Appraisals Of Interparental Conflict Research Articles

Sensitization in situ: Identifying interindividual differences in adolescentsʼ intraindividual responsiveness to daily interparental conflict

AbstractObjectiveThis study aimed to provide a novel evaluation of adolescent sensitization to interparental conflict (IPC), which is thought to be a critical factor in understanding multifinality in risk outcomes.BackgroundAdolescentsʼ threat and self‐blame appraisals of IPC are mechanisms of risk for subsequent maladjustment. Youth who are exposed to high levels of frequent, intense, and unresolved interparental conflict are thought to become more reactive to future conflicts, a process labeled sensitization. We hypothesized that adolescents with more extensive histories of IPC would exhibit sensitization operationalized as greater intraindividual responsiveness to daily IPC. Sensitization may explain why some youth are more adversely affected by IPC than others.MethodA 21‐day daily diary study was conducted with 150 adolescents (61.3% girls) in 9th and 10th grade (Mage = 14.61) who resided in two‐caregiver families. Adolescents provided global and daily reports of IPC and threat and self‐blame appraisals.ResultsResults from multilevel models support a sensitization hypothesis for threat appraisals: Adolescents with greater histories of IPC exhibited stronger tendencies to appraise daily IPC as threatening. No support for sensitization was found for self‐blaming attributions.ConclusionFindings suggest a specific underlying process to sensitization in which accumulated exposure to IPC may lead adolescents to perceive subsequent conflicts as more threatening to them or the well‐being of the family.ImplicationsSensitization to IPC may involve the interaction of multiple timescales, including daily instances of conflict. Understanding historical exposure to IPC may guide interventionistsʼ efforts when working with adolescents coping with IPC.

Family relationships and DSM-5 personality domains in adolescence: A person- and variable-based approach

The present study aimed to examine the role of family relationships (i.e., interparental conflict, mother-adolescent and father-adolescent attachment) on adolescents' dysfunctional personality domains at the person- and variable-based level. Adolescents from five middle schools in mainland China were recruited in this sample (N = 644, Range age = 13–17, 40.7% male). Four family relationship profiles, labeled as disengaged, moderate, cohesive, and conflictual families, were reliably identified utilizing multiple dimensions of interparental conflict and parent-adolescent attachment. These profiles simultaneously showed evidence of spillover and compensatory patterns within family relationships. Meanwhile, multiple regression analyses found that the multiple mediating effects of adolescents' appraisals of interparental conflict and father-adolescent attachment were significant. In addition, there was a significant serial mediating role of mother-adolescent attachment and father-adolescent attachment between the associations of interparental conflict properties and adolescents' dysfunctional personality domains. Our findings underscore that both person-based and variable-based approaches for studying family relational dynamics are useful to illuminate spillover and compensatory patterns of family influence in adolescents' dysfunctional personality development.

The role of interparental conflict in adolescent siblings’ distress: A multi-informant study of military families

Military families navigate a combination of normative and military-specific stressors, and thereby may be at greater risk for experiencing interparental conflict (IPC). Using the ABCX Model, IPC was conceptualized as a family stressor associated with adolescent siblings’ distress outcomes (i.e., greater anxiety, lower positive adjustment), and siblings’ appraisals of IPC were conceptualized as the linking mechanism in this relationship. Within 117 military families, a service member parent, a civilian parent, and two siblings each individually reported on IPC in their family and the siblings reported on their own distress. Civilian parents’ reports of IPC were positively associated with their children’s IPC appraisals, but service member parents’ reports were not associated with their children’s IPC appraisals. Siblings who appraised greater IPC showed higher anxiety and lower positive adjustment outcomes. The indirect link between parent IPC reports and sibling outcomes, via sibling IPC appraisals, was significant for civilian but not service member parents across all outcomes. These findings highlight the importance of accounting for the health of the larger family system when working with adolescents and assessing the potential disconnect between parental accounts of IPC and adolescent appraisals of conflict when working with these families.

Factors Influencing Children’s Appraisals of Interparental Conflict: The Role of Parent-Child Relationship Quality

The cognitive contextual model proposes that children’s appraisals of interparental conflict (IPC) can influence their adjustment. In addition, previous research revealed that interparental disputes may reflect on parent-child relationship that is linked with children’s self-blame and threat appraisals concerning IPC. However, there is a scarcity of research directly addressing the intervening role of the parent-child relationship on children’s appraisals of IPC. Thus, we investigated the mediating role of different aspects of the parent-child relationship (i.e., psychological control, warmth, and attachment security) in the link between IPC and self-blame and threat appraisals. Participants were 1,309 children, their mothers, and their fathers. SEM analyses indicated that higher IPC was related to higher parental psychological control and lower child attachment security, which in turn was associated with higher self-blame or threat appraisals. The pattern of relationships was similar across child and parent gender.

Are there individual and sibling differences in appraisals of interparental conflict?

Despite decades of empirical literature documenting the harmful effects of frequent, intense, violent, and unresolved interparental conflict on children's adjustment, there is considerable variability in the extent to which marital conflict contributes to the development of children's emotional and behavioral problems. Past research has documented links between properties of interparental conflict itself (e.g., intensity, frequency), children's appraisals of conflict, and children's outcomes, yet less is known about the role of individual and family characteristics in predicting children's conflict appraisals. Sibling studies may be especially helpful in understanding these individual differences yet are notably lacking in marital conflict research. The current study examines individual- and family-characteristic predictors of adolescents' appraisals of conflict in a study of 153 adolescents as well as sibling similarities in conflict appraisals in a subsample of 50 pairs of siblings. Controlling for parent reports of the frequency, intensity, and resolution of interparental conflict, parent-child relationship quality and stressful life events predicted conflict appraisals. In addition, there was nonindependence of sibling appraisals of conflict properties, but self-blame and threat appraisals appeared independent across siblings. Greater discrepancies in siblings' conflict appraisals were related to more negative marital conflict and discrepancies in parent-child relationship quality, and were found in mixed-sex sibling dyads. Implications for future studies on factors that impact children's appraisals of conflict and in particular making use of sibling studies to examine shared environmental and individual influences on appraisals is highlighted. (PsycINFO Database Record

Appraisals of Interparental Conflict and Change in Attention to Emotion after Exposure to Marital Conflict

The goal of this study was to investigate whether exposure to marital conflict changes patterns of attention to anger and happiness, as well as whether those patterns vary based on appraisals of the history of interparental conflict in the home. Emerging adults viewed photo pairs with one emotionally-neutral photo and another photo depicting a happy/angry emotional interaction (while a high-speed camera tracked gaze), were randomly assigned to view a neutral or marital conflict recording, viewed neutral-emotional photo pairs again, and then reported their appraisals of their parents’ conflict. Results indicated that feeling threatened by and to blame for parental conflict predicted avoidance of happy emotions at baseline. Although there were no significant changes in attention to emotion overall based on condition, self-blame for interparental conflict predicted greater increases in time spent looking at anger after watching marital conflict (but not after watching the neutral recording). These results indicate that differences in attention to emotion may be one mechanism linking parental conflict to anxiety that could be the focus of prevention/intervention efforts to reduce anxiety symptoms in those from high-conflict homes.

How Much Positivity Is Needed to Buffer the Impact of Parental Negativity on Children?

IntroductionMarital conflict has been highlighted as a form of stress that deserves particular consideration in the context of children's development (e.g., B arietta & O'Mara, 2006). However, there is increasing evidence from couple research that, rather than adverse interactions per se, the couple's capabilities to compensate negativity with positivity may be a stronger predictor of marital outcomes (Gottman, 1994). Remarkably, to the best of our knowledge, there is limited research investigating the meaning of Gottman's findings for children's well-being in the family context. The purpose of this survey study was to address this gap by examining the positive-to-negative ratio in parental interaction as a predictor of child adjustment.In recent decades couple research has been increasingly concerned with studying interaction patterns in marriages. It was shown that positivity and negativity in intimate relationships may not be considered as poles of one bipolar dimension but as two independent dimensions that constitute marital quality (Fincham & Finfield, 1997). According to this assumption, happy and unhappy couples do interact positively and negatively but, notably, in different proportions. Gottman and Fevenson (1992) 10.1111/fare.l2091reported that couples characterized by more negative than positive interactions (i.e., unregulated couples) were at greater risk to start the cascade toward divorce in comparison to regulated couples outperforming negativity by positive interaction. Additional studies based on observational data supported Gottman's (1993, 1994) balance theory of marriage that states that the equation of positivity to negativity is crucial to predict marital quality and stability, suggesting a ratio of about 5:1 in regulated couples. Holman and Jarvis (2003) found that Gottman's (1993) couple typology could be reliably verified in survey data too. Subsequently, European survey studies found a positive - negative ratio of about 2:1 in satisfied couples compared to unsatisfied couples or couples seeking for marital therapy yielding a ratio of smaller than 1 (Bertoni & Bodenmann, 2010; Bodenmann, Meyer, Binz, & Brunner, 2004).The ratio of a couple's positivity to negativity may also help to explain why the vast majority of children from conflictual homes do not develop psychological problems (Fincham & Osborne, 1993). The emotional security theory (EST; Davies & Cummings, 1994) supports the idea that the extent to which parental negativity is buffered by their positive interaction is critical for child adjustment. EST holds that parental discord harms children's development by undermining children's emotional security; that is, their primary goal of felt safety in the family and confidence in their parents' abilities to preserve family stability. However, the implications of negative parental interaction on a child's emotional security and welfare hinges on the quality of the broader parental and family functioning (Cummings & Davies, 2010). Supporting this hypothesis, Davies and colleagues (2002) found that interparental conflict was a weaker predictor of children's emotional insecurity and insecurity was less associated with children's psychological problems in families where parents scored high in emotional expressiveness. Parents' ability to discuss their emotions in a direct and constructive manner seemed to protect children from developing emotional insecurity and subsequent maladjustment in the face of parental conflict. In a similar vein, it was reported that family functioning provides a salient backdrop for children's reactivity to marital conflict (Davies, Cummings, & Winter, 2004). Children from cohesive families perceived simulated parental arguments as less threatening to their well-being than children from other (less functional) family profiles.It was also shown that the emotional climate in the family setting affects children's appraisals of interparental conflict. …

Interparental Conflict and Adolescents' Romantic Relationship Conflict

This study examined associations between interparental conflict and adolescents' romantic relationship conflict. High school seniors (N=183) who lived with married parents completed questionnaires about their parents' marriage and their own romantic relationships. A subset of 88 adolescents was also observed interacting with their romantic partners. Adolescents' perceptions and appraisals of interparental conflict were related to the amount of conflict in romantic relationship and adolescents' conflict styles. Adolescents' appraisals of interparental conflict (i.e., self-blame, perceived threat) moderated many of the associations between interparental conflict and conflict behavior with romantic partners. The patterns of moderated effects differed by gender. These findings suggest that the meanings boys and girls ascribe to interparental conflict are important for understanding how family experiences contribute to the development of romantic relationships.

The Children's Perception of Interparental Conflict Scale

This study provides additional data on the measurement of children's and adolescents' appraisals of interparental conflict using the Children's Perception of Interparental Conflict (CPIC) Scale (Grych, Seid, & Fincham, 1992). Data from the original sample of early adolescents (N = 222) on which the CPIC Scale was developed and the authors' own data from late adolescents (N = 483) are compared using confirmatory factor analyses at both the item and subscale levels. The results indicate that the factor structure at the item level of analysis is similar across early and late adolescents, indicating that the nine theoretically derived subscales are separate aspects of interparental conflict for both developmental groups. In addition, the subscales are found to produce five factors for both early and late adolescents. Implications of these findings for cross-sectional and longitudinal studies of interparental conflict and child/adolescent outcomes are discussed.

Making Sense of Family Violence

Children who are exposed to interparental violence are at risk for a host of adjustment problems, but little is known about the processes that explain why children from violent families develop different patterns of adjustment. In this paper, we examine the role that children's perceptions and interpretations of aggression may play in shaping the impact of interparental violence on their short- and long-term functioning. Appraisals of interparental conflict have been linked to children's emotional and behavioral responses to conflict as well as their adjustment more broadly and offer a mechanism for understanding diverse outcomes in children who witness violence in the home. We explore how the appraisal process may differ in violent versus conflictual but nonviolent interactions, consider contextual factors that may influence this process, and outline directions for research investigating how children perceive and make sense of violence in intimate relationships.

Emotional expression in the family as a context for children's appraisals of interparental conflict.

The cognitive contextual framework proposes that the emotional climate in the family plays a role in shaping how children perceive and evaluate interparental conflict. This hypothesis was tested in a sample of 144 8- to 12-year-old children and their parents. Children in families that expressed high levels of negative affect and low levels of positive affect reported greater self-blame for conflict, but parents' expressiveness did not predict children's threat appraisals. Positive and negative expressiveness moderated the association between exposure to parental conflict and children's internalizing and externalizing problems. These data suggest that the broader family context can shape the meaning of conflict to children and increase understanding of the conditions under which parental discord leads to child maladjustment.

Young children's appraisals of interparental conflict: Measurement and links with adjustment problems.

The present study investigated 2 questions pertinent to understanding developmental aspects of children's conflict appraisals: (a) Do 7- to 9-year-old children make reliable distinctions between their perceptions of conflict and their appraisals of threat and self-blame? (b) Do threat and blame appraisals mediate the association between exposure to interparental conflict and adjustment problems in this age group? Factor analysis of a new version of the Children's Perception of Interparental Conflict Scale (CPIC-Y) designed for younger children showed that 179 7- to 9-year-old children distinguished properties of conflict from their appraisals of it. Moreover, as predicted by the cognitive-contextual framework, threat and self-blame appraisals mediated the link between conflict and internalizing problems but not externalizing problems. This study provides compelling evidence that appraisals of interparental conflict can be reliably measured at relatively young ages and suggests that perceptions of threat and self-blame function similarly in 7- to 9-year-olds as they do in older children.

Patterns of adjustment among children of battered women.

Children exposed to interparental violence have been characterized by an array of psychological problems, but findings regarding the precise nature of these problems have been inconsistent. This study used cluster analysis to determine whether distinct patterns of adjustment could be identified in 228 8- to 14-year-old children residing in battered women's shelters. Five such patterns emerged: multiproblem-externalizing, multiproblem-internalizing, externalizing, mild distress, and no problems reported. This solution was cross-validated in independent halves of the sample and was similar for boys and girls. Differences among the clusters on relevant family and demographic variables were examined, and it was found that the clusters could be distinguished on the basis of the frequency of children's exposure to interparental violence, parent-child aggression, and children's appraisals of interparental conflict.

When Warriors Are Worriers

Abstract Children's appraisals and strategies for coping with interparental conflict were assessed in a community sample of 154 families with school-aged children, 72 of whom reported some physical aggression between parents in the past year. Children from violent homes perceived interparental quarrels as more frequent and threatening, and were rated higher by their parents in internalizing, externalizing, and total problems than children from nonviolent homes. Boys from violent homes were rated higher in internalizing and total problems than all other children. Associations among appraisals of interparental conflict, coping strategies, and measures of adjustment revealed different patterns for boys and girls from violent homes. These data contribute to the development of process models of the mechanisms by which interparental violence affects children's adjustment.

Children's appraisals of interparental conflict: Situational and contextual influences.

Children's appraisals of interparental conflict have been linked with their adjustment and their strategies for coping with conflict, but the factors that influence the appraisal process are less clear. This study examined cognitive and emotional responses of 60 7-12-year-old children to audiotaped conflictual interactions. Properties of the conflict, family factors, and child characteristics were related to children's appraisals; the most consistent predictors were the level of hostility expressed in the interaction, children's prior experience with physically aggressive interparental conflict, and children's age. These findings indicate that children's perceptions and interpretations of interparental conflict are influenced by the larger context in which a conflict occurs as well as the way the conflict is expressed.

Children's appraisals of interparental conflict: Situational and contextual influences.

Children's appraisals of interparental conflict: Situational and contextual influences.