observed protective factors are: having a good relationship with at least one adult caregiver and having good intellectual abilities.
Risk and protective factors operate either in an “additive” (simple, direct effect of a risk factor) or an “interactive” (protective factors play only in interaction with risk factors: they come into play less when stress is low, much more when stress is high) model.
In an additive model, what is important is the notion of cumulative risk factors. It is often observed that it is the accumulation of several stresses rather than a single family stress that causes serious consequences. There is therefore a threshold effect beyond which the child’s resistance gives way.
In an interactive model, certain risk factors only come into play in the presence or absence of another risk factor, as do protective factors: for example, a child’s difficult temperament only produces harmful effects if it is combined with a mother’s rejection. Another example: poverty and exclusion have a more negative impact on native-born children than on immigrants, because the latter develop more solidarity strategies.
1.4.2. Mediation and moderation
These are effects of a characteristic of the family environment. In the case of mediation, two variables interact to affect the child’s development. For example, parental discord and the child’s tendency to assume guilt each have negative interacting effects; in the case of moderation, two variables are not causally related, but one (the parent’s ability to maintain good parenting) moderates the negative effects of the other (parental discord).
1.4.3. Resilience
This is a form of environmental transaction that allows the subject to overcome traumas and strongly limit their effects. The resilience of the ego (personality trait) is now a well-studied phenomenon, as well as the variations in resilience according to the sociocultural environment, or according to the field of development (academic, social, psychological), since a child can be resilient on the academic level, but not on the psychological level.
1.4.4. Confounding factors
A confounding factor is one that explains the causal relationship that we assume at first glance between two variables. For example, when we take 100 children of divorced parents and 100 children of married parents, we generally find more academic failure in the first group. However, academic failure is closely linked to the child’s sociocultural background and divorce is more frequent in disadvantaged environments, so sociocultural background is a confounding factor in the link between divorce and academic failure.
Thus, if we control this confounding factor, if we compare 100 children of divorced parents from privileged backgrounds and 100 children of married parents from privileged backgrounds, say, we no longer observe differences between the two groups with respect to academic failure.
1.4.5. Genetic factors
For a long time, the influence of parents was conceived as a cause and the adaptation of their children as an effect. The two main theoretical schools, behaviorism and psychoanalysis, although so traditionally opposed, come together to conclude that the way parents educate the child, and what parents do to the child, is extremely important. The spectacular improvements brought about by adoption, or the effects of educational intervention, have shown the crucial effect of the family environment.
At the end of the 1960s, a complementary hypothesis was put forward: children are not only receptors, but they also influence the behavior of their parents. A child’s behavior is partly influenced by genetic factors; it is therefore possible to maintain the idea that the parents’ behaviors play a crucial role in the adaptation of their children, but with the addition that these behaviors are caused by characteristics of the child under genetic influence.
Behavioral genetics has had a profound influence on how developmental psychologists view how family influences affect children in different ways.
Today, the influence of the family environment on the child can be defined by three main components:
– the influences of genetic factors: genes that parents pass on to each child;
– shared environmental influences: a family environmental characteristic is so massive that it has effects on all children in the family, for example, abject poverty, religious orientation or strong conflict between parents;
– the influences of the non-shared environment: each child is not subject to the same effects due to various causes. For example, girls are not raised in the same way as boys (even today), the mother has a stronger attachment to a particular child, the socioeconomic situation of the family has changed or a particular characteristic of the child under genetic influence causes different reactions in the parents.
Over the past 20 years, research has highlighted the importance of the non-shared environment. Parents are always surprised by this phenomenon: “how and why are my two children so different when they have had the same education?” Well, no! Also, there are two types of effects of the non-shared environment: “differential positivity” (one child receives significantly more of something than the others) and “differential negativity” (one child receives significantly less of something than the others).
Shared and non-shared environments are also related. For example, a common characteristic of the family context (stress, marital discord, lack of money, too many siblings, composition of the siblings) will exacerbate the difference in treatment between children. This is because parents will have limited resources to devote to each child. When stress occurs, it will diminish the resources available and they will be forced to concentrate them on one child.
We can thus be led to the paradox that differences in the way parents treat each child are attributable to aspects of family life that are shared by all children. Finally, differential parental treatment is not necessarily pathogenic: it all depends on whether it is experienced by the child as fair or unfair. For example, the child accepts it when the differential treatment depends on the age or special needs of his or her siblings.
From this framework, two types of work can be conducted. On the one hand, “child-based” studies: the child’s genes are the unit of measure and do not directly influence the way the parents treat them, but indirectly, through the parents’ reaction to the child’s characteristics; for example, siblings are compared with each other. On the other hand, the rarer “adult-based” work: the parent’s genes are the unit of measure and we study the role played by genetic proximity on parental behavior, for example, the behavior of mothers who are twins.
We will therefore define:
– genotype/environment interaction: genetic factors influence sensitivity to an environment. For example, divorce has more negative effects on children with a genetic vulnerability to depression; negative life events are a non-shared environmental factor that explains the differences between monozygotic twins in the occurrence of depression. Overly coercive family discipline is a risk factor for adolescent depression, but only in certain social settings;
– genotype/environment correlation: genetic factors select or cause exposure to different environments. For example, a child’s physical attractiveness causes positive reactions in parents, educators or peers.
Three types of correlations between genotype and environment are therefore distinguished. These types correspond to three mechanisms by which the genetically influenced characteristics of an individual
