Maternal expressed emotion, child behavior problems, and the child's sense of coherence: Towards a resilience model

A total of 285 child-mother pairs were recruited from 5 schools in Naha City, Okinawa, Japan (ages 10-13). The goal of the study was to understand better how family environment factors and child resiliency factors jointly contribute to child behavior problems. Family environment factors included maternal depression (Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression, CESD), positive (Involvement) and negative (Criticism) expressed emotion (EE) between mother and child (Expressed Emotion Adjective Checklist), and family relationship quality (Family Relationship Inventory). Child resiliency factors included Sense of Coherence (SOC) and Self-Esteem (SE). The Internalizing and Externalizing scales of the Youth Self-report (YSR) were used as outcome measures.;Child reports of each of the negative family environment factors were positively related to Internalizing and Externalizing problems, while each of the child resiliency factors was negatively related. This differs from reports from Western studies that maternal Criticism is specifically related to Externalizing behaviors. Higher levels of maternal Criticism and lower levels of Involvement, as reported by the child, were more closely related to girls' Internalizing and Externalizing problems than was true for boys, implying that girls were more sensitive or vulnerable to maternal emotionality than boys.;Mother reports of her Criticism and Involvement were less strongly related to child behavior problems, with significant correlations only with Internalizing behaviors. Her reports of Criticism and Involvement were not significantly related to child resiliency factors. A significant indirect path was identified from child reports of negative family environment factors to child behavior problems through child's SOC in an SEM. However, the corresponding indirect path from family factors to child behavior problems through SE was "inconsistent," enhancing rather than decreasing reported behavior problems. The hypothesis that SOC mediates the impact of stressful family influences was confirmed. The inconsistent effect of SE may reflect strong Japanese-Western differences regarding the construct of self-esteem. A more collectivist society, like Japan, would rely on "jibun" or the importance of self defined in the context of family and within cultural norms.