Objective: The present study investigated mechanisms by which exposure to intimate partner violence (IPV) in the first five years of life confers risk for the development of internalizing and externalizing psychopathology. Emotion reactivity and emotion regulation were identified as potential mediators and/or moderators. While research suggests that emotion regulation is sensitive to environmental influences, little is known about how IPV exposure influences emotion regulation. Emotion regulation is an important developmental task of early childhood and the inability to regulate emotion flexibly can increase risk for psychological disorders. In IPV-exposed populations, children who tend to avoid or intervene in incidents of IPV may be at risk for internalizing and externalizing problems, respectively. Method: A series of variable-oriented and person-oriented analyses were used to investigate emotion reactivity and emotion regulation strategy use in 206 children followed longitudinally and oversampled for IPV exposure. Models examined emotion reactivity and emotion regulation, observed at age 4, as mechanisms in the association between early childhood IPV exposure and internalizing and externalizing behavior problems at age 7. Second, the timing of early childhood IPV exposure in relation to emotion regulation strategies was explored. A final set of analyses used Latent Profile Analysis to explore the presence of multiple profiles of adjustment to different patterns of IPV exposure, including associations with subsequent behavior problems. Results: Path analyses indicated that less intervention at age four was associated with more internalizing problems at age seven, while reactivity was associated with concurrent age four internalizing problems. In growth mixture modeling, groups characterized by chronic high IPV and increasing IPV shared associations with less intervention and more withdrawal, respectively. Profiles of emotional responding identified through latent profile analysis further indicated that a demobilizing profile (low intervention, high withdrawal) was associated with IPV exposure and internalizing psychopathology. Discussion: Path analysis findings suggest that emotion reactivity may be a reflection of current behavior problems while problems with regulation identified at age four may predict a continuation of these problems into the school-aged period. Follow-up analyses investigating individual differences in the timing of early childhood IPV exposure and profiles of reactivity and regulation indicated that the demobilizing strategy can be identified through person-centered analysis using emotion regulation as a behavioral indicator of emotional security.
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