Conger observed that other sorts of distress may also affect families in the same way. For adolescents, that can mean increases in risky behavior and less development of the sorts of competencies that protect them from those risks. When parents become depressed, angry, and sullen with one another and have increased conflict, the result is often harsh and inconsistent parenting or withdrawal. The effect of the hardship depends on the way it affects daily life-in other words, the emotional response of the family and the individual are what determines the psychological effect of the event. These sorts of emotions can disrupt family relationships. It is based on evidence from both human and animal studies that punishing experiences, such as economic pressure, 1 exacerbate negative affect, which can take many forms, such as despondency, depression, anger, or aggression ( Berkowitz, 1969). Research on the family stress model goes back to the 1930s, Conger said, and has since been well replicated using many samples from diverse backgrounds. Researchers have described three primary models for thinking about how economic factors influence families: the family stress model, the investment model, and the interactionist model. Experimental studies, such as the New Hope study ( Huston et al., 2003), have also shown that interventions that increased employment and reduced poverty resulted in similar improvements. The researchers concluded that the improvements came about in part because of improved parenting practices. Specifically, this study found that externalizing signs, including such behavior disorders as conduct disorder, improved, but that families’ improved economic circumstances did not affect the rate of internalizing psychiatric problems, such as depression. Costello and colleagues (2003), for example, found that children whose families were lifted out of poverty when a gambling casino opened on an Indian reservation showed improvement in both psychiatric symptoms and conduct problems.
Recent studies have provided evidence that economic factors influence families. The social causation model, Conger explained, provides a framework for considering the way in which economic disadvantage and social conditions affect family functioning and the ways that children develop.