Correction to Buehler and Welsh (2009).

Reports an error in "A process model of adolescents' triangulation into parents' marital conflict: The role of emotional reactivity" by Cheryl Buehler and Deborah P. Welsh (Journal of Family Psychology, 2009[Apr], Vol 23[2], 167-180). In the article “A Process Model of Adolescents’ Triangulation Into Parents’ Marital Conflict: The Role of Emotional Reactivity” by Cheryl Buehler and Deborah P. Welsh (Journal of Family Psychology, 2009, Vol. 23, No. 2, pp. 167–180), the abstract contains an error. The sample size for the study was 416 rather than 426. (The following abstract of the original article appeared in record 2009-04780-005.) This study examined adolescents' emotional reactivity to parents' marital conflict as a mediator of the association between triangulation and adolescents' internalizing problems in a sample of 2-parent families (N = 426). Four waves of annual, multiple-informant data were analyzed (youth ages 11–15 years). The authors used structural equation modeling and found that triangulation was associated with increases in adolescents' internalizing problems, controlling for marital hostility and adolescent externalizing problems. There also was an indirect pathway from triangulation to internalizing problems across time through youths' emotional reactivity. Moderating analyses indicated that the 2nd half of the pathway, the association between emotional reactivity and increased internalizing problems, characterized youth with lower levels of hopefulness and attachment to parents. The findings help detail why triangulation is a risk factor for adolescents' development and which youth will profit most from interventions focused on emotional regulation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A process model of adolescents' triangulation into parents' marital conflict: The role of emotional reactivity.

[Correction Notice: An erratum for this article was reported in Vol 24(2) of Journal of Family Psychology (see record 2010-07067-002). In the article “A Process Model of Adolescents’ Triangulation Into Parents’ Marital Conflict: The Role of Emotional Reactivity” by Cheryl Buehler and Deborah P. Welsh (Journal of Family Psychology, 2009, Vol. 23, No. 2, pp. 167–180), the abstract contains an error. The sample size for the study was 416 rather than 426.] This study examined adolescents' emotional reactivity to parents' marital conflict as a mediator of the association between triangulation and adolescents' internalizing problems in a sample of 2-parent families (N = 426). Four waves of annual, multiple-informant data were analyzed (youth ages 11–15 years). The authors used structural equation modeling and found that triangulation was associated with increases in adolescents' internalizing problems, controlling for marital hostility and adolescent externalizing problems. There also was an indirect pathway from triangulation to internalizing problems across time through youths' emotional reactivity. Moderating analyses indicated that the 2nd half of the pathway, the association between emotional reactivity and increased internalizing problems, characterized youth with lower levels of hopefulness and attachment to parents. The findings help detail why triangulation is a risk factor for adolescents' development and which youth will profit most from interventions focused on emotional regulation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Emotional, cognitive, and family systems mediators of children's adjustment to interparental conflict.

Emotional, cognitive, and family systems processes have been identified as mediators of the association between interparental conflict and children's adjustment. However, little is known about how they function in relation to one another because they have not all been assessed in the same study. This investigation examined the relations among children's exposure to parental conflict, their appraisals of threat and blame, their emotional reaction, and triangulation into parental disagreements. One hundred fifty ethnically diverse 8- to 12-year-old children and both of their parents participated in the study. Comparisons of 3 models proposing different relations among these processes indicated that they function as parallel and independent mediators of children's adjustment. Specifically, children's self-blaming attributions and emotional distress were uniquely associated with both internalizing and externalizing problems, whereas perceived threat uniquely predicted internalizing problems and triangulation uniquely predicted externalizing problems. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Family Functioning and Children's Adjustment: Associations Among Parents' Depressed Mood, Marital Hostility, Parent-Child Hostility, and Children's Adjustment.

Relations between parents' depressed mood, marital conflict, parent-child hostility, and children's adjustment were examined in a community sample of 136 ten-year-olds and their parents. Videotaped observational and self-report data were used to examine these relations in path analyses. A proposed model was tested in which mothers' and fathers' depressed mood and marital hostility were associated with children's adjustment problems through disruptions in parent-child relationships. Results showed that both mothers' and fathers' marital hostility were linked to parent-child hostility, which in turn was linked to children's internalizing problems. Fathers' depressed mood was linked to children's internalizing problems indirectly through father-child hostility. Fathers' depressed mood was directly linked to children's externalizing problems and indirectly linked through father-child hostility. For mothers, marital hostility was directly linked to children's externalizing problems, and marital hostility in fathers was indirectly linked to children's externalizing problems through father-child hostility. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Marital conflict and support seeking by parents in adolescence: Empirical support for the parentification construct.

Parentification, a parent-child dynamic wherein children come to provide ongoing emotional support for their parents, has been documented extensively in the clinical literature; however, it rarely has been studied systematically. Using a community sample of 83 couples and their adolescent children (mean age = 15.26 years; 52% male, 48% female), the authors linked adolescent self-report of parentification to specific youth and adult behaviors using multiple methods and examined its associations with youth adjustment problems. The parentification measure demonstrated strong internal consistency and 1-year stability. Parentification was associated with marital conflict, youth perceptions of threat, low warmth in the parent-child relationship, and the tendency for youths to intervene in marital conflict. Links were also found with youth reports of internalizing and externalizing behavior and poorer competency in close friendships. These findings thus support the parentification construct and provide evidence that parentification may contribute to poor youth outcomes by burdening children with developmentally inappropriate responsibilities. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Marital and severe parent-to-adolescent physical aggression in clinic-referred families: Mother and adolescent reports on co-occurence and links to child behavior problems.

This study examined the interplay of marital and severe parental physical aggression, and their links to child behavior problems, in 232 families of clinic-referred adolescents. Combined reports from mothers and adolescents indicated that two thirds of adolescents exposed to marital aggression in the past year had also experienced parental aggression. Mothers and fathers who used and/or were victims of marital aggression were both more likely to direct aggression toward their adolescent. Mother and youth reports of marital aggression were tied to each party's report of greater externalizing problems and to youth reports of greater internalizing problems. Severe parental aggression uniquely predicted maternal reports of both behavior problems, after controlling for marital aggression; the reverse was not true. Also, adolescents exposed to both types of family aggression did not display greater maladjustment than those subjected to only one type of family aggression. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Parents' hostility in dyadic marital and triadic family settings and children's behavior problems.

The authors examined the relation between parents' hostility during conflict-focused discussions and child behavior problems. Parents engaged in 3 discussions: a dyadic marital discussion of marital disagreements, a dyadic marital discussion of child-related disagreements, and a triadic family discussion with the child about the child-related disagreements. Eighty-nine 2-parent community families with a child aged 9–13 years participated. A significant 3-way interaction between interparental hostility, parent-to-child hostility, and child sex accounted for variance in children's behavior problems. Among boys, higher levels of parent-to-child hostility during family discussions exacerbated the effects of interparental hostility on boys' adjustment. Thus, exposure to higher levels of both interparental and parent-to-child hostility may put boys at risk for developing internalizing and externalizing behavior problems. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Moderators of the link between marital hostility and change in spouses’ depressive symptoms.

This study examined the moderating roles of marital warmth and recent life events in the association between observed marital hostility and changes in spouses’ depressive symptoms over 3 years. Using the actor-partner interdependence model (APIM), structural equation models (N = 416 couples) suggested that husbands’ marital hostility was significantly related to increases in wives’ depressive symptoms. Moderator analyses showed that husbands’ warmth and wives’ warmth moderate the association between marital hostility and change in wives’ depressive symptoms. The association between husbands’ hostility and increases in wives’ depressive symptoms was stronger under conditions of lower levels of husbands’ warmth than under conditions of higher levels of husbands’ warmth. This same pattern was found for wives’ warmth. Regarding life events, the association between wives’ hostility and increases in husbands’ depressive symptoms was stronger for couples with more recent life events than for couples with fewer recent life events. Practical and empirical implications are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Fathering in family context and child adjustment: A longitudinal analysis.

This study focuses on relations between fathers’ behavior in family context and children’s adjustment, including the roles of paternal depressive symptoms, paternal marital conflict behaviors, paternal parenting, and children’s emotional security. Participants included 235 families with a six-year-old child, with families followed longitudinally each year for three years. In terms of fathers’ adjustment, paternal problem drinking was related to paternal negative marital conflict behaviors and decreased positive parenting, which was associated with children’s externalizing and internalizing problems. Fathers’ depressive symptoms were directly related with children’s internalizing problems. Children’s emotional security was an intervening variable in relations between father’s behavior in family context and children’s development. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

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. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Children's coping with marital conflict and their adjustment and physical health: Vulnerability and protective functions.

Children's strategies for coping with parental marital conflict were examined as predictors, mediators, and moderators of the relations between marital conflict and 8- to 11-year-olds' internalizing, externalizing, and physical health problems. In the context of marital conflict, a higher level of active coping and support coping combined was a protective factor against girls' depression symptoms and self-esteem problems and both boys' and girls' health problems. Further, avoidance coping was a vulnerability factor for externalizing, internalizing, and physical health problems in boys, and distraction coping was protective against children's depression and health problems. These findings extend the literature by delineating coping strategies that either protected children against, or heightened their vulnerability to, adjustment and health problems associated with exposure to parental marital conflict. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

In the Eyes of the Beholder: Cognitive Appraisals as Mediators of the Association Between Interparental Conflict and Youth Maladjustment.

Although the association between interparental conflict and youth maladjustment has been established, processes underlying this relationship are less understood. In this investigation, children's conflict appraisals were examined as mediating variables. In Study 1, 1,893 6th graders reported their perceptions of conflict and appraisals of threat and self-blame. Youth and teachers reported on externalizing and internalizing problems. In Study 2, 416 married parents from the larger sample reported their conflict and youth maladjustment. Children's appraisals of coping efficacy also were examined. Perceived threat, self-blame, and coping efficacy were salient mediators of overt conflict and triangulation, particularly for internalizing problems. Findings indicate that children's beliefs about interparental conflict play an important role in their adjustment to this family stressor. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The Relationship Between Automatic Thoughts and Negative Emotions in Children and Adolescents: A Test of the Cognitive Content-Specificity Hypothesis.

The aim of this study was to test the cognitive content-specificity hypothesis in children and adolescents aged 7-16 years. Participants consisted of a community sample of 200 youth and a clinical sample of 160 youth with anxiety, depressive, or disruptive behavior disorders. Participants completed several self-report measures assessing a wide range of negative beliefs and symptoms of internalizing and externalizing problems. Multivariate analyses examining the interrelationships between beliefs and noncognitive symptoms revealed that thoughts on loss or personal failure were the strongest predictors of depressive symptoms, thoughts on social threat were the strongest predictors of anxiety symptoms, and thoughts on hostility or revenge were the strongest predictors of aggression. Results showed clear evidence of cognitive-affective specificity across both internalizing and externalizing problems in youth. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Marital conflict, maternal and paternal parenting, and child adjustment: A test of mediation and moderation.

Parenting was examined as a mediator of associations between marital and child adjustment, and parent gender was examined as a moderator of associations among marital, parental, and child functioning in 226 families with a school-age child (146 boys). Parenting fully mediated associations between marital conflict and child internalizing and externalizing behaviors. Parent gender did not moderate associations when data from the full sample or families with girls only were evaluated. Parent gender did moderate associations when families with boys were evaluated, with the association between marital conflict and parenting stronger for fathers than mothers. A trend suggested fathers' parenting may be more strongly related to internalizing behavior and mothers' parenting may be more strongly related to externalizing behavior in boys. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Parental depression and interparental conflict: Children and adolescents’ self-blame and coping responses.

The present study examined the role of children and adolescents’ perceptions of self-blame specific to interparental conflict and children and adolescents’ coping behaviors in the context of parental depression as predictors of internalizing and externalizing symptoms in a sample of 108 youth (age 9–15 years old) of parents with a history of depression. Higher levels of current depressive symptoms in parents were associated with higher levels of interparental conflict and higher levels of internalizing symptoms in children and adolescents, and interparental conflict was positively associated with both internalizing and externalizing symptoms in children/adolescents. Consistent across a series of multiple regression models, children and adolescents’ perceptions of self-blame and use of secondary control coping (acceptance, distraction, cognitive restructuring, positive thinking) were significant, independent predictors of both internalizing and externalizing symptoms. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Home sweet home(s): Parental separations, residential moves, and adjustment problems in low-income adolescent girls.

Associations between histories of family disruption (residential moves and separations from parent figures) and adolescent adjustment (including educational, internalizing, externalizing, and sexual behavior outcomes) were examined in a random sample of 267 African American girls from 3 urban poverty neighborhoods. Higher numbers of residential moves and parental separations significantly predicted greater adolescent adjustment problems after household demographic characteristics were controlled. Adolescents' perceptions of their current relationships and neighborhoods were significantly associated with adolescent adjustment but did not mediate the effects of family disruption. Associations between parental separations and adolescent outcomes were strongest for externalizing problems and were found for both male and female caregivers, for long-standing and more temporary caregivers, and for separations in early childhood, middle childhood, and adolescence. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Maternal depression, paternal psychopathology, and adolescent diagnostic outcomes.

The authors examined the relationship between maternal depression, paternal psychopathology, and adolescent diagnostic outcomes in a community sample of 522 Australian families. They also examined whether chronic family stress, father's expressed emotion, and parents' marital satisfaction mediated the relationship between parental psychopathology and adolescent outcomes. Mother's education, child's gender, and family income were covaried in all analyses. Results revealed that maternal depression and paternal depression had an additive effect on youth externalizing disorders. In addition, maternal depression interacted with both paternal depression and paternal substance abuse in predicting youth depression but not youth nondepressive disorders. Chronic family stress and father's expressed emotion appeared to mediate the relationship between parental psychopathology and youth depression. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Interparental conflict, negative parenting, and children's adjustment: Bridging links between parents' depression and children's psychological distress.

Pathways linking parental depressive symptoms, adult relationship insecurity, interparental conflict, negative parenting, and children's psychological adjustment (internalizing symptoms and externalizing problems) were assessed using a 3-wave longitudinal research design. Two-parent families (N = 352) with 11- to 13-year-old children (179 boys, 173 girls) participated in the study. Maternal and paternal depressive symptoms were associated with insecurity in adult close relationships assessed 12 months later, which was concurrently related to heightened levels of interparental conflict. Controlling for children's initial symptom levels, interparental conflict was related to child appraisals of father and mother rejection assessed an additional 12 months later, which were related to children's internalizing symptoms and externalizing problems, respectively. Results are discussed with regard to the implications for understanding the complex interplay between adult depressive symptoms, attributions in close adult relationships, interparental conflict, negative parenting, and children's psychological adjustment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A longitudinal study of social competence among children of alcoholic and nonalcoholic parents: Role of parental psychopathology, parental warmth, and self-regulation.

This study tested a conceptual model predicting children's social competence in a sample of children with alcoholic and non-alcoholic parents. The model examined the role of parents' alcohol diagnoses, depression, and antisocial behavior at 12–18 months of child age in predicting parental warmth/sensitivity at 2 years of child age. Parental warmth/sensitivity at 2 years was hypothesized to predict children's self-regulation and externalizing behavior problems at 3 years. Parenting, self-regulation, and behavior problems were expected to predict social competence in kindergarten. Structural equations modeling was supportive of this model. Fathers' alcohol diagnosis was associated with lower warmth/sensitivity. Lower maternal warmth/sensitivity at 2 years was predictive of lower child self-regulation at 3 years. Parenting, self-regulation, and externalizing behavior problems were predictive of social competence in kindergarten, although associations varied by reporter (parents or teacher). There was a direct association between fathers' alcohol diagnosis and father reports of social competence, and between fathers' depression and teacher reports of social competence. The study elucidates developmental processes in predicting social competence and the role of fathers' alcoholism and associated risk factors in this process. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reciprocal influences between parents' marital problems and adolescent internalizing and externalizing behavior.

The present study examines reciprocal associations between marital functioning and adolescent maladjustment using cross-lagged autoregressive models. The research involved 451 early adolescents and their families and used a prospective, longitudinal research design with multi-informant methods. Results indicate that parental conflicts over child rearing predicted adolescent depressive symptoms and delinquency. In turn, these adolescent problems exacerbated parental conflicts over child rearing. Furthermore, conflict over child rearing served as the nexus through which more generalized marital dissatisfaction and adolescent adjustment problems were reciprocally interrelated. This research replicates earlier observations that marital problems intensify adolescent maladjustment and extends the literature by demonstrating that adolescent problems also predict marital conflict and ultimately marital dissatisfaction. In sum, the present study demonstrates that marital dissatisfaction, conflict over child rearing, and early adolescent adjustment difficulties are interwoven in a dynamic family system marked by reciprocity along these dimensions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)