Categories and continua of destructive and constructive marital conflict tactics from the perspective of U.S. and Welsh children.

Categories and continue of parents' marital conflict tactics based on multiple, conceptually grounded criteria were tested. Participants were 175 U.S. children, ages 8-16 years (88 boys, 87 girls) and 327 Welsh children, ages 11-12 years (159 boys, 168 girls). Children's responses (affective, cognitive, behavioral) to analog presentations of 10 everyday marital conflict tactics enacted by fathers or mothers showed substantial variation as a function of tactic used. Orderings of conflict tactics on the various response criteria varied as a function of moderators, particularly the gender of the parent expressing the conflict tactic. Conflict tactics were classified as either constructive or destructive according to criteria derived from the emotional security hypothesis. Except for calm discussion, classifications did not change regardless of cultural group, parent gender, or child age or gender. Recommendations for negotiating everyday marital conflict for the children's sake are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Children's emotions as organizers of their reactions to interadult anger: A functionalist perspective.

Children's emotions have been implicated as mediating their responses to interadult anger, but this proposition has not been directly tested. Sixty-four 4–8 year olds (32 boys and 32 girls) were induced to feel angry, sad, happy, or "just okay" before their exposure to interadult anger. Data were analyzed by means of (a) analyses of variance testing differences across conditions and (b) correlations between children's emotions during affect induction procedures and their reactions to interadult anger. Findings indicated that negative emotions increased children's distress and negative appraisals and expectations in reaction to interadult anger, whereas positive emotions reduced distress reactions and increased children's positive expectations about future interadult interactions. The results support a functionalist view that emotions can play a causal role in organizing and directing children's reactions to events and are consistent with research and theory highlighting the role of emotionality in children's coping with marital conflict. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relations of Husbands' and Wives' Dysphoria to Marital Conflict Resolution Strategies.

This study investigated relations between spouses' dysphoria and constructive and destructive emotions and tactics displayed by husbands and wives throughout marital conflicts. Behavioral observations were made of 267 couples' interactions during marital conflict resolution tasks. Husbands' and wives' dysphoria levels were related to particular negative marital conflict expressions and the absence of positive strategies, even after taking into account couples' marital satisfaction and their partners' levels of dysphoria. Moreover, in comparison with wives' dysphoria, husbands' dysphoria was associated with more pervasive impairments in couples" conflict strategies evident in multiple contexts of conflict resolution, including discussion of relatively minor sources of disagreement. Implications for the treatment of depressed or maritally discordant couples are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Marital conflicts in the home when children are present versus absent.

Characteristics of marital conflict when children (8-16 years) were present versus absent were compared on the basis of 47 mothers' and fathers' reports during a 15-day period. Mothers described 669 incidents of marital conflict, and fathers described 551 incidents. About two thirds of the conflicts occurred in children's absence. Contrary to predictions, conflicts in which children were present were more negative (e.g., more negative emotions, more destructive conflict tactics) and more often about children than were child-absent conflicts. Although parents may attempt to protect children from conflict exposure, children tend to be exposed to a relatively hostile and emotionally negative subset of the marital conflicts that occur in the home. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Parent, family, and child characteristics: Associations with mother- and father-reported emotion socialization practices.

The present research examined parental beliefs about children’s negative emotions, parent-reported marital conflict/ambivalence, and child negative emotionality and gender as predictors of mothers’ and fathers’ reported reactions to their kindergarten children’s negative emotions and self-expressiveness in the family (N = 55, two-parent families). Models predicting parents’ nonsupportive reactions and negative expressiveness were significant. For both mothers and fathers, more accepting beliefs about children’s negative emotions were associated with fewer nonsupportive reactions, and greater marital conflict/ambivalence was associated with more negative expressiveness. Furthermore, interactions between child negative emotionality and parental resources (e.g., marital conflict/ambivalence; accepting beliefs) emerged for fathers’ nonsupportive reactions and mothers’ negative expressiveness. In some instances, child gender acted as a moderator such that associations between parental beliefs about emotions and the emotion socialization outcomes emerged when child and parent gender were concordant. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The Relations of Parental Expressivity and Support to Children's Coping With Daily Stress.

The relations of parents' emotional expressivity, mothers' support, and children's daily stress to children's constructive coping were examined in a sample of ninety-four 7- to 12-year-old children. For 2 weeks, children, together with their mothers, completed daily diaries of their stressful events. Mothers and fathers reported on their expression of positive, negative submissive, and negative dominant emotion. Although fathers' expressivity was not related to children's constructive coping, mothers' expression of negative emotion, particularly negative dominant emotion, was negatively related to children's constructive coping. Children's stress was negatively related to their constructive coping, and this relation was stronger for children exposed to low levels of parents' positive emotion and mothers' expression of negative submissive emotion. Children's constructive coping was positively related to mothers' supportive strategies. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Parents' responses to the emotional distress of their children: Relations with children's competence.

Although investigators have proposed in various theories that the socialization of emotions has important implications for children's general competence, very little empirical data exist. In the present study, parents' responses to the emotional distress of their preschool children were examined in the context of more general dimensions of parenting (warmth and control), and the relation of these responses to children's competence was assessed. Data on parent–child interactions were collected for 30 families, using home observations, parent self-reports, observer ratings, and child interviews. Children's competence in preschool was assessed by teacher ratings. Effective, situationally appropriate action was the most frequently observed parental response to children's upset, and children's attributions to parents of such pragmatic responses was positively related to their competence in preschool. Parental encouragement of emotional expressiveness was also positively associated with child competence. Variables assessing positive responses to upset, although related to warmth (as expected), also contributed independently to children's competence. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Children and marital conflict resolution: Implications for emotional security and adjustment.

This study addresses multiple gaps in understanding the implications of marital conflict resolution for children. Mothers' diary home reports (N = 102 mothers, N = 578 reports) of marital conflict resolution (i.e., compromise, apology, submission, agreement to disagree, withdrawal) and of children's responses, along with the reactions of children (N = 163) to analogue presentations of the same conflict endings in the laboratory, were examined. The significance of specific marital conflict endings, including the emotionality of endings, was supported and demonstrated for the first time in the home. Parents' and children's appraisals of resolution were generally similar, although for some endings these appraisals differed, supporting the notion that children are sensitive to the broader implications of conflict endings for interparental relations and family functioning. Children's responses to conflict resolution were related to their broader adjustment, further indicating the significance of conflict endings to understanding the impact of marital conflict. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Children's influence in the marital relationship.

In a 3-wave longitudinal study, the authors tested hypotheses regarding children's influence on the marital relationship, examining relations between interparental discord and children's negative emotional reactivity, agentic behavior, dysregulated behavior, and psychosocial adjustment. Participants were 232 cohabiting mothers and fathers who completed questionnaires and a marital conflict resolution task. Consistent with theory, interparental discord related to children's negative emotional reactivity, which in turn related to children's agentic and dysregulated behavior. Agentic behavior related to decreases in interparental discord, whereas dysregulated behavior related to increases in discord and elevations in children's adjustment problems. Person-oriented analyses of agentic and dysregulated responses indicated distinct clusters of children linked with meaningful individual differences in marital and psychosocial functioning. Results are discussed in terms of possible mechanisms of child effects, such as increased parental awareness of children's distress potentially leading to reduced marital conflict. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Marital conflict and the quality of young children's peer play behavior: The mediating and moderating role of parent–child emotional reciprocity and attachment security.

Parent–child attachment security and dyadic measures of parent–child positive and negative emotional reciprocity were examined as possible mediators and moderators of the connection between marital conflict and children's peer play behavior. Eighty parents were observed in a laboratory play session with their 15- to 18-month-old child. Subsequently, at 36 months children were observed interacting with peers at their child care setting. Connections between marital conflict and children's positive peer interaction were mediated by mother–child attachment security, mother–child positive emotional reciprocity, and father–child negative emotional reciprocity. Connections between marital conflict and children's negative peer interaction were mediated by mother–child positive emotional reciprocity and father–child attachment security. Parent–child attachment security and negative emotional reciprocity emerged as important moderators of the connection between marital conflict and children's peer play behavior. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Dimensions of marital conflict and children's social problem-solving skills.

Marital conflict has been shown to be negatively associated with child functioning. This study examined the relationships of negative and positive aspects of marital conflict and frequency of conflict with children's social problem-solving skills, as measured by effectiveness of alternative solutions. Mothers, fathers, and children reported on marital conflict. Mothers' higher negative conflict characteristics, in the context of greater frequency of conflict, and less frequent positive conflict characteristics, in the context of lower frequency of conflict, were significantly associated with their children's less effective social problem-solving solutions. For fathers, none of the negative but one of the positive conflict characteristics was significantly associated with their children's more effective social problem-solving solutions, regardless of the frequency of marital conflict. Children's perceptions of their parents' conflict were not significant predictors of their social problem-solving skills. Findings are interpreted in the framework of children's modeling aggressive conflict. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Adult conflict history and children's subsequent responses to conflict: An experimental test.

Although correlations between marital conflict histories and increased reactivity by children during conflict exposure are well documented (i.e., sensitization), questions about causality remain unresolved. This study subjected the sensitization hypothesis, which is a critical prediction of several theories about interparental conflict, to an experimental test. Children in 3 age groups (early childhood, preadolescence, late adolescence) viewed videotapes of an adult couple engaged in a history of (a) 4 hostile, unresolved conflicts (destructive) or (b) 4 mild, resolved conflicts (constructive). Next, all children were interviewed about their responses after witnessing a standard conflict between the same adult couple. Supporting the sensitization hypothesis, destructive conflict histories elicited more negative patterns of responding across multiple domains; age and gender moderated many effects. Results suggested that constructive conflict histories had benign effects on children. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Prediction of Children's Empathy-Related Responding From Their Effortful Control and Parents' Expressivity.

In this study, the linear and interactive relations of children's effortful control and parents' emotional expressivity to children's empathy-related responses were examined. Participants were 214 children, 4.5 to 8 years old. Children's effortful control was negatively related to their personal distress and was positively related to their sympathy. Parents' positive expressivity was marginally negatively related to children's personal distress and was marginally positively related to children's dispositional sympathy. Parents' negative expressivity was positively related to children's personal distress, but primarily at high levels of children's effortful control. Moreover, parents' negative expressivity was negatively related to children's situational sympathy at low levels of effortful control but was positively related to children's dispositional sympathy at high levels of effortful control. There were also quadratic relations between the measures of parents' expressivity and children's empathy-related responses. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The role of specific emotions in children's responses to interparental conflict: A test of the model.

Mothers, fathers, and their 6-year-old children (N?=?164) participated in a study testing key tenets of the specific emotions model of marital conflict. Parents reported their marital conflict strategies, were observed interacting with their children, and rated children's behavioral adjustment. Children reported their emotional reactions to specific interparental conflicts. Results support the specific emotions model. Children's behaviors mirrored the marital or parental behaviors of same-gender parents. Indirect effects of marital aggression through parental behavior were detected, and marital and parental behaviors interacted to predict girls' externalizing. Girls' anger, sadness, and fear increased with fathers' marital aggression. Fear and the anger by fear interaction predicted girls' internalizing. Fathers' marital aggression interacted with anger to predict externalizing and interacted with fear to predict internalizing behavior in boys. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Developmental family processes and interparental conflict: Patterns of microlevel influences.

Although there are frequent calls for the study of effects of children on families and mutual influence processes within families, little empirical progress has been made. We address these questions at the level of microprocesses during marital conflict, including children's influence on marital conflict and parents' influence on each other. Participants were 111 cohabiting couples with a child (55 male, 56 female) age 8–16 years. Data were drawn from parents' diary reports of interparental conflict over 15 days and were analyzed with dynamic systems modeling tools. Child emotions and behavior during conflicts were associated with interparental positivity, negativity, and resolution at the end of the same conflicts. For example, children's agentic behavior was associated with more marital conflict resolution, whereas child negativity was linked with more marital negativity. Regarding parents' influence on each other, among the findings, husbands' and wives' influence on themselves from one conflict to the next was indicated, and total number of conflicts predicted greater influence of wives' positivity on husbands' positivity. Contributions of these findings to the understanding of developmental family processes are discussed, including implications for advanced understanding of interrelations between child and adult functioning and development. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Marital conflict and parental hostility: Links with children's sibling and peer relationships.

The authors examined the associations between marital conflict and children's relationships with siblings and peers. Mothers' and fathers' hostility toward children and children's interpretations of parents' marital conflict (self-blame and feeling threatened) were investigated as mediators between marital conflict and children's sibling and peer relationships. The sample included 136 intact 2-child families. Children were 7 and 10 years old. Data were collected from observations of marital and family interaction and from family members' reports. Results showed that marital conflict was associated with problematic sibling and peer relationships. Both maternal and paternal hostility mediated the associations between marital conflict and sibling relationships. The link between marital conflict and sibling rivalry was also mediated by children's feelings of self-blame for their parents' conflict. Fathers' hostility toward children mediated the association between marital conflict and children's problematic peer relationships. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Marital conflict and boys' peer relationships: The mediating role of mother-son emotional reciprocity.

This study examined the role of mother-son emotional reciprocity in connections between marital conflict and the quality of boys' peer relationships. Parents from 84 intact families with preadolescent boys reported on the level of conflict in their marital relationship. Observations of mother-son interaction were coded for emotional reciprocity, and assessments of boys' peer relationships were obtained from both teachers and classmates. No direct connection between marital conflict and boys' peer relationships was observed. Rather, marital conflict affected boys' social competence indirectly, through its effect on the emotions expressed between mother and son. The findings support the proposal that emotional processes play an important role in connections between marital conflict and children's peer relationships and suggest that family emotional expressiveness deserves greater attention in both research and intervention. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The relations of emotionality and regulation to dispositional and situational empathy-related responding.

Examined the prediction of adults' situational and dispositional empathy-related responses from measures of emotionality (emotional intensity and positive and negative affect) and regulation. A multimethod approach including self-reported, facial, and heart rate (HR) responses was used to assess situational vicarious emotional responding; Ss' (and sometimes friends') reports were used to assess the dispositional characteristics. In general, dispositional sympathy, personal distress, and perspective taking exhibited different, conceptually logical patterns of association with indexes of emotionality and regulation. The relations of situational measures of vicarious emotional responding to dispositional emotionality and regulation varied somewhat by type of measure and gender. Findings for facial and HR (for men) measures were primarily for the more evocative empathy-inducing stimulus. In general, the findings provided support for the role of individual differences in emotionality and regulation in empathy-related responding. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relations of shyness and low sociability to regulation and emotionality.

The relations of shyness and low sociability (i.e., the nonfearful preference to be alone) to measures of regulation and emotionality were examined. College students and (for some variables) friends reported on their relevant dispositional characteristics. In general, shyness was associated with low regulation and high negative emotionality (including intensity, negative affectivity, and personal distress), low positive affect, and low constructive coping. In contrast, low sociability was unrelated to negative emotionality; associated with low positive emotional intensity, low physiological reactivity, and high inhibition control; and correlated with low seeking of social support as a means of coping. The findings are considered within a heuristic model in which emotional reactivity and regulation are proposed as predictors of social responding. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Widening spheres of impact: The role of forgiveness in marital and family functioning.

This study examined relations between aspects of family functioning and positive and negative dimensions of forgiveness. Increased understanding of one's partner and decreased anger about betrayal characterize positive forgiveness, whereas experiences such as holding a grudge and desiring revenge indicate negative forgiveness. The sample included 87 wives and 74 husbands who reported experiencing a significant betrayal, their partners, and their adolescent children. Analyses of reported forgiveness revealed that more negative forgiveness was associated with lower marital satisfaction for husbands and wives; trust partially mediated this relationship for husbands and wives. Greater positive forgiveness reported by husbands and wives predicted their own reports of a stronger parenting alliance, whereas greater negative forgiveness reported by husbands and wives predicted their spouses' reports of a weaker parenting alliance. For wives, more negative forgiveness also predicted higher levels of children's perceived parental conflict, and parents' reported conflict mediated this association for wives. Findings suggest that forgiveness of a marital betrayal is significantly associated with marital satisfaction, the parenting alliance, and children's perceptions of parental marital functioning. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)