Poster #31 - Interparental Conflict Spillover: Examining Parental Depression Risk Pathways

• In Event: Poster Session 04

Abstract

The process by which interparental conflict (IPC) and negative affect are transferred to the parent-child relationship – spillover (Engfer, 1988) – is now a well-documented family risk process for adolescent social, emotional, behavioral maladjustment (e.g., Harold et al., 1994; Shelton et al., 2008; Warmuth et al., 2019). Efforts to identify vulnerability factors have documented parental depression as an important risk factor for for more frequent and intense IPC (Shelton et al. 2008; Conger & Donnellan, 2007). However, important limitations to these studies remain, such as relying primarily on long-term, global assessments of depression and conflict. Short-term longitudinal methods, would enable a more fine-grained perspective on spillover risk. Using daily diary methods, we evaluated the role that parental depression may have in increasing risk for IPC spillover in families by testing two hypotheses: 1) a conflict frequency hypothesis in which parental depression is associated with greater frequency of conflict that contributes to IPC spillover, and IPC is correlated with poor parent-adolescent relations; and 2) a spillover propensity hypothesis in which parental depression moderates the within-person linkage between daily couple conflicts and poor parent-adolescent relations.

We analyzed data from 150 adolescents (61.3% female; MAge = 14.61, SDAge = .83) and caregivers from two-caregiver families who completed baseline and 21-day daily diary surveys. Parents reported on their baseline depressive symptoms and daily IPC, parent-adolescent closeness, and parent-adolescent conflict. Adolescents reported on daily adolescent-parent closeness and conflict.

As a preliminary step, we estimated four multilevel models to evaluate spillover processes in families. We evaluated within-person relations between daily variation in interparental conflict and parent-adolescent relations in this sample. We did not find evidence of daily spillover; across all four models, no within-person effects were found for daily IPC and parent-adolescent closeness or parent-adolescent conflict.

We subsequently added parents’ report of depressive symptoms at baseline as a between-person effect and level-2 moderator of the within-person relations between IPC and parent-adolescent relations. We also examined mean IPC as a between-person effect. Consistent with a conflict frequency hypothesis, parents who were higher in depressive symptoms reported more frequent IPC episodes over 21 days (r = .61, p < .01). In addition, higher average levels of IPC were associated with greater parent-adolescent conflict over the study period, as reported by both parents (b = 0.33) and adolescents (b = 0.39), and with lower adolescent-reported closeness with parents (b = -0.30). However, our findings failed to support a spillover propensity hypothesis, as none of the four models revealed an interaction effect in which parents’ depression was associated with stronger or weaker relations between daily IPC and parent-adolescent relations.

These findings offer novel insights into the manner in which parental depression may contribute to spillover in families. Specifically, parents who experience elevated depressive symptoms were more likely to experience frequent, intense IPC, which is an important risk factor for spillover.

Authors

• Jeesun Lee, Pennsylvania State University, University Park
  Presenting Author

• Carlie Sloan, Pennsylvania State University, University Park

• Steffany J. Fredman, The Pennsylvania State University

• Gregory M Fosco, Pennsylvania State University, University Park