Document Type
Article
Language
eng
Format of Original
12 p.
Publication Date
12-2008
Publisher
American Psychological Association
Source Publication
Journal of Family Psychology
Source ISSN
0893-3200
Original Item ID
doi: 10.1037/a0013809; PubMed Central: PMCID 2697308
Abstract
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.
Recommended Citation
Fosco, Gregory M. and Grych, John H., "Emotional, Cognitive, and Family Systems Mediators of Children's Adjustment to Interparental Conflict" (2008). Psychology Faculty Research and Publications. 163.
https://epublications.marquette.edu/psych_fac/163
Comments
Accepted version. Journal of Family Psychology, Vol. 22, No. 6 (December 2008): 843-854. DOI. © 2008 American Psychological Association. Used with permission.