1. DISCUSSION (continues) ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS AND CONTACT
What Influences Children’s Appraisal of Interparental Conflict: The Role of Parenting
Şule Selçuka, Zülal Akçayüzlüa, Melike Sayılb, Nebi Sümerc, Sibel Kazak Berumentc
aHacettepe University, Turkey, bTED University, Turkey, cMETU, Turkey
BACKGROUND
METHOD
RESULTS (continues)
RESULTS (continues)
DISCUSSION (continues)
Spillover hypothesis indicates that MC affects parent-child relationships through several mechanisms, one of which is parental practices (Erel & Burman, 1995).
Research has demonstrated that MC results in less optimal parental practices and, in turn, leads to child adjustment problems (e.g., Coln & Mercer, 2013; Schoppe-Sullivan, Schermerhorn, & Cummings, 2007).
Moreover, it was shown that children’s perception of interparental conflict (IPC) is related with child outcomes (Schwarz, Stutz, & Lederman, 2012).
Based on the crucial role of children’s IPC appraisals on their adjustment (see Grych & Fincham, 1990), it is important to identify factors influencing these perceptions.
To the best of our knowledge, it has not been explored if certain parenting behaviors, especially psychological control (PC) have an effect on children’s perception of IPC [i.e., self-blame, threat perception, and conflict properties (e.g., intensity, resolution)].
Therefore, the main aim of the present study is to:
Examine the mediating role of parental PC and parental warmth in the relationship between parent-reported MC and children’s IPC appraisal (self-blame, threat perception & conflict properties).
We hypothesized that parent-reported MC would be related to higher parental PC and lower emotional warmth, which in turn associated with more negative child perceptions of IPC.
Participants
1931 4th and 5th grade students (Mage =10.16, 51% girls), their mothers (n = 1614, Mage =36.51), and fathers (n = 1490, Mage = 40). Participants were from middle SES of urban areas.
Measures
PC and warmth: Children completed a questionnaire including items recruited from different scales (e.g., Barber, 1996) for their mothers and fathers separately.
Children’s Perception of Interparental Conflict Scale (Grych, Seid, & Fincham, 1992) was used to assess children's perceptions of marital conflict.
O'Leary-Porter Conflict Scale (Porter & O’Leary, 1980) was completed by both mothers and fathers to assess marital conflict.
All adapted scales had high reliabilities and validities.
Secondly, Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) analyses were performed for mothers and fathers separately, and both models yielded poor fit to the data. Since parental warmth was not significantly related to MC, we excluded this variable and rerun the SEM analyses. The respecified models provided good fit indices.
For mothers: S-Bχ2 (182; N = 1308) = , p < .001, CFI = .940, SRMR = .046, RMSEA = .043 (90-CI: ).
For fathers: S-Bχ2 (182; N = 1234) = , p < .001, CFI = .941, SRMR = .044, RMSEA = .042 (90-CI: ).
Results indicated that mother and father-reported MC predicted PC, and this in turn predicted higher levels of self-blame, threat perception, and conflict properties.
The pattern of the interaction indicated that at the higher level of warmth (i.e., 1 SD above the mean), PC was more strongly associated with self-blame (b = .42, SE = .03) compared to lower level of warmth (i.e., 1 SD below the mean) (b = .34, SE = .03).
Furthermore, findings suggest that for both groups (i.e., children who report high maternal warmth vs. low maternal warmth), the more parents are psychologically controlling, the more likely children blame themselves for interparental conflict.
However, the level of maternal PC is more crucial for self-blame perception among children whose mothers are warmer since these children are influenced to a greater degree by maternal PC compared to children whose mothers are less warm (i.e., the rate of increase in self-blame as a function of maternal PC was higher among high warmth group than low warmth group).
REFERENCES
Barber, B. K. (1996). Parental psychological control: Revisiting a neglected construct. Child Development, 67,
Coln, K. L., Jordan, S. S., & Mercer, S. H. (2013). A unified model exploring parenting practices as mediators of marital conflict and children’s adjustment. Child Psychiatry & Human Development, 44,
Erel, O., & Burman, B. (1995). Interrelatedness of marital relations and parent–child relations: A meta-analytic review. Psychological Bulletin, 118, 108–132.
Grych, J. H., & Fincham, F. D. (1990). Marital conflict and children's adjustment: A cognitive-contextual framework. Psychological Bulletin, 108(2), 267.
Grych, J. H., Seid, M., & Fincham, F. D. (1992). Assessing marital conflict from the child's perspective: The Children's Perception of Interparental Conflict Scale. Child Development, 63,
Porter, B., & O'Leary, K. D. (1980). Marital discord and childhood behavior problems. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 8,
Schoppe‐Sullivan, S. J., Schermerhorn, A. C., & Cummings, E. M. (2007). Marital conflict and children’s adjustment: Evaluation of the parenting process model. Journal of Marriage and Family, 69,
Schwarz, B., Stutz, M., & Ledermann, T. (2012). Perceived interparental conflict and early adolescents’ friendships: The role of attachment security and emotion regulation. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 41,
Figure 2. The moderator role of maternal warmth in the relationship between maternal psychological control and self-blame.
Firstly, zero-order bivariate correlations among study variables were computed (see Table 1)
Table 1. Bivariate correlations among study variables
DISCUSSION
RESULTS
Overall, it was found that both maternal and paternal psychological control (PC) mediate the association between parent-reported marital conflict (MC) and children’s appraisals of these conflicts (IPC appraisals).
This finding implies that conflict among parents leads both mothers and fathers to exert psychologically controlling behaviors, as a result children blame themselves for the conflict, feel threatened, and perceive marital conflict as more frequent, intense, and unresolved. 1 2 3 4 5 6
1. Marital Conflict -
.104*
-055*
.132**
.107*
.180**
2. Psychological Control
.128**
-.171**
.495**
.277**
.360**
3. Parental Warmth
-.003
-.131**
-.269**
-.069**
-.399
4. Self-blame
.153**
.468**
-.205**
.322**
.484**
5. Threat
.115**
.294**
-.022
.338**
6. Conflict Properties
.222**
.337**
-.285**
Note.*p< .05, **p< .01 .
The values above the diagonal are for fathers; the values below the diagonal are for mothers
Figure 1. The structural model showing the mediating role of maternal/paternal psychological control in relation between mother/father-reported marital conflict and IPC appraisal.
Parental warmth did not mediate the link between MC and children’s IPC appraisals. However, supplementary analyses controlled for MC, revealed that the interaction between maternal PC and maternal emotional warmth predicted children’s self-blame.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS AND CONTACT
This study was supported by The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey. (TÜBİTAK-SOBAG, Project No:105K102 ). We thank all participating parents, children, and project team, especially Nebi Sümer (PI) and Melike Sayıl for their valuable feedback for this poster.
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