Parent Mood as a Mechanism Linking Daily Spillover between Marital Conflict and the Parent-child Relationship

• In Event: 2-065 - Influences and Mechanisms of the Influence of Parental Conflict on Children

Integrative Statement

A growing body of research based on daily diary methodology has documented that marital conflict can spillover to negatively affect the parent-child relationship. For example, Sherrill et al. (2017) and Chung et al. (2009) found that the presence of interparental conflict predicted parent-child conflict on the same day. This spillover process is hypothesized to be one mechanism explaining the relation between interparental conflict and child adjustment problems. Spillover is posited to occur because the negative mood elicited by marital conflict can lead parents to be irritable with their child or too emotionally drained to engage in responsive parenting (Erel & Burman, 1995). The present study provides a direct test of this pathway by testing parent negative mood as a mechanism by which interparental conflict predicts both parent-child conflict and relationship quality the same day, using a daily diary method. Building on previous research, we included daily reports from mothers, fathers, and children. Participants were 51 two-parent families (85.5% married; 65.5% both biological parents). On average, children were 13.5 years old (SD = 1.80) and 52.7% were female. The child sample was 31% European American, 32.7% African American, 25.5% Hispanic/Latino, 3.6% Asian, and 7.2% reported more than one race. Each night, for 7 nights, family members independently completed an online diary about their day. Parents rated 8 emotion items (from the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule-Expanded Form; Watson & Clark, 1994) based on how they felt that day using a 5-point scale. A 6-item negative mood composite was created by summing hostility, fear, and sadness items. Parents reported whether they had a disagreement with their partner or child and rated the emotional quality of their relationship with their child that day on a 7-point scale. Children reported whether they had a disagreement with their mother or father and rated the emotional quality of their relationship with both parents that day using the same 7-point scale. Table 1 provides descriptive information for the daily measures. Multilevel models tested within-day indirect effects of parent negative mood as a mechanism linking interparental conflict to both parent-child conflict and parent-child relationship quality. Predictors were person-centered (level 1) and analyses controlled for average scores across time (level 2). For mothers, marital conflict predicted a higher negative mood, b = 0.33, SE = 0.10, p = .003; negative mood was related to lower mother-child relationship quality (mother-report), b = -0.52, SE = 0.15, p = .002, and a greater likelihood of mother-child conflict that day (child-report), OR = 3.56, p = .04. For fathers, marital conflict predicted a higher negative mood, b = 0.19, SE = 0.07, p = .013, and negative mood predicted a greater likelihood of a father-child conflict that day (child-report), OR = 3.75, p = .028. These findings provide support for parent negative mood as an underlying process that has been hypothesized to be responsible for spillover between interparental conflict and parent-child interactions. The presentation will discuss these findings and implications of spillover between the marital and parent-child family systems for children’s adjustment.

Authors

• Chrystyna Kouros, Southern Methodist University
  Presenting Author

• Michael Ovalle, Southern Methodist University
  Non-Presenting Author