Interparental conflict and Chinese emerging adults’ romantic relationship quality: Indirect pathways through attachment to parents and interpersonal security

Abstract

It has been documented that destructive interparental conflict (IPC) is risky for emerging adults’ romantic experience. Despite this, the mechanism through which such a conflicting relationship between the parents can be transmitted to offspring during emerging adulthood has not been thoroughly addressed. This study focused on the mediating roles of emerging adults’ attachment to parents and interpersonal security to examine whether they jointly mediate the relationship between destructive IPC and emerging adults’ romantic relationship quality. A total of 202 Chinese undergraduate and graduate students aged 18–26 (65.4% females) participated in an online survey, all of whom were in romantic relationships. With structural equation modeling, results revealed two indirect pathways linking destructive IPC and adults’ romantic relationship quality: first, destructive IPC was indirectly associated with emerging adults’ romantic relationship quality through the mediating role of attachment to parents in early adulthood; second, destructive IPC was indirectly linked with emerging adults’ romantic relationship quality through the sequential mediating roles of emerging adults’ attachment to parents and interpersonal security. The findings of the study elucidated a potential process that IPC is likely to shape emerging adults’ romantic relationship quality through both adults’ attachment to parents and adults’ preconception about interpersonal security, thus offering avenues for facilitating the quality of emerging adults’ romantic relationship.