How marital conflict is handled is crucial to the well-being of children, marriages, and families. On the one hand, marital conflict is linked with children's adjustment problems. On the other, it is inevitable and many forms of conflict expression are normal and likely benign. What are the constructive and destructive marital conflict styles from the children's perspectives? Which mediating and moderating processes and contextual factors are critical? Answering these questions has far-reaching mental health and societal implications. The proposed study investigates the processes and factors that mediate and moderate the positive and negative effects of marital conflict on children between elementary-school age and adolescence (N=249) within a cohort sequential design. Multi-method/dimension assessment of marital conflict, children's stress and coping, and child and family functioning are utilized in the study of developmental pathways. Child outcomes are assessed at three time points to increase the interpetability of causal modeling. Among the questions to be addressed are: (a) identifying mother's and father's marital conflict styles that are most constructive, and destructive, from the children's perspective, (b) identifying the processes and mechanisms that mediate effects, including effects associated with children's stress and coping with marital conflict and changed parenting practices, (c) changes in developmental pathways associated with marital conflict across an understudied period of development, and (d) specifying the moderating effects of parents' and children's gender, and parental adjustment. The research will provide much better defined and applicable take-home messages for family researchers and therapists, and ultimately, our society's parents, than has been possible with earlier cross-sectional studies based upon limited measurement strategies and conceptual models.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development (NICHD)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
5R01HD036261-05
Application #
6629093
Study Section
Human Development and Aging Subcommittee 3 (HUD)
Program Officer
Feerick, Margaret M
Project Start
1999-02-01
Project End
2005-01-31
Budget Start
2003-02-01
Budget End
2005-01-31
Support Year
5
Fiscal Year
2003
Total Cost
$236,321
Indirect Cost
Name
University of Notre Dame
Department
Psychology
Type
Schools of Arts and Sciences
DUNS #
824910376
City
Notre Dame
State
IN
Country
United States
Zip Code
46556
Ellison, Jenna K; Kouros, Chrystyna D; Papp, Lauren M et al. (2016) Interplay between marital attributions and conflict behavior in predicting depressive symptoms. J Fam Psychol 30:286-95
Goeke-Morey, Marcie C; Taylor, Laura K; Merrilees, Christine E et al. (2014) Adolescents' relationship with God and internalizing adjustment over time: the moderating role of maternal religious coping. J Fam Psychol 28:749-58
Kouros, Chrystyna D; Papp, Lauren M; Goeke-Morey, Marcie C et al. (2014) Spillover between marital quality and parent-child relationship quality: parental depressive symptoms as moderators. J Fam Psychol 28:315-25
Papp, Lauren M; Goeke-Morey, Marcie C; Cummings, E Mark (2013) Let's Talk About Sex: A Diary Investigation of Couples' Intimacy Conflicts in the Home. Couple Family Psychol 2:
Goeke-Morey, Marcie C; Papp, Lauren M; Cummings, E Mark (2013) Changes in marital conflict and youths' responses across childhood and adolescence: a test of sensitization. Dev Psychopathol 25:241-51
Cummings, E Mark; George, Melissa R W; McCoy, Kathleen P et al. (2012) Interparental conflict in kindergarten and adolescent adjustment: prospective investigation of emotional security as an explanatory mechanism. Child Dev 83:1703-15
Du Rocher Schudlich, Tina D; Papp, Lauren M; Cummings, E Mark (2011) Relations between spouses' depressive symptoms and marital conflict: a longitudinal investigation of the role of conflict resolution styles. J Fam Psychol 25:531-40
Kouros, Chrystyna D; Cummings, E Mark (2011) Transactional relations between marital functioning and depressive symptoms. Am J Orthopsychiatry 81:128-38
Papp, Lauren M; Kouros, Chrystyna D; Cummings, E Mark (2010) Emotions in Marital Conflict Interactions: Empathic Accuracy, Assumed Similarity, and the Moderating Context of Depressive Symptoms. J Soc Pers Relat 27:367-387
Schermerhorn, Alice C; Chow, Sy-Miin; Cummings, E Mark (2010) Developmental family processes and interparental conflict: patterns of microlevel influences. Dev Psychol 46:869-85

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