Interparental Hostility Research Articles

Continuity in hostile family relationships mediated by family psychopathology: An application of systems perspective.

Grounded in the family systems theory within the life course systems perspective, this study sought to investigate (a) long-term transmission processes of hostility from interparental relationships to parent-young adult relationships and (b) the mediational roles of parents' and adolescents' psychopathology in these long-term processes. Research has examined the long-term transmission of hostility from interparental relationships to young adults' relationships with their parents. However, less is known about how this transmission process differs for father-young adult and mother-young adult relationships and if psychopathology is a mechanism that contributes to the transmission of hostility. Utilizing a structural equation model and prospective, longitudinal data from couples in enduring marriages and their offspring (n = 345 families), we examined long-term associations between interparental hostility when offspring were adolescents and young adults (1990 and 2001), adolescents' hostile relationships with their fathers and mothers (1991), and young adults' hostile relationships with their fathers and mothers (2003) as well as the mediating roles of fathers', mothers', and adolescents' psychopathology (1992 and 1994). Interparental hostility was more strongly linked to hostility between mothers (rather than fathers) and their young adult offspring. Fathers', mothers', and adolescents' psychopathology uniquely mediated the transmission processes. This study elucidated transmission processes of interparental hostility to young adults' relationship hostility with their parents and offers insights into the unique mediational roles of each family member's psychopathology. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Interparental Hostility Interacts with Interparental Cooperative Conflict to Predict Adolescent Social Competence Through Parent-Child Relationship Quality.

An emerging (yet still scant) body of research has linked interparental hostility to youth compromised social competence over time among adolescents. Moreover, little is known about the conditions under which and the processes through which this association might occur. Using prospective data from 878 youth (50.23% females) and their parents and teachers, this study examined how interparental hostility and cooperative conflict might work in conjunction with each other to predict youth social competence over time via parent-child relationship quality. Results demonstrated that interparental cooperative conflict at grade 5 buffered the negative association between interparental hostility at grade 5 and mother-child but not father-child relationship quality at grade 6. Mother-child relationship quality, in turn, was associated positively with youth social competence at age 15. As such, interparental hostility at grade 5 was negatively related to youth social competence at age 15 via mother-child relationship quality at grade 6 only when interparental cooperative conflict at grade 5 was low. This study represents a more nuanced and specific examination of the implications of interparental hostility for child later social development by highlighting underlying moderating and mediating mechanisms. Relevant implications for the development of more targeted and effective interventions are also discussed.

Brief Acrimony Scale – 8 (BACS-8) for Separated Parents – Development and Validation

ABSTRACT The current study aimed to develop a reliable, valid, and condensed version of the 25-item Acrimony Scale. In a sample of 451 separated parents seeking family mediation, an Exploratory Factor Analysis showed 8 items, focusing on inter-parental hostility, loading highly on a single factor. In a second sample of 447 separated parents, a Confirmatory Factor Analysis replicated the structure. The Brief Acrimony Scale-8 (BACS-8) was correlated with co-parental conflict communication, and with parental alliance. The BACS-8 has high internal consistency, a replicable factor structure, and is potentially useful for quick, routine screening of co-parenting conflict.

Hostile interactions in the family: Patterns and links to youth externalizing problems.

In line with family systems theory, we examined patterns of hostile interactions within families and their associations with externalizing problems among early-adolescent children. Using hostility scores based on observational data of six dyadic interactions during a triadic interaction (n = 462) (i.e., child-to-mother, mother-to-child, child-to-father, father-to-child, mother-to-father, father-to-mother)-Latent Profile Analysis supported three distinct profiles of hostility. The Low/Moderate Hostile profile included families with the lowest levels of hostility across dyads; families in the Mutual Parent-Child Hostile profile scored higher on parent-child hostility, but lower on interparental hostility; the Hostile Parent profile showed higher levels of parent-to-child and interparental hostility, but lower child-to-parent hostility. Concerning links to youth outcomes, youth in the Mutual Parent-Child Hostile profile reported the highest level of externalizing problems, both concurrently and longitudinally. These results point to the importance of examining larger family patterns of hostility to fully understand the association between family hostility and youth adjustment.

Family Dynamics and Young Adults' Well-Being: The Mediating Role of Sibling Bullying.

Although a common form of family violence, sibling bullying is often viewed as harmless by families and society. Consequently, it has not received as much attention in research compared with peer bullying or other types of family violence, such as interpartner violence, child abuse, and elder abuse. Considering that sibling relationships have lasting effects on children's development, this retrospective study focused on the antecedents and outcomes of sibling bullying. Grounded in family system theory and social learning theory, it explored whether sibling bullying during childhood and adolescence mediated the relationship between negative family dynamics (i.e., sibling rivalry, interparental hostility, and parental hostility) and young adults' well-being (i.e., sense of competence, internalized problems, self-esteem, and satisfaction with life). Data from 216 respondents were analyzed using structural equation modeling. Results revealed that young adults who reported higher levels of sibling rivalry and interparental hostility were more likely to be victims of sibling bullying. In turn, sibling bullying was associated with lower sense of competence, self-esteem, and life satisfaction, as well as more internalized problems. Parents' hostile behaviors toward their children were not associated with sibling bullying but were negatively associated with well-being in early adulthood. Our work underlines the importance of harmonious family dynamics and the need for sibling bullying to be taken more seriously by parents and family members. From a clinical point of view, our findings suggest that clinicians and human service workers should adopt a family-level approach when trying to reduce sibling bullying and its negative outcomes by educating parents about the interdependence of family relationships.

Interparental hostility and children's externalizing symptoms: Attention to anger as a mediator.

This study examined children's attention biases to negative emotional stimuli as mediators of associations between interparental hostility and children's externalizing symptoms. Participants included 243 children (Mage = 4.60 years) and their parents and teachers across three annual measurement occasions. Cross-lagged latent change analyses revealed that the association between interparental hostility and children's externalizing symptoms was mediated by children's attention to angry, but not sad or fearful, adult faces. Consistent with defensive exclusion models, the multimethod, multi-informant assessment of interparental hostility at Wave 1 specifically predicted decreases in children's attention to angry faces from Waves 1 to 2 in a visual search task. Declines in children's attention to anger, in turn, predicted increases in teacher reports of their externalizing problems across the three waves. Follow-up analyses further indicated that children's decreasing levels of emotional security in the interparental relationship were associated with the decreases in children's attention to angry stimuli. Results are discussed in relation to how they inform and advance information processing and social threat models in developmental psychopathology. (PsycINFO Database Record

Supplemental Material for Interparental Hostility and Children’s Externalizing Symptoms: Attention to Anger as a Mediator

Supplemental Material for Interparental Hostility and Children’s Externalizing Symptoms: Attention to Anger as a Mediator

Parenting stressors and young adolescents' depressive symptoms: Does high vagal suppression offer protection?

Grounded in a dual-risk, biosocial perspective of developmental psychopathology, this study examined the role of higher vagal suppression in providing young adolescents protection from four parenting stressors. It was expected that lower vagal suppression would increase youth vulnerability to the deleterious effects of these parenting stressors. Depressive symptoms were examined as a central marker of socioemotional difficulties during early adolescence. The four parenting stressors examined were interparental hostility, maternal use of harsh discipline, maternal inconsistent discipline, and maternal psychological control. Participants were 68 young adolescents (Grade 6) and their mothers. Greater vagal suppression provided protection (i.e., lower depressive symptoms) from interparental hostility, harsh discipline, and maternal psychological control for boys but not for girls.

The multiple faces of interparental conflict: Implications for cascades of children’s insecurity and externalizing problems.

This multistudy article examined the relative strength of mediational pathways involving hostile, disengaged, and uncooperative forms of interparental conflict, children's emotional insecurity, and their externalizing problems across 2 longitudinal studies. Participants in Study 1 consisted of 243 preschool children (M age = 4.60 years) and their parents, whereas Study 2 consisted of 263 adolescents (M age = 12.62 years) and their parents. Both studies utilized multimethod, multi-informant assessment batteries within a longitudinal design with 3 measurement occasions. Across both studies, lagged, autoregressive tests of the mediational paths revealed that interparental hostility was a significantly stronger predictor of the prospective cascade of children's insecurity and externalizing problems than interparental disengagement and low levels of interparental cooperation. Findings further indicated that interparental disengagement was a stronger predictor of the insecurity pathway than was low interparental cooperation for the sample of adolescents in Study 2. Results are discussed in relation to how they inform and advance developmental models of family risk. (PsycINFO Database Record

Sexual Assault Among College Students: Family of Origin Hostility, Attachment, and the Hook-Up Culture as Risk Factors

Sexual assault has been recognized as a major public health problem and social concern among college students for several decades. In response to the inadequacies of many universities to effectively address this problem, researchers, policy makers, and the public alike have recently called for greater attention to reducing the high rates of sexual violence against college women. The present study expands on the current literature by investigating familial, individual, and sociocultural risk factors for sexual assault. Specifically, we examine insecure adult attachment styles and the hook-up culture on college campuses as mediators in the relationship between family of origin aggression and sexual assault perpetration by men and victimization among women. Research questions were addressed with a sample of 624 college undergraduates (54 % women). Consistent with hypotheses, results of structural equation modeling indicated that an avoidant attachment style and participation in the hook-up culture accounted for the relationship between exposure to interparental hostility and sexual assault perpetration by men and victimization among women. Further, among women, an anxious attachment style accounted for the relationship between harsh parenting and victimization. These findings have important implications for future research, relationship education programs for parents and young adults, and preventative interventions. For example, parents can learn about the risks of exposing their offspring to hostility and aggression while adolescents and young adults may benefit from relationship education programs that help establish healthy working models of relationships.

Interparental Conflicts in Dyadic and Triadic Contexts: Parental Depression Symptoms and Conflict History Predict Differences

Using a family systems approach, this study investigated differences in interparental conflict behavior in dyadic versus triadic contexts, and considered the potential moderating roles of interparental conflict history and parental depression symptoms. The community sample included 74 couples with an infant between 6 and 14 months of age. Behavioral observations were made of parents during interparental conflict resolution tasks. Parents were observed in both a dyadic context with just the two of them and in a triadic context with their infants present. Task order was counterbalanced across families. Multiple parental conflict behaviors, emotions, and resolution were coded based on the behavioral observations. Parents self-reported on their conflict history and depression symptoms. Mothers and fathers displayed less depressive conflict in their infants’ presence versus absence and mothers additionally displayed decreased constructive conflict when their infants were present, but neither parent differed in their expressions of destructive conflict across contexts, indicating an overall lack of shielding children from conflict. Both interparental conflict history and parental depression symptoms moderated associations between parents’ conflict behavior and the conflict context for fathers and mothers. Results supported family systems theory’s notions that marital subsystem boundaries can be eroded as a function of family stress, allowing interparental hostility or depression symptoms to spill over into triadic family interactions. Implications for family therapists and community parent education programs are discussed.

Foster parenting together: Foster parent couples

Almost two-thirds of children in non-relative foster care live in homes headed by married couples. However, the literature includes little about either the role of foster fathers or the complexity and importance of the marital context for fostering. This study examined family functioning, overt interparental hostility, depression, and parental acceptance in a sample of 111 heterosexual foster parent couples and the relationship between family context and potential to foster parent successfully. Latent class analysis revealed three distinct types of foster parent couples, “Good Context” (33%), “Typical” (56%), and “Bad Context-Discordant” (11%) couples. “Bad Context-Discordant” couples are notable for having much lower scores on all context measures, for differences between mothers and fathers, and for the fact that most fathers had depression scores in the clinical range. Finally, results indicated that better family context was related to greater potential to foster successfully and that on three of five dimensions measured mothers exhibited greater potential.

Family structure, co-parental relationship quality, post-separation paternal involvement and children’s emotional wellbeing

It is well documented that children who experience parental divorce are more likely than those in intact families to experience a range of emotional and behavioural adjustment problems, and to perform less well academically. However, few studies of the impact of divorce have exclusively considered young children. This paper takes advantage of a recent Australian child cohort study to examine links between young children’s emotional wellbeing, the quality of the co-parental relationship, and post-separation paternal involvement. We found that while children aged 6–7 years living with both parents generally had better emotional wellbeing than similar aged children living with one parent, inter-parental hostility was an important factor in explainingyoung children’s emotional wellbeing. But regardless of family type, children whose parents had a hostile inter-parental relationship tended to have poorer emotional wellbeing than children whose parents did not have a non-hostile relationship, as reported by children and their parents.

Understanding Chinese American Adolescents' Developmental Outcomes: Insights From the Family Stress Model

In this brief report, we investigated whether the Family Stress Model could be replicated with a sample of Chinese American families. Path analyses with 444 adolescents and their parents provided support for the model's generalizability. Specifically, mothers' and fathers' reports of economic status (i.e., income, financial and job instability) were associated with parents' economic stress. Economic stress and economic status were related to parental depressive symptoms, which, in turn, were associated with more hostile and coercive parenting, less nurturing and involved parenting, and greater interparental hostility. Finally, mothers' hostile and coercive parenting were directly related to both adolescents' academic and sociobehavioral outcomes, whereas fathers' nurturing and involved parenting related to academic but not sociobehavioral outcomes.

The Marginalization of Nonresident Fathers: Their Postdivorce Roles

ABSTRACT A sample of 260 Australian men were surveyed about their experience as nonresident fathers and their contact with their children. Most reported having little input into decisions concerning children's postseparation living arrangements, the amount of child support they paid, and the spending of their child support payments. Many claimed to have very limited say in any parenting decisions, and little or no involvement in children's schools. Fathers' limited parental role was found to be negatively correlated with their ongoing contact and involvement with children, and positively with their reported level of interparental hostility. Many respondents viewed their marginalization as parents as an impediment to their capacity to develop meaningful relationships with their children.

Significant Family Dynamics Related to Postdivorce Adjustment in Parents and Children

ABSTRACT This study concentrates on the postdivorce adjustment of parents and children in families with shared parenting time arrangements. Thirty divorcing parents with children aged 12 to 59 months old were interviewed using a semistructured telephone interview regarding their early experiences in the divorce process. Findings showed that work–family balance issues were related to postdivorce parental adjustment for mothers. Interparental hostility was related to child alienation and paternal overnight stays. Length of time since physical separation was related to number of overnight stays. These results shed light on the early experiences of families with young children going through the divorce process.

Interparental Hostility and Early Adolescent Problem Behavior

To explore the link between interparental hostility and adolescent problem behaviors, the current study examines four important maternal parenting dimensions as potential mediators: acceptance, harshness, inconsistency, and psychological intrusiveness. With a primary sample of 1,893 sixth-grade students, the measures included adolescent and teacher reports. Structural equation modeling revealed that each parenting construct partially mediated both internalizing and externalizing adolescent problems. Harshness was the strongest mediator for adolescent externalizing. Psychological intrusiveness and low maternal acceptance were the strongest mediators for adolescent internalizing. Inconsistency linked similarly to both internalizing and externalizing. Stronger linkages were found in families with married parents compared to those with divorced parents, but overall the patterns were similar. Youth gender and ethnic differences in the spillover processes were minimal. The findings provide a process model for understanding interparental conflict and adolescent problems.

Longitudinal associations between parents' hostility and siblings' externalizing behavior in the context of marital discord.

This study examined longitudinal associations between parents' hostility and siblings' externalizing behavior in the context of interparental discord. The sample included 116 families (mothers, fathers, 2 siblings) assessed in middle childhood, when siblings were, on average, 8 and 10 years old, and in adolescence, at average ages of 14 and 16 years. Parents reported on their hostility toward each child and on each child's externalizing problems. Raters observed interparental hostility, and parents rated their marital quality. Results indicated both within-family and between-families effects. Specifically, the child who received more parental hostility than his or her sibling showed greater increases in externalizing problems than his or her sibling; this association was moderated by marital discord. In addition, the child who exhibited more behavioral problems than his or her sibling received greater increases in hostile mothering than did his or her sibling. Between-families effects were evident, in that children's externalizing problems were associated with increases in mothers' hostility toward both children in the family. Results support transactional models of development and family systems theory.

Impact of Hostility and Withdrawal in Interparental Conflict on Parental Emotional Unavailability and Children's Adjustment Difficulties

This multimethod, prospective study examined the nature of pathways between interparental hostility and withdrawal, parental emotional unavailability, and subsequent changes in children's internalizing and externalizing behaviors, and school adjustment difficulties over a 3-year period in a sample of 210 mothers, fathers, and 6-year-old children. The results of autoregressive structural equation models indicated that interparental withdrawal had a detrimental impact on all areas of children's adjustment, whereas interparental hostility had an indirect effect on subsequent changes in child adjustment. An intermediary role of parental emotional unavailability in links between interparental withdrawal and hostility and child outcomes was indicated, with specific, differential effects observed for fathers and mothers.

Interparental Hostility and Early Adolescent Problem Behavior: The Mediating Role of Specific Aspects of Parenting

This study examines how parenting helps explain the contemporaneous association between interparental hostility and adolescent problem behavior. A theoretical model of spillover was tested specifying five aspects of mothers' and fathers' parenting that might be associated with parents' hostile interactions with one another: harshness, inconsistency, psychological intrusiveness, and lower levels of acceptance and monitoring knowledge. The sample consisted of 416 early adolescents and their married parents. The association between interparental hostility and adolescent externalizing problems was mediated uniquely by fathers' and mothers' harshness, lower levels of fathers' monitoring knowledge, and mothers' psychological intrusiveness. The association between interparental hostility and adolescent internalizing was mediated uniquely by mothers' harshness, psychological intrusiveness, and lower levels of acceptance. These patterns were similar for sons and daughters.