Abstract
The present study examined the differences of conflict coping tactics in adolescents' grade and gender and parents' gender and explored the relationships among conflict frequency, conflict coping tactics, and life satisfaction. A total of 1874 Chinese students in grades 7, 8, 10, and 11 completed surveys on conflict frequency, coping tactics, and life satisfaction. The results obtained by MANOVA suggested that the adolescents' reported use of assertion and avoidance with either mothers or fathers increased from Grade 7 to Grade 8 and did not change from Grade 8 to Grade 11 in parent-adolescent conflicts. The results of paired sample T-tests indicated that adolescents used more conciliation in Grade 7, more conciliation and assertion in Grade 8, and more conciliation and less avoidance in Grade 10 and 11 to cope with mothers than with fathers in parent-adolescent conflicts. Boys used more conciliation and less avoidance, while girls used more conciliation, assertion and third-party intervention to cope with mothers than with fathers in parent-adolescent conflicts. The results of the hierarchical regression analysis indicated the significance of the primary effects of conflict frequency and coping tactics on life satisfaction. Specifically, conflict frequency negatively predicted life satisfaction. Conciliation positively and avoidance negatively predicted life satisfaction when adolescents coped with either mothers or fathers in parent-adolescent conflicts. Assertion negatively predicted life satisfaction when adolescents coped with fathers. The moderating effects of conflict coping tactics on the relationship between parent-adolescent conflict frequency and life satisfaction were not significant.
Highlights
Parent-adolescent conflict is common and inevitable throughout adolescence (Smetana and Gaines, 1999)
The present study examined the relationships among parent-adolescent conflict frequency, coping tactics, and adolescents’ life satisfaction
To examine the impact of adolescents’ grade and gender on the four tactics coping with mother and father, a multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was conducted to examine differences between the four grades (Grade 7, 8, 10, 11) and gender on the eight variables
Summary
Parent-adolescent conflict is common and inevitable throughout adolescence (Smetana and Gaines, 1999). Parent-adolescent conflict has a negative impact on family harmony in the short term (Montemayor, 1983; Silverberg and Steinberg, 1987) and is positively related to internal and external problem behaviors (Smetana, 1996; Gil-Rivas et al, 2003), which may further influence adolescents’ life satisfaction. It is a Effects of conflict coping tactics challenge for adolescents and parents to address various types of conflicts during adolescence. It is of great importance to investigate the differences in adolescents’ coping tactics according to their grade and gender and the parents’ gender, and the effects of adolescents’ coping tactics in the course of parent-adolescent conflicts on their self-growth
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