection was entered.

Relatiorahip between Network Enjoyment and Children’s Adjustment. Controlling for
Sopial Connection

Model 7 regressed the adjustment scores upon the social connection and network

enjoyment scales. This model tested whether network enjoyment was related to

children’s adjustment, after accounting for social connection. Variables for this model

were entered in four blocks, with the social connection scale scores entered third and

scores for the network enjoyment scale entered fourth. Similarly, in order to assess

whether social connection was related to children’s adjustment after controlling for

network enjoyment, a separate test was conducted in which the order of entry was

changed between the two predictor variables. In this test, network enjoyment was

entered before social connection in block 3 and 4 consecutively.

 

Results of model 7 are presented in Table 23a and 23b, respectively. After
controlling for social connection, the inﬂuence of network enjoyment on children’s self-
competence remained signiﬁcant. Network enjoyment explained an additional 5% of
variance in children’s self-competence. This result indicated that network enjoyment was
a stronger predictor of children’s self-competence than was social connection.
Additionally, after controlling for social connection, network enjoyment was found to
have a marginally signiﬁcant inﬂuence on children’s behavioral adjustment problems.
Network enjoyment explained an additional 2% (.022) of variance in children’s
behavioral adjustment problems. These results indicated that network enjoyment was a
stronger predictor of children’s behavioral adjustment problems than was social
connection. On the other hand, after controlling for network enjoyment, social
connection had a marginally signiﬁcant inﬂuence on children’s depression. Social
connection explained an additional 2% of variance in children’s depression. This result
shows that social connection was a stronger predictor of children’s depression than was

network enjoyment.

8O

Table 23a: Summary of Hierarchical Regression of Children’s Adjustment on Network
Enjoyment, Controlling for Social Connection

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dependent R'1 R2
Variables for Standardized Change Change
Each Beta at t at at at
Analysis Block 4 Block 4 Total F Total R2 Block 31 Block 42
Depression - .101 - 1.247 2.198 .068 .032* .010
Behavioral - .151 - 1.877 2.217 .068 .000 .022‘
Problems
Emotional
Problems - .066 - 0.796 .842 .027 .001 .004
Self- .218 2.135 1.543 .077 .000 046*
Competence
t<.10 * p<.05 ** p<.01

’ R2 change in this column is associated with the block of entry at which social

connection was entered.
2 R2 change in this column is associated with the ﬁnal block of entry at which network
enjoyment was entered.

81

 

Table 23b: Summary of Hierarchical Regression of Children’s Adjustment on Social
Connection, Controlling for Network Enjoyment

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dependent R2 RT
Variables for Standardized Change Change
Each Beta at t at at at

Analysis Block 4 Block 4 Total F Total R2 Block 31 Block 42
Depression .163 - 1.968 2.198 .068 .018 .024t
Behavioral .040 .481 1.217 .068 .020‘ .001
Problems
Emotional .044 .521 .842 .027 .003 .002
Problems
Self- .007 - .072 1.543 .077 .046* .000
Competence

‘<.10 * p<.05 ** p<.01

’ R2 change in this column is associated with the block of entry at which network
enjoyment was entered.
2 R2 change in this column is associated with the ﬁnal block of entry at which social
connection was entered.

A number of signiﬁcant results were derived from models 5, 6, and 7. It was

found that social connection contributed independently to children’s depression; whereas

perceived support was a stronger predictor of children’s self-competence. Furthermore,

the inﬂuence of emotional support on children’s emotional problems and self-competence

was independent of social connection. Similarly, network enjoyment was more

inﬂuential to children’s self-competence and behavioral adjustment than was social

connection. The next logical step was to examine whether the inﬂuence of social

connection on children’s adjustment was moderated by satisfaction with perceived

support.

82

 

Moderation of Riationships between Social Connection and Children’s Adjustment by
Perceived Simport

Model 8 regressed adjustment scores upon the interaction term between social
connection and satisfaction with perceived support subscales. This model addressed
whether the effects of social connection on children’s adjustment was moderated by
satisfaction with perceived support. Variables for this model were entered in ﬁve blocks.
In the ﬁrst block, gender and age were entered as control variables. In the second block,
severity of exposure was entered. In the third block, social connection was entered. In
the fourth block, perceived support was entered. In the ﬁfth block, the interaction term

between social connection and perceived support was entered.

Figure 6: Moderation of Relationships between Social Connection and Children’s
Adjustment by Perceived Support

 

Perceived
Support
Depression

Children’s Behavioral Problems
Social Connection - w‘ Adjustment

 

Emotional Problems

Self-Competence

 

The results of model 8 did not support the hypothesis that the effects of social
connection on children’s adjustment would be moderated by satisfaction with perceived
support. Findings suggest that the inﬂuence of social connection on children’s

adjustment was not contingent upon their level of perceived support. Similarly, the

83

inﬂuence of perceived support on children’s adjustment was not contingent upon the
degree of social connection. See Table 24 for a summary of results for analyses of each

outcome variable.

Table 24: Summary of Hierarchical Regression of Children’s Adjustment on Interaction

 

 

 

 

 

 

between Social Connection and Perceived Sup sort
Dependent Standardized
Variable for Beta at tat R2 Change

Each Analysis Block 5 Block 5 Total F Total R2 at Block 5
Depression - .130 - 1.474 1.981 .073 .013
Behavioral - .108 - 1.218 1.483 .056 .009
Problems
Emotional .007 0.081 0.996 .038 .000
Problems

Self- .054 0.540 1.697 .101 .003
Competence

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

* p<.05 ** p<.01

While the inﬂuence of perceived support on children’s adjustment was not
moderated by social connection, further analyses were needed to determine whether the
effects of emotional support and network enjoyment on children’s adjustment were
moderated by social connection. Thus, model 9 and 10, respectively, were tested to

elucidate these relationships.

Moderation of Relationships between Social Connection and Children’s Adjustment by
Emotional Support

Model 9 regressed adjustment scores upon the interaction term between social

connection and emotional support subscale. This model addressed whether the effects of

84

social connection on children’s adjustment were moderated by social emotional support
(See Figure 7). Variables for this model were entered in ﬁve blocks. In the ﬁrst block,
gender and age were entered as control variables. In the second block, severity of
exposure was entered. In the third block, social connection was entered. In the fourth
block, emotional support was entered. In the ﬁfth block, the interaction term between

social connection and emotional support was entered.

Figure 7: Moderation of Relationships between Social Connection and Children’s
Adjustment by Emotional Simport

 

Emotional
Support
Depression

Children’s Behavioral Problems
Social Connection > Adjustment

 

Emotional Problems

Self-Competence

 

The results of model 9 did not support the hypothesis that the effects of emotional
support on children’s adjustment would be moderated by social connection. In other
words, the inﬂuence of social connection on children’s adjustment was not contingent
upon their level of emotional support. Similarly, the inﬂuence of emotional support on
children’s adjustment was not contingent upon the degree of social connection. See

Table 25 for a summary of results for analyses of each outcome variable.

85

Table 25: Summary of Hierarchical Regression of Children’s Adjustment on Interaction
between Social Connection and Emotional Support

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dependent Standardized
Variable for Beta at tat R2 Change
Each Analysis Block 5 Block 5 Total F Total R2 at Block 5

Depression - .070 - .805 1.661 .062 .004
Behavioral - .063 - .721 1.569 .059 .003
Problems
Emotional .037 .427 1 .853 .069 .001
Problems
Self-
Competence .035 .344 1 .237 .075 .001

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

* p<.05 ** p<.01

Moderation of Relationahips Between Social Connection and Children’s Adjugment by
Worm

Model 10 regressed adjustment scores upon the interaction term between social
connection and network enjoyment subscales. This model addressed whether the effects
of network enjoyment on children’s adjustment was moderated by social connection.
Variables for this model were entered in ﬁve blocks. In the ﬁrst block, gender and age
were entered as control variables. In the second block, severity of exposure was entered.
In the third block, social connection was entered. In the fourth block, the network
enjoyment subscale was entered. In the ﬁfth block, the interaction term between social

connection and network enjoyment was entered.

86

Figure 8: Moderation of Relationships between Social Connection and Children’s
Adjustment by Network Enjoyment

 

Network
Enjoyment
Depression

Children’s Behavioral Problems
Social Connection 7 # Adjustment

 

Emotional Problems

Self-Competence

 

A summary of model 10 is presented in Table 26. This model indicated that the
inﬂuence of social connection on children’s behavioral problems, emotional problems, or
self-competence was not contingent on levels of network enjoyment. However, a
signiﬁcant interaction between social connection and network enjoyment was found for
children’s depression (See Table 27). Beta was -. 18, and the R2 change associated with
the inclusion of the interaction term between social connection and network enjoyment
was .028, signiﬁcant at p<.05 (see Table 26). The overall F value indicates that this
model accounted for signiﬁcant variance in children’s depression (F (6,150)=2.66, p<.05).
After accounting for all other variables, the interaction between social connection and
network enjoyment explained an additional 3% of variance in children’s depression.
Additionally, the overall F value indicates that this model accounted for signiﬁcant
variance in children’s behavioral adjustment (F (6,150)=2.42, p<.05). Therefore, this
model provided some support for the hypothesis that the inﬂuence of social connection

on children’s children was moderated by network enjoyment.

87

Table 26: Summary of Hierarchical Regression of Children’s Adjustment on Interaction
between Social Connection and Network Enjoyment

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dependent Standardized
Variable for Beta at tat R2 Change
Each Analysis Block 5 Block 5 Total F Total R2 at Block 5
Depression - .183 - 2.166 2658* .096 .028*
Behavioral - .154 - 1.813 2424* .088 .020
Problems
Emotional - 067 - 0.762 .797 .031 .004
Problems
Self-
Competence .087 0.834 1 .397 .084 .007
* p<.05 ** p<.01

Table 27: Hierarchical Regression of Children’s Depression on Interaction between
Social Connection and Network Enjoyment (N=152)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Standardized Full Model»
Beta at Block Standardized t R2 Change
of Entry Beta

Block 1: Controls
Gender .046 .088 0.579
Age - .149 - .122 - 1.864 0.026
Block 2: Control
Severity of exposure .021 .028 .267 0.000
Block 3:
Social connection - .185 - .192 - 2.271 0.032
Block 4:
Network enjoyment - .101 - .161 - 1.247 0.010
Block 5:
Connection by
Network enjoyment - .183 - .183 - 2.166 0.028*
Total R7 0.096
Total F(6,150) 2658*
* p<.05 ** p<.01

More speciﬁcally, the inﬂuence of social connection on children’s depression was

contingent on levels of network enjoyment. For children with low network enjoyment,

88

 

 

there was no signiﬁcant difference in levels of depression experienced by those who had
fewer and those who had more social connections. In other words, children with low
network enjoyment experienced higher levels of depression, regardless of the degree to
which they were socially connected to others in their surroundings. However, for
children with high network enjoyment, those who had more social connections
experienced signiﬁcantly lower depression than those who had fewer social connections.
See Figure 9 for a graphical representation of the moderation of network enjoyment on

the relationship between social connection and children’s depression.

 

Figure 9: Moderation of Relationship Between
Social Connection and Children's Depression
by Network Enjoyment

 

 

-+— Low Connection
~41" High Connection

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Network Enjoyment

 

 

 

89

Discussion

The results of this study suggest important inﬂuences of social support on the
lives of children exposed to domestic violence. Speciﬁcally, the number of social
connections children had to signiﬁcant others, and their perceived support from this
network, inﬂuenced their adjustment. Interestingly, social connection and perceived
support (including emotional support and network enjoyment) related to different areas of
children’s adjustment, as measured by levels of depression, behavioral adjustment
problems, emotional adjustment problems, and self-competence. Moreover, the inﬂuence
of social connection on children’s depression was contingent on the level of enjoyment
they derived from this network.

Social Connection and Children’s Adjustment

As hypothesized, social connection was negatively aSsociated with levels of
children’s depression. The more socially connected the children, the lower the level of
depression they experienced. The inﬂuence of social connection on children’s depression
remained signiﬁcant even after controlling for emotional support received from this
network. After accounting for the control variables and emotional support, social
connection explained an additional 3% of the variance in children’s depression.
Additionally, after controlling for network enjoyment, the inﬂuence of social connection
on children’s depression remained signiﬁcant. These results imply that the inﬂuence of
social connection on children’s depression was separate from the inﬂuences of emotional
support and network enjoyment. In other words, having a variety of people available for

support is important in protecting children from experiencing depression, regardless of

90

their perceptions of the availability of support from others and amount of enjoyment
derived ftom this network.

This result suggests that children’s perceptions of the variety of people who are
available for support is particularly relevant to their emotional well-being even though
support from those people may or may not be available. This ﬁnding is particularly
important because no study to date has examined this relationship. While it is not clear
how social connection relates to levels of children’s depression, previous research with
adult populations has shown that degrees of social connection are associated with
measures of network size and social integration (House, Landis, & Umberson, 1988).
Furthermore, it has been shown that a lack of social connection indicates social isolation
and alienation, which are terms that have been linked to psychological problems.
However, being socially connected is an important predictor to one’s psychological sense
of community (Barrera, 1986). Although this research neither corroborates nor
contradicts past ﬁndings, perhaps this feeling of belonging shields children from
depression in spite of exposure to domestic violence.

While social connection was found to be signiﬁcantly related to children’s levels
of depression, it was not related to children’s behavioral or emotional adjustment
problems. It was also not predictive of children’s overall self-competence. There may be
several explanations for this lack of signiﬁcant ﬁndings. Children’s social connection
was based on self-reports, while information about their behavioral and emotional
adjustment problems was based on mothers’ reports. Previous research has shown that,
when children’s reports were correlated with their mothers’ reports, only a limited

number of signiﬁcant relationships were found. For example, using children’s self-

91

reports exclusively, Ayers (1991) found that use of active coping strategies corresponded
with lower levels of depression and higher self-esteem. On the other hand, use of
avoidant coping strategies was associated with higher levels of depression and conduct
problems, as well as lower self-esteem. However, when Ayers (1991) compared
children’s self-reports of coping with parent’s reports of children’s outcomes, only a few
relationships between coping and children’s adjustment remained signiﬁcant. These
results suggest that children’s experience of stressﬁrl events and level of adjustment may
be quite different from their mother’s perception (Quamma & Greenberg, 1994).

More speciﬁcally, several studies have shown that child witnesses and their
parents differ widely on reported adjustment problems (Hughes et al., 1989; Stemberg,
Lamb, & Dawud-Noursi, 1998). It is possible that mothers have less access to their
children’s experiences than researchers typically assume. In terms of emotional states, it
is often difficult for mothers to report accurately their children’s thoughts and feelings
(e. g., sadness, depression). Similarly, mothers’ reports of their children’s behavioral
adjustment are conﬁned to the time they spend observing their children and may reﬂect
an interaction between the child and the mother rather than the child’s overall adjustment.
Moreover, women who are experiencing domestic violence may not judge their
children’s behaviors with clarity due to their own stressful experiences (Stemberg et al.,
1993)

Perceived Support and Children’s Adjustment

Although social connection was not predictive of children’s self-competence,

perceived support was associated. Children with higher perceived support (emotional

support and network enjoyment) reported greater self-competence than children with

92

lower perceived support. That is, those with more helpful and enjoyable support also
reported high overall self-competence. Furthermore, the inﬂuence of perceived support
on children’s self-competence remained signiﬁcant, even after controlling for social
connection. After accounting for the control variables and social connection, 7% of the
variance in children’s self-competence was explained by perceived support received from
their social networks. Thus, this result suggests that perceived support was more
inﬂuential to children’s self-competence than was social connection.

Distinguishing between the two aspects of perceived support - emotional support
and network enjoyment - further elucidated the inﬂuence of perceived support on
children’s adjustment. Emotional support was related to children’s self-competence,
remained signiﬁcant even after controlling for social connection. More speciﬁcally,
emotional support explained an additional 4% of variance in children’s self-competence.
Thus, emotional support was a stronger predictor of children’s self-competence than was
social connection, which indicates that the helpfulness of support was particularly
important to the maintenance of self-competence.

Contrary to the study’s prediction, emotional support was found to have a positive
relationship with emotional adjustment problems for this sample of children. Moreover,
the inﬂuence of emotional support on children’s emotional adjustment problems
remained signiﬁcant, even after controlling for social connection. Emotional support
explained an additional 4% of variance in children’s emotional problems. Thus,
emotional support was related to children’s emotional problems, separate from social

connection.

93

The positive relationship between emotional support and children’s emotional
adjustment problems may be confounded by the extent to which children had experienced
upsetting and stressful events. Children who had experienced more negative events
within the four months prior to their interviews may have been more likely to seek out
support from others in their surroundings. As a result, these children may also be more
inclined to report higher satisfaction with emotional support. However, for children who
had not experienced such events, questions about the helpfulness of their social networks
may have been less relevant to them. Perhaps they may have been more likely to report
lower satisfaction with emotional support.

Network enjoyment, a second aspect of perceived support, was also found to be
related to children’s self-competence. The inﬂuence of network enjoyment on children’s
self-competence remained signiﬁcant even after controlling for social connection.
Network enjoyment explained an additional 5% of the variance in children’s self-
competence. This result shows that network enjoyment was a stronger predictor of
children’s self-competence than was social connection.

Additionally, network enjoyment was marginally related to children’s behavioral
adjustment problems. After controlling for social connection, children’s reports of
network enjoyment corresponded with mothers’ reports of fewer behavioral adjustment
problems. Speciﬁcally, the greater their network enjoyment, the fewer behavioral
adjustment problems they exhibited. These results showed that network enjoyment was a
stronger predictor of children’s behavioral adjustment problems than was social
connection. In other words, children’s perceptions of amount of enjoyment derived from

their network were beneﬁcial to their behavioral adjustment. This relationship was

94

separate from their perception of the variety of people with whom they were socially
connected. This ﬁnding shows that it is important for children to experience enjoyment
and positive interactions with others. Perhaps these enjoyable and positive interactions
with others helped promote positive behavior in children. Moreover, they can provide
ample opportunities for children to model good behavior.

To summarize, perceived support, including emotional support and network
enjoyment, was related to children’s self-competence. Moreover, emotional support was
positively related to children’s emotional adjustment problems. In contrast, network
enjoyment was negatively associated with children’s behavioral adjustment problems.
These ﬁndings suggest that children were able to differentiate between emotional or
helpful support and enjoyable support. In addition, these two aspects of perceived
support related to different areas of children’s adjustment.

In addition, these ﬁndings suggest that children viewed social connection as
qualitatively different from perceived support. These aspects of social support were
found to inﬂuence different areas of children’s adjustment. Children’s perceptions of
their social connectedness may have been important in shielding them from experiencing
depression after their exposure to domestic violence. In contrast, their perceived support
from signiﬁcant others in their surroundings was important to their self-image and self-
competence. These results may reﬂect conceptual differences between social connection
and perceived support. As Barrera (1986) suggested, although measures of social
connection may have identiﬁed social relationships important to children, it does not

necessarily imply that all such connections provided support. Overall, this research

95

suggests that, although it is important for children to be socially connected, it is also
essential for them to believe that they have both a supportive and enjoyable network.

Social connection and perceived support are two mitigating factors that may
enable children to cope with domestic violence. Interestingly, this study demonstrates
that neither social connection nor perceived support is decisive by themselves in
mitigating negative effects of domestic violence. Rather, results suggest that the variety
of supportive others, and the overall perception of being cared for, inﬂuenced different
aspects of children’s adjustment. The remaining question of this study concerns whether
social connection interacts with perceived support (including emotional support and
network enjoyment) to inﬂuence children’s adjustment.

Moderation of Relapionshiﬁo Between Social Connection and Children’s Adjustment by
Network Enjoyment

A major ﬁnding in this study pertains to the signiﬁcant interaction between social
connection and network enjoyment. It was found that network enjoyment moderated the
relationship between social connection and children’s depression. That is, the inﬂuence
of social connection on children’s depression was contingent upon the extent to which
children enjoyed their overall network. Children with low network enjoyment
experienced signiﬁcantly higher levels of depression, regardless of the extent to which
they were connected to signiﬁcant others in their environment. However, among children
with high network enjoyment, those with more social connections experienced
signiﬁcantly less depression than those with fewer social connections. These ﬁndings
suggest that children’s perceptions of network enjoyment play a more important role in
protecting them from experiencing depression than their perceptions of the variety of

signiﬁcant people in their networks.

96

This result has several implications. First, the ﬁndings suggest that children
experience social support through enjoyment or the amount of “fun” they derive from
their network. Second, perhaps it is more important to enhance children’s positive
experiences in their interactions with signiﬁcant others than it is to augment the number
of sources for support. Even if a type or source of social support is theoretically good for
them, if they do not enjoy the interaction or have a positive experience, this support may
not result in an appreciable beneﬁt. If they do not experience a sense of enjoyment, they
may even reject the support, and this intervention may result in negative consequences.
Third, if more enjoyable interactions enhance well-being, less enjoyable interactions may
be detrimental to their well-being. In fact, a negative interaction may impede their
adjustment. Fifth, rather than emphasizing providing therapeutic interventions to alter
children’s characteristics, a more effective approach might involve allocating resources

and activities for positive interactions with others in the environment.

Current Research Limitations

Although this research contributes to our understanding of factors which may
shield children from the adverse impact of domestic violence, results must be interpreted
with caution in light of several limitations. First, the modiﬁed version of the Social
Support/Cohesion Scale was not necessarily designed to assess the extent to which
children were connected to signiﬁcant others. Although this scale provided important
indications of how many categories of people children were connected to, it did not

reﬂect the total number of people in these children’s lives. By assigning higher scores to

97

children with a larger variety of categories of individuals, this study may have overlooked
multiple numbers of people within each category who were important to the children. As
a result, some children may have been misclassiﬁed. For example, a child with three
teachers and four best friends would have only gotten a score of two. Although this
measure may have underestimated some children’s overall network size, this approach of
assessing connections captures the intended concept and meaning of social connections.

It did not capture the size but did reﬂect the scope/breadth of social networks. However,
further studies are needed to determine the useﬁllness and validity of this measure in
assessing children’s social connections.

Second, the majority of the children in this study were low-income. They and
their mothers were recruited ﬁom local community agencies, providing services to low-
income families who had experienced domestic violence. Therefore, ﬁndings from this
study may not be generalizable to child witnesses from higher socio-economic
backgrounds. Similarly, ﬁndings ﬁom this research may not be generalizable to children
who had not been exposed to domestic violence.

Third, this study did not account for whether children in the study had personally
experienced abuse, in addition to witnessing domestic violence. Several investigators in
the area of children’s witnessing of domestic violence have stressed the importance of
accounting for differences in the children’s experience with abuse (Sullivan et al., 2000;
Edleson, 1999; Jouriles et al., 1989). It is because many children who have witnessed
domestic violence were themselves victims of abuse. Since child abuse is itself injurious
to children’s well-being, this presents a signiﬁcant confound (Cicchetti & Carlson, 1989).

The few studies that have accounted for child abuse indicated that there are signiﬁcant

98

differences between groups of abused and non-abused witnesses. In particular, those
children who also experienced abuse had higher distress levels than children who only
witnessed the violence but were not abused (Davis & Carlson, 1987; Fantuzzo et al.,
1991; Hughes, 1988; Hughes et al., 1989; Jaffe, Wolfe, et al., 1986b; Jouriles et al., 1989;
Pfouts, Schopler & Hanley, 1981). Information about child abuse was not available to
the larger study. Therefore, the prevalence of child abuse in this sample of children is not
known.

Lastly, ﬁndings from this study are based on cross-sectional data; therefore,
causal inferences cannot be drawn. Although this study does not reveal cause-effect
relationships, it shows signiﬁcant associations among social connection, perceived
support, and children’s adjustment. It is important to conduct further research, examining

the longitudinal impact of social connection and perceived support over time.

Contributions and Implications of This Research

The current study expanded upon previous work in several ways. First, this study
contributed to the sparse literature on children’s witnessing of domestic violence.
Although domestic violence has been linked to the behavioral and emotional adjustment
of children (Jaffe, Wolfe, et al., 1986b; Christopoulos et al., 1987; Fantuzzo et al., 1991;
Forsstrom-Cohen & Rosenbaum, 1985; Hershom & Rosenbaum, 1985; Hughes, 1988;
Jouriles et al., 1989; Holden & Ritchie, 1991), there have been few studies on factors that
may shield them from damaging effects (Sullivan et al, 2001; Kolbo, 1996). In fact,

much of the research to date focuses on factors that adversely affect children’s

99

adjustment after witnessing domestic violence. While searching for the sources or
antecedents of negative outcomes has been useﬁll in identifying children who are likely
to experience difﬁculty, it fails to add to our understanding of factors that contribute to
children’s strengths and resiliency (Rak & Patterson, 1996). In contrast to previous
work, this study has sought to identify factors in the children’s surroundings that may
have enabled them to cope with the abuse they have witnessed against their mothers. In
particular, this study found that social connections and perceived support received
through children’s networks may shield them from negative effects. Furthermore, the
current study broadened our focus to consider inﬂuences of support from multiple
sources or categories of people (parents, sibling, aunts, uncles, cousins, friends, etc.).
Second, the potentially beneﬁcial role social support plays in children’s well-
being calls for greater efforts to identify protective factors in the surrounding
environment to assist children cope with domestic violence. Even though witnessing
domestic violence is traumatic for children, they do not adjust to this exposure the same
way. This research underscored the importance of natural support systems in assisting
child witnesses cope and make sense of their experiences. In assisting child witnesses
cope effectively with the abuse they have witnessed against their mothers, it is
particularly important to facilitate connections children have with signiﬁcant people in
their surroundings and to convey to them that they are able to turn to various people for
emotional support. Additionally, because they seem to experience social support through
the amount of “fun” they derive from others, it is also important to provide children with
ample opportunities and activities for positive and enjoyable interactions. Hopefully,

these types of discoveries from research will provide an impetus for the development and

100

design of support provisions and community resources to help children cope effectively
with domestic violence.

The development of innovative strategies and community-based programs is
essential in order to address the needs and diverse responses of children dealing with
domestic violence. Although community programs and services (e. g., shelters, advocacy,
and counseling) have been created for women who have experienced domestic violence,
few support provisions are available for child witnesses. At this time, some community-
based agencies, usually through domestic violence shelters, are able to offer group and/or
individual therapy and counseling for children who have witnessed domestic violence.
Although important, providing therapy or counseling is only useful to a minority of
children who seek this type of intervention and to those who experience emotional and
behavioral problems of clinical proportions. Considering most children who are affected
by domestic violence do not seek formal support and assistance, it becomes particularly
important to strengthen their natural support systems in addressing their needs (Dubois et
al., 1992). The inﬂuence of social support networks may go a long way in protecting

children from the potentially damaging effects of domestic violence.

Directions for Future Research

This study has shown the beneﬁcial inﬂuence social support may have on
children’s adjustment to domestic violence. It was found that social connection may
shield children from experiencing depression. This ﬁnding is promising and unique
because no research to date has examined the role of social connection on children’s

well-being. More research is needed to substantiate and replicate this result. In contrast,

101

perceived support, including emotional support and network enjoyment, might be
beneﬁcial to children’s self-competence. It was not clear why emotional support was
positively related to children’s emotional adjustment problems. One possible explanation
is that it may have been confounded by the extent to which children experienced stressful
and upsetting events. Another explanation is that this result may have been a statistical
aberration. Therefore, it is important to examine the inﬂuence of emotional support on
children’s adjustment over an extended period of time. Moreover, it is important to
account for initial difference in the extent of stressful events, in addition to witnessing
domestic violence.

Lastly, these current analyses were not conducted according to type of social
connection or relationships. It would be informative to examine how different categories
of people upon whom children can rely for support might contribute differentially to their
adjustment. Several areas of exploration might include the following questions: Does
connection with and support from parents differ from connection with and support from a
teacher or a peer? Does connection with and support from formal sources (counselors,
clinicians) differ from informal sources of connections and support? Are there
differences among connections with and support from the family and those outside of the
family? Altogether, these ﬁndings reﬂect the need to examine how different sources of
support might affect children’s well-being and to differentiate diverse aspects of
perceived support.

In summary, research has long shown that social support naturally has the
potential to modify, or even prevent, negative developmental trajectories of children

dealing with adverse life circumstances. This study extends the potentially beneﬁcial

102

inﬂuence of social support to children who had been exposed to domestic violence. Such
children seemed to beneﬁt not only from being socially connected to a variety of people
in the surroundings but also from having emotionally supportive and enjoyable networks.
Given these beneﬁts, social support is increasingly drawing the attention of researchers
and service providers in the area of children’s witnessing of domestic violence. Although
this research represents an initial foray into the study of social support’s inﬂuence on
children exposed to domestic violence, many questions remain concerning its effects on
these children. Further research that contributes to the understanding of the complex
relationship between children’s witnessing of domestic violence and social support will
augment the ability of community-based services to intervene in order to prevent or to

moderate the adverse impact of children’s exposure to domestic violence.

103

Appendix A

Mother’s Report on Children’s Witnessing of Domestic Violence

1. There are some things that men might do to annoy or hurt their partners such as
ridiculing, criticizing, controlling, or humiliating them. In the last four months, I
want you to recall how many times Child’s name has seen or heard Assailant’s
para; do any of these things to you.

(SHOW YELLOW CARD)

Never .............................
ONCE A MONTH OR LESS

2 OR 3 TIMES A MONTH
ONCE OR TWICE A WEEK

3 OR 4 TIMES A WEEK

MORE THAN 4 TIMES A WEEK
Not Applicable

”(5:114th—

2. NowI would like to ask you questions about whether Child’s name might have
seen or heard any of the abuse you’ve experienced. In the last four months, how
many times has Child’a nama seen or heard Assailant’s name threaten you?
Would you say:

(SHOW PINK CARD)

Never .............................
ONCE A MONTH OR LESS

2 OR 3 TIMES A MONTH
ONCE OR TWICE A WEEK

3 OR 4 TIMES A WEEK

MORE THAN 4 TIMES A WEEK
Not Applicable

OOGU‘AWN—

3. In the last four months, how many times has Child’s name seen or heard
Assailant’s name physically harm you, or attempted to harm you?
(SHOW PINK CARD) ‘

Never .............................
ONCE A MONTH OR LESS

2 OR 3 TIMES A MONTH
ONCE OR TWICE A WEEK

3 OR 4 TIMES A WEEK

MORE THAN 4 TIMES A WEEK
Not Applicable

”QM-593N—

104

Appendix B
Eyberg Child; Behavior Inventory
Below are a series of phrases that describe children’s behavior. Please (1) circle the number describing how often

the behavior currently occurs with your child, and (2) circle either ‘yec’ or ‘no’ to indicate whether the behavior is
currently a problem.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How often does this occur with Is this a problem
your child? ' for you?
Never Sometimes Always Yg' No
l. Dawdlec in getting dressed 1 2 3 ........ 4 ........ 5 ........ 6 ........ 7 Y N

2. Dawdles or lingers at mealtime 1 7 3 ........ 4 ........ 5 ........ 6 ........ 7 Y N

3. Has poor table manners ..... 1 7 3 ........ 4 ....... 5 ........ 6 ........ 7 Y N

4. Refuses to eat food presented 1 7 3 ........ 4 ........ 5 ........ 6 ........ 7 Y N

5. Reﬁrses to do chores when asked 1 2 3 ........ 4 ........ 5 ........ 6. ....... 7 Y N

6. Slow in getting ready for bed 1 7 3 ........ 4 ........ 5 ........ 6 ........ 7 Y N

7. Refusestogotobedontime 1 7 3 ........ 4 ........ 5 ........ 6 ........ 7 Y N

8. Does not obey house rules on his/her own..l ........ 2 ........ 3 ........ 4 ........ 5 ........ 6 ........ 7 Y N
9. Refusesto obeyumilthreatened with
punishment ....................... l 2 3 ........ 4 ........ 5 ........ 6........ 7 Y

10. Acts deﬁant when told to do something 1 ....... .2 ........ 3 ........ 4 ...... .. 5 - - 6 7
II. Argues with parents about rules 1 2 3 ........ 4 ........ 5 ........ 6 ........ 7
12. Get: angry when doesn’t get I

his/herown way .............. l - 2 3 ........ 4 ........ 5 6- - - _ 7 Y N
13. Has temper tantrums .. 1 7 3 ....... 4 ....... 5 ........ 6 7 Y N
14. Sasses adults .............. l 7 3 ........ 4 ........ 5 ...... 6 7 Y N
15. Whine: ........................... 1 2 3 ........ 4 ........ 5 ....... 6 ........ 7 Y N

 

 

105

ECBI Continued...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

l6. Cries easily.. ..... l 7 3 .. 4 5 6 7 Y ....... N
17. Yells or screams ..... . l 7 3 ....... 4 ........ 5 6 7 Y ...... N
18. Hitsparents. ..... l 2 3 ........ 4 ........ 5 6 7 Y .... N
19. Destroys toys and other objects I 7 3 ....... 4 ........ 5 ........ 6 ........ 7 ................. Y ...... N

20. Is careless with toys and other objects ...... l ....... .2 ........ 3 ........ 4 ........ 5 6 7 Y ....... N

21. Steals ..... l 2 3 ........ 4 ........ 5 ........ 6 ........ 7 ................. Y ...... N

22. Lies ..... l 7 3 ........ 4 ........ 5 ....... 6 ....... 7 ............... ..Y ...... N

23. Tenses or provokes other children I 7 3 ........ 4 ........ 5 ........ 6 ........ 7 ................. Y ........ N
24. Verbally ﬁghts with friends his/her own
age ..... l 7 3 ........ 4 ........ 5 ........ 6 ........ 7 ................. Y ........ N
25. Verbally ﬁghts with sisters and brothers .. l ........ 2 ........ 3 ........ 4 ........ 5 ........ 6 ........ 7 ................. Y ........ N
26. Physically ﬁghts with ﬁiuds his/her
own age....... ..... l 2 3 ........ 4 ........ 5 ........ 6 7 Y ........ N

27. Physically ﬁghts with sisters and brothers 1 ..... ' ...2 ........ 3 ........ 4 ....... 5 ........ 6 ........ 7 ................. Y .. N

28. Constantly seeks attention I 2 3 ........ 4 ........ 5 ........ 6 ........ 7 ................. Y ........ N

29. lnterrupts..... ..... l 2 3 ........ 4 ........ 5 ........ 6 ........ 7 ................. Y ........ N

30. Is endly distracted ..... l 7 3 ........ 4 ........ 5 ........ 6 ....... 7 ................. Y .. N
31. Has short attention span... ‘ l 7 3 ........ 4 ........ 5 6 7 Y ........ N
32. Failstoﬁnishtasksorprojects . l 7 3 ........ 4 ........ 5 ........ 6 ........ 7 ................. Y ........ N
33. Has diﬁculty entertaining himselﬂ
herselfalone ..... l 7 3 ........ 4 ........ 5 ........ 6 ........ 7 ................. Y ........ N
34. Has diﬁculty ooncentrding on one thing. 1 ........2........ 3 .. 4 . 5 ........6 7 Y ....... N
.35. h overactive or restlessm l 7 3 4 .. 5 .. 6 7 .... Y ....... N
36. .Wets the bed ..... l 7 3 ........ 4 ........ 5 ........ 6 ........ 7 ................. Y ........ N

 

 

106

 

Appendix C
Achenbach Child Behavior Checklist

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How often does this occur with 13 this a problem
your child? . for you?
Never Sometimes Always Yes 0

l. Clinptoadultsortoodependent l 2 3 4 ........ 5 6 7 Y N
2. Complains ofloneliness..... 1 7 '3 4 ....... 5 ........ 6 ........ 7 Y N
3. Peers helshe might think or _

something bad ..... l 7 3 4 ........ 5 ........ 6 ........ 7 - Y N
4. Fears or complains that no one loves .

... ..... him/her. ..... l 7 3 4 ........ 5 ........ 6 ........ 7
s. m. worthlessorinferior. r 7 3 4 ........ 5 ........ 6 ........ 7
6. Would rather be alone that with others ...... l 7 3 4 ........ 5 ........ 6 ........ 7 Y
7. Underactive, slow moving, or

lacks energy l 2 3 ........ 4 ........ 5 - 6 7 Y
8. Unhappy, sad, or depressed I 7 3 ........ 4 ........ 5 ........ 6 ........ 7
9. Worried ..... l 7 3 4........ 5 , 6 ‘7

 

 

 

BMW/99

107

Appendix D

Childre- Depression Inventory

Instructions: Kids sometimes have diﬂ‘erent feelings and ideas. This questionnaire lists feelings and ideas in
groups. Fromeach group,Iwouldlikeyoutopick onesentencethat dcscn‘besyoubestforthe

PAST TWO WEEKS. Remember, there are no right or wrong arswers. Just pick the sentence that best describes
the way you have been recently. (MARK AN 'X" IN THE APPROPRIATE BOX, 0R ALLOW THE CHILD TO
MARKTHEBOX IF S/HEWISHES TODOSO).

Here is a sample question:

_Ireadbooksallthetime
__Ireadbooksonceinawhile
___Ineverreadbooks

108

 

Item]
lamsadonceinawhile
larnsadmanytimes

Iarnsadallthetime

 

 

ItemZ
'Nothingwill everworkoutforme

Iamnotsmeifthingswillworkoutfor
Me

Th'mgs will work on for me O.K.

 

 

Item3
I do most things ox.

I do many things wrong

ldoevﬂ' gwrong

 

 

 

Item4
lhaveﬁm in many things
Ihavefuninsomethings

Wisﬁmﬂm

 

 

Item5
Iambadallthetime

lambadmmytimes

 

Iambadonceinawhile

 

 

 

Item 6

thinkaboutbadthingshappeningtomeonceina
while

lworrythatbadthingswillhappentome

 

I am sure that tern‘ble things will happen to me

 

 

 

Item 7

I hate myself
I do not like myself

I like myself

 

 

Item 8
All bad things are my fault
Many bad things are my fault

Bad things are not usually my fault

 

 

Item 9

I do not think about killing myself

 

I think about killing myselfbut I would

[new
wanttokillmyself

109

 

 

Item 10
I feel like crying every day
I feel like crying many days

lfeellikecryggonceinawhile

 

 

Item II
Things bother me all the time
Things bother me many times

Thhjgsbothermeonceinawhile

 

 

Item 12
I like being with peOple

I do not like being with people many
Itimes

ldonotwanttobewithpeopleatall

 

 

Item 13
I cannot make up my mind about things

It is hard to make up my mind about things

I make up my mind about things easily

 

 

Item 14-
I look 0.x.

Therearesomebadthingsaboutmylooks

 

I look ugly

 

 

 

Item I5
I have to push myselfall the time to do my schoolwork

Ihavetopushmyselfmanytimestodomy
schoolwork

 

Doingschoolwork is not a big problem

 

 

Remember, deseribelrmvyou have been in thepast
two weeks...

 

. Item 16
I have trouble sleeping every night

I have trouble sleeping many nights

 

lsleeppretty good

 

 

 

Item17
Iarntiredonceinawhile

Iamtiredmanydays

Iamtiredallthetime

 

 

' Item 18
Most days I do not feel like eating

Many days I do not feel like eating

 

Impreﬂygmd

 

 

 

Item 19
ldonot worry about achesandpains

[worry about aches and pains many times

I worry about aches and pains all the time

 

 

Item 20
I do not feel alone

I feel alone many times

 

Ifeelaloneallthetime

 

 

110

 

ItemZI
lnever haveﬁm a school.
Ihaveﬁmatschoolonlyonceinawhile

lhavefunatschool manytimes

 

 

Item 22

Ihave plenty of ﬁiends
lhavesomeﬁimdslmtlwishlhadmore

I donot have any ﬁiends

 

 

Item 23
My schoolwork is ahight

My school work is not as good as before

 

Idorealbadinsubjectslusedtobegoodin

 

 

 

Item24
lcanneverbeasgoodasotherkids

Icanbeasgoodasotherkidsiflwmtto

 

Iamjustasgoodasotherkids

 

 

 

Item25
bodyreallylovesme
lannot'sure ifmybodylovesme

7 an sure that somebody loves me

 

 

Item26
usuallydowhdlamtold
donotdowhatlamtoldmosttimes

7 never do what I am told

 

 

Item 27

I get along with people

I get into ﬁghts many times

 

lgetintoﬁghtsallthetime

 

 

lll

Appendix E

Harter’s Scale of Perceived Self-Competence

INSTRUCTIONS: This is a questionnaire called "WHAT I AM LIKE." We are interested in ﬁnding or! wha
you are like. Remember, there are no right or wrong answers. Since kids are very different ﬁ'om one mother,
' every kid will be putting down something different.
First,letmeexplainhowthesequestionswork. Thereisa samplequestionatthetop. I'llreaditand
you follow along with me. (EXAMINER READS SAMPLE QUESTION). This question talks about two kinds
ofkids, mdwewantto knowwhich kidsm'emost likeyou.

l)So,whalwantyouto decideﬁrstiswhetheryoummorelikethekidsontheleﬁ sidewhowouldratherplay
outdoorsorwhethayouaremorelikethekitkontheright sidewhowouldratherwatchT.V.

2)Now,thesecondthinglwantyoutothink abougmwthatyouhavedecidedwhichldndofkidsaremostlike
you , is to decide whether that is only SORT OF TRUE FOR YOU, or REALLY TRUE FOR YOU. (WAIT FOR
CHILD'S RESPONSES AND MARK AN 'X" IN THE APPROPRIATE BOX, OR ALLOW THE CHILD TO
MARK'I‘HEBOXIFS/HEWISHES TODOSO). ‘
(ALWAYS READ THROUGH THE QUESTIONS WITH THE CHILD TO ASSURE THAT S/HE
UNDERSTANDS THEM, EVEN IF THE CHILD ASKS TO FILL OUT THE FORM ON HER/HIS OWN).

3) OK. tha one was just for practice. Now we have some more sentences which I'm going to read out loud. .
(FOR EA CH SENT ENCE, MERVIEWER CHECKS ONLY ONE BOX).

What I Am Like
Sample Sentence

Really Sort of Really Sort of
Like me Like me . Like me Like me

Some kids would rather Other kids would

play outdoors BUT rather watch TV
HARl. Some kids feelthatthey Otherkids worry abom

areverygoodattheir BUT whethertheycmdothe

school work work ass'gned to them.
HARZ.

Somekidsfindithardto Other'kidsﬁndit'spretty

make ﬁiends BUT easy to make ﬁiends.
HARB. ' ‘ Somekidsdo very well Otherkids don't feel an

atallkindsofsports BUT -theyareverygoodwhen

112

HARTER Continued. ..

Really Sortof
Likeme h'keme

HAR9.

HARIO.

HARII.

HARIZ.

HARl3.

Some kids are happy
with the way they look

Some kids are often
unhappy with themselves

Some kids feel like they
are just as smart as
other kids their age

Some kids have a lot
of ﬁiends

Some kids wish they
could be a lot better at

sports

Some kids are happy
with their height and

weight

Some kids don't like the
way they are living
their life

Some kids are pretty
slow in ﬁnishing their
school work

Some kids would like to
have a lot more ﬁiends

Somelddsthinkthey
couldbegoodatjust
aboutanynewsport
theyhaven‘ttried

before

BUT

BUT

BUT

BUT

BUT

BUT'

BUT

BUT

113

Other kids are not happy
with the way they look

Otherkidsarepretty
happywiththernselves.

Other kirk aren't so sure
and worderif they are
as smart.

Other kids don't have
a lot of friends.

Other kids feel they are
good «rough at sports.

Other kids wish their
height or weight were
diﬁ'erent.

Other kids do like the
way they are living
their life.

Other kids can do their
school work fast.

Other kids have as my
friends as they want.

Otherkidsareafraid
theymightnotbegood
atsportstheyhaven‘t
tried.

Really

Likeme

Sort of
Like-e

HARTER Continued...

Really Sort of Really Sort of
Like me Like me Like me like me
HARM.

Some kids wish their Other kids like their

body was diﬂ’erent BUT body the way it is.

HARl 5.

Somekidsmehquwith Otherkidsareoﬂennot
themselves as a person BUT happy with themselves.

HARl6.

Some kids often forget Other kids can
what they learn BUT remember things easily.

HARl7. Somekidsarealways Otherkidsusuallydo
doing things with a lot BUT things by themselves.
of kids

HAR18. Some kids feel that they Other kids don’t feel
are better than others BUT they can play as well.
their age at sports.

HARI9.

Some kids wish they Other kids‘like the
looked diﬂerem BUT way they look

HARZO. .

Some kids like the kind Other kids oﬁen wish
of person they are BUT they were someone else.

HARZ l .

Some kids do very well Other kids don't do very
at their classwork BUT well at their classwork.

m. Some kids wish tha Other kids feel thatmost
more kids their age BUT kids their age do like
liked them them.

HAR23. In games aid sports Other kids usually play
some kids usually wash BUT rather than just watch.
instead of play

'HAR24. Some kidswish something 3111‘ Other kids like their
' abouttheirfaceorhair faceandhairtheway

looked dr'ﬁ'erem they are.

114

Reany

Like me

HAR25.

HAR26.

HAR27.

HAR28.

HAR29.

HARBO.

Sort of
Like me

Somekidsarevery
happybeingtheway
theyare

Some kids have trouble
ﬁguring out the mswers
in school

Some kids are pmular
with others their age

Some kids-don't do well
at new outside games

Some kids think that
they are good looking

Somekidsarenotvery
happywiththeway
theydoalotofthings

BUT

BUT

BUT

BUT

BUT

BUT

115

Other kids wish they
were diﬂerent.

Otherkidsalmost
athvsmﬁgureout
theanswers.

Other kids are not
very popular.

Other kids me good at
new games right away.

Other kids think that
they are not very
good looking.

Other kids think
the way they do
things is ﬁne.

Really
Like me

Sort of
Like

Appendix F
Social Suporthohesion Scale

 

Kids have different people that are important to them. I’m going to ask you about people that are sometimes
important to kids. For each one, I’ll ask you how much frm it is to be with them. [SHOW YELLOW CARD #2]
Then I’ll ask you how helpful they are when you’re sad or upset.

Let’s start out with your mother. How much fun is it to be with her? . . .

 

ASK EVERYONE ABOUT 331 AND 882. IF YES, IF YES,

ASK SS3 ONLY IF CHILD HAS A FATHER WHO IS Haw much f... is it to How hdpﬁ] w."
DIFFERENT FROM (A)___ . be "uh WICI your"
CIRCLE 8 IF THERE IS NO ONE IN THE CATEGORY WHO ? ”d or up“?
ISINTHECHHD'SLIFEGENOSIBLINGSORNEVER '—

SEES GRANDPARENTSL

 

Important to Child? Not A Son A Not A Son A
at all littl ewh lot at all littl ewh lot

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

e at e at
I Yes I No I N.A.

881) Your mother I 2 3 4 l 2 3 4
882) How about (A) I 7

Is she important to Inn? 1 2 8 l 2 3 4 l 2 3 4
$83) Your father (If other than (A))? I

Is he important to you? I 2 7 8 l 2 3 4 l 2 3 4
Do you have any ? ls helshe (Are any of them) important to? IF CHILD HAS MORE THAN ONE,
ASK ABOUT THE ONE THAT 18 MOST IMPORTANT TO THE CHILD.
SS4) Grandparents l 2 8 l 2 3 4 l 2 3 4
SSS) Sisters or brothers 1 2 8 l 2 3 4 l 2 3 4
SS6) Other relatives -— adults I 2 8 l 2 3 4 .1 2 3 4
SS7) Other relatives - children 1 2 8 l 2 3 4 l 2 3 4
SS8) A teacher or principal I 2 8 l 2 3 4 l 2 3 4
S9) A counselor l 2 8 l 2 3 4 l 2 3 4
$810) A best ﬁiend l 2 8 l 2 3 4 l 2 3 4
8811) Other close friends 1 2 8 1 2 3 4 l 2 3 4
8812) Kids other than close ﬁiends
that you spend time with? l 2 8 l 2 3 4 l 2 3 4

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

FOR ma LAST TWO ITEMS, INDICATE wno ms PERSON rs IN RELATION TO can».
IF NOT oavrous, INDICATE A (ADULT) OR gains) .1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

8813) Is there myone else who lives

in your 1 2 8 l 2 3 4 l 2 3 4
house? '

8814) Is there myone else that’s

important to you? I 2 8 l 2 3 4 l 2 3 4

116

 

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