Children’s Responses to Interparental Conflict: A Meta‐Analysis of Their Associations With Child Adjustment
- 18 November 2008
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Wiley in Child Development
- Vol. 79 (6), 1942-1956
- https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2008.01235.x
Abstract
A meta‐analysis examined the relations between children’s adjustment and children’s cognitive, affective, behavioral, and physiological responses to interparental conflict. Studies included children between 5 and 19 years of age. Moderate effect sizes were found for the associations between cognitions and internalizing and externalizing behavior problems and self‐esteem problems, negative affect and behavioral responses and internalizing behavior problems, and behavioral responses and self‐esteem problems. Small to moderate effect sizes were found for the associations between cognitions and relational problems, negative affect and behavioral responses and externalizing behavior problems, and physiological reactions and internalizing and externalizing behavior problems. Effect sizes were, with 1 exception, larger for internalizing than for externalizing behavior problems. Age significantly moderated the majority of effect sizes.Keywords
This publication has 78 references indexed in Scilit:
- The role of child adrenocortical functioning in pathways between interparental conflict and child maladjustment.Developmental Psychology, 2007
- Interparental Discord and Child Adjustment: Prospective Investigations of Emotional Security as an Explanatory MechanismChild Development, 2006
- The role of emotional responses and physiological reactivity in the marital conflict–child functioning linkJournal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 2005
- Marital Conflict, Child Emotional Security about Family Relationships and Child AdjustmentSocial Development, 2004
- Adult conflict history and children's subsequent responses to conflict: An experimental test.Journal of Family Psychology, 1999
- Family conflict and child adjustment: Evidence for a cognitive-contextual model of intergenerational transmission.Journal of Family Psychology, 1999
- Children's appraisals of interparental conflict: Situational and contextual influences.Journal of Family Psychology, 1998
- Mom and dad are at it again: Adolescent perceptions of marital conflict and adolescent psychological distress.Developmental Psychology, 1997
- Relation among marital conflict, child coping, and child adjustmentJournal of Clinical Child Psychology, 1995
- The file drawer problem and tolerance for null results.Psychological Bulletin, 1979