High Family Conflict Research Articles

East meets west: ethnic identity, acculturation, and conflict in Asian Indian families.

This study examined the influence of the family on adolescents' acculturation, ethnic identity achievement, and psychological functioning. One hundred eighty American-born Asian Indian adolescents and one of their immigrant parents completed questionnaires assessing their acculturation, ethnic identity, and family conflict. Adolescents also completed anxiety and self-esteem measures. The results showed that parents' and adolescents' ratings of their self-identification and ethnic identity were positively associated. Parents who had a separated or marginalized style of acculturation reported higher family conflict than those who had an integrated or assimilated acculturation style. Adolescents reported higher self-esteem, less anxiety, and less family conflict when there was no acculturation gap between them and their parents. The findings suggest that how parents relate to their natal, as well as to the host, culture has direct effects on adolescents' ethnic identity achievement and their psychological functioning.

Family Conflict and Young Adults' Attitudes Toward Intimacy

Summary The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between parental conflict and young adults' levels of intimacy. The participants were 317 college students. The hypotheses that offspring from high-conflict families would have less favorable attitudes toward intimacy and more sexual partners than those from low-conflict families were not supported. Also not supported was the prediction that females who had experienced high family conflict would have more positive attitudes toward dating relationships than males who had had similar family experiences. However, a predicted significant relationship between relationship dependency and high family conflict was upheld.

Family environment, child behavior, and medical indicators in children with kidney disease.

Effects of family environment on child behavior symptoms and medical indicators in children with one of three kidney diseases were examined. Parents (n = 41) of children with nephrotic syndrome, chronic renal insufficiency, or kidney transplant completed family environment and child behavior questionnaires. Medical indicators (utilization and medications) were collected from medical records. A model including child age, diagnostic group, and family environment variables successfully predicted all outcomes except internalizing behavior. Higher family conflict predicted more externalizing symptoms and higher number of prescribed medications; higher family cohesion predicted fewer hospitalizations. Nontraditional family structure predicted higher number of prescribed medications. Results are discussed as they relate to a stress and resistance framework, need for research on direction of effect, and clinical recommendations.

Chronic and discrete stress as predictors of children's adjustment.

Diabetes, as a chronic stressor, and negative life events (NLEs), as a discrete stressor, were related to children's behavioral adjustment, along with moderating effects of the family environment. Diabetes and NLEs predicted both higher internalizing (INT) and externalizing (EXT) behavior problems, suggestive of nonspecific distress. Higher family conflict and lower cohesion each predicted more behavior problems (INT-EXT). However, conflict was the sole moderator of the stressors. Higher family conflict and diabetes exacerbated children's EXT behavior problems, with clinically elevated scores. Higher family conflict and higher NLEs resulted in clinically elevated INT-EXT behaviors. Conversely, low family conflict protected children's behavioral functioning from the stressors. Family cohesion was the sole predictor of children's social competencies but did not moderate the stressors.

Family moderators of the relation between hassles and behavior problems in inner-city youth

Examined family moderators of the relation between everyday stressors (hassles) and behavior problems in 99 inner-city children (ages 8-12 years, M = 10.7) and their caregivers. In separate home interviews children reported on their everyday stress, perceived support from mother, and adjustment problems; mothers reported on family demographics, major life stressors, family interaction patterns, and child adjustment difficulties. Higher levels of cohesion and routines attenuated the relation between hassles and both internalizing and externalizing problem behaviors, whereas high family conflict exacerbated the risk for adjustment difficulties. For externalizing behavior, higher levels of family adaptability protected children from the impact of daily hassles. Social support from the mother did not moderate the hassle-adjustment association. Implications for interventions with families are discussed.

Mommy and Daddy like you best: perceived family favouritism in relation to affect, adjustment and family process

Perceived family favouritism and disfavouritism were explored in relation to college students' adjustment, affect and family process. The participants included 127 males and females and 62 of their siblings (age range 18–32 years). Sixty‐five per cent of the participants reported favouritism in their families; 24% reported disfavouritism. There was modest sibling agreement on the presence of family favouritism/disfavouritism as well as on who in the family was doing the favouring or disfavouring. The presence of disfavouritism was found to relate to lower family cohesion, higher family disengagement and higher family conflict. Participants who perceived themselves to be disfavoured also reported more frequent shame and more intense fear. Participants who perceived themselves to be favoured reported less frequent shame. Results are discussed in the context of the empirical and clinical literature on sibling and family interaction and the differential treatment of siblings by parents. A clinical case example is provided to illustrate the results and to highlight the implications for family therapy.

Parents Who Abduct: A Qualitative Study with Implications for Practice

If we conceptualize custody decisions between divorcing parents on a continuum from harmonious to acrimonious, at latter extreme would be those that result in parental abduction. Parental abduction has been defined as the taking, retention, or concealment of a child or children by a parent, other family member, or their agent, in derogation of custody rights...of another parent or family member (Girdner & Hoff, 1992, p. 1). When a parent snatches his or her child with intent of going into hiding, parent is depriving child not only of contact with other parent but with child's accustomed surroundings (home, toys, school, neighborhood), as well as friends and family members. Because these children are typically young, with almost 40 being five or younger (Finkelhor, Hotaling, & Sedlak, 1991), such disjunctures, even for a relatively short period of time, can be harmful to child's emotional development (Greif & Hegar, 1992). As abductions often occur at a time of high family conflict, that is, during a custody battle or as a marriage is breaking up, they can have an additive effect on level of stress for all family members. Particularly with an abduction of significant duration, suffering on part of adults and child involved can be enormous. Abductions have become recognized as a significant social problem. The United States Justice Department has allocated millions of dollars since late 1980s to study and develop programs to cope with them (see, for example, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, 1993). Estimates of family-related abductions have ranged as high as 350,000 annually (Finkelhor et al., 1991). Given that such an event affects three people at a minimum (two parents and a child) and potentially many more (other family members, agents of Federal Bureau of Investigation [FBI], court-related resources, and international governments), abductions merit extensive research. Despite emotional, financial, and intellectual resources that have been expended on this issue, little is known about abducting parent's perspective on circumstances leading up to and stemming from such actions. The dialogue about parental abduction has been dominated by so-called searching, or left-behind parent. It is he or she who contacts police, FBI, private investigators, lawyers, and missing children's organizations in attempts to locate missing child. Searching parents are also willing to participate in studies. Many believe, whether they have recovered their children or not, that their participation in studies geared toward understanding phenomenon of parental abduction will help themselves as well as others (Greif & Hegar, 1993). By contrast, abductors, after location and return of children, have been difficult to find and often refuse requests to be interviewed. They are difficult to locate because searching parent, who is usually contact person, must first agree to give researchers name of abductor. Searching parents are often loathe to do this, as it may inflame an already tenuous relationship. Abductors, if they are found, are reluctant to participate when contacted because they are often distrustful of someone contacting them through searching parent and are suspicious of government-funded research. Although total number of abductions is substantial, few court. jurisdictions handle enough cases to make court-based research fruitful, and such local data have other inherent biases, such as manner in which abductions are reported and idiosyncrasies of bench in that jurisdiction or of laws of state. The purpose of this article is to present findings from qualitative interviews with 17 parents who abducted their children. The reasons abductors gave for their actions are highlighted. This study begins to fill a void in our understanding of what can be a life-changing and, occasionally, life-threatening event. …

The contributions of interpersonal conflict to chronic pain in the presence or absence of organic pathology

This study investigated the influences of social support and interpersonal conflict on chronic pain in patients with arthritis or with myofascial disorders. Measures of social support, conflict, and pain were drawn from subscales of the McGill Pain Questionnaire, the Multidimensional Pain Inventory, the Family Environment Scale, and the Interpersonal Relationships Inventory. Patients with myofascial disorders reported significantly worse pain (sensory and affective), higher depression scores, more interpersonal conflict, and less support from others than patients with arthritis, but did not differ from them on personality traits. Also, the contributions of conflict to pain were found to depend on the nature of the chronic disorder and on the source of the conflict, i.e., significant other, family, or social network members. For patients with arthritis, less intense pain (sensory and affective) was associated with higher family conflict. Less intense sensory pain in arthritis was also associated with more punishing responses from the significant other to pain. For patients with myofascial disorders, more intense affective pain was associated with higher social network conflict. Social support did not significantly contribute to pain for either group. Thus, chronic painful disorders may differ on the influences that social relationships have on pain. The implications of these differences for treatment are discussed.

The Children of Alcoholics Screening Test: relationship to sex, family environment, and social adjustment in adolescents.

The Children of Alcoholics Screening Test (CAST), the Family Environment Scale (relationship scales only), and the Social Maladjustment Scale were administered to 494 male and female adolescents with a mean age of 16.6 years. High CAST scores were found to be related significantly to low family cohesion, high family conflict, and low overall family support. CAST scores were not related significantly to family expressiveness or to social maladjustment. Internal consistency reliability estimates for the CAST for both males and females were in the mid .90s. Finally, CAST scores of male and female adolescents were found to differ significantly, which indicates the need for separate validation studies to determine screening cut-points for the two groups.

Alternate models of family influence on student political ideology.

In a longitudinal design, cross-lagged correlational analysis and path analysis were used to examine the causal relations among parental political ideology, parent-student interpersonal relations, and student political ideology. Data were obtained from 3 waves of a total of 405 white male undergraduates' scores on S. H. Lewis and R. E. Kraut's Student Ideology scale and 3 scales assessing types of family conflicts. Results show both parental ideology and family relations to be important determinants of a student's ideology. Leftist parental ideology and high family conflict each led to leftist student ideology, at least as the family variables were reported by the students. The finding that nonpolitical interpersonal relations were translated into political ideologies may be understood from psychoanalytic, social learning, or historical perspectives. (44 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved)