child exposure to marital conflict and child coping responses as predictors of child adjustment

Cognitive Therapy and Research, Vol. 21, No. 1, 1997, pp. 39-59

Child Exposure to Marital Conflict and ChildCoping Responses as Predictors of ChildAdjustment1

Mary O'Brien,2 Mudita A. Bahadur, Christina Gee, Kathy Balto, andStephanie ErberNew York University

This study examined the influence of children's exposure to marital conflictand children's coping responses to marital conflict on child adjustment.Forty-three mother-child dyads and 38 of the children's teachers participatedin this investigation. Preadolescent children reported the marital conflict theywitnessed, their coping responses to marital conflict, and their feelings ofdepression and global self-worth, while mothers reported their marital conflictand children's internalizing and externalizing behavior problems and teachersreported children's internalizing and externalizing behavior problems.Hierarchical regression analyses were conducted to examine the contributionof demographic, marital conflict, and child coping variables to the predictionof child adjustment. The results indicated that aggressive marital conflict waspredictive of children's feelings of low self-worth, mother's reports of childexternalizing behavior problems, and teacher's reports of child internalizingbehavior problems. Moreover, child coping factors contributed unique variancesto the prediction of child reports of child depression and teacher reports ofchild externalizing behavior problems after marital conflict and demographicvariables were considered.

1This research has been supported in part by New York University funding for junior faculty.Our appreciation goes to the families and teachers who participated in this research, and toBeth Shinn, Zindel Segal, and an anonymous reviewer for comments on an earlier draft ofthis manuscript.

2Address all correspondence concerning this article to Mary O'Brien, 901 Nicholson Road,Wynnewood, Pennsylvania 19096.

KEY WORDS: marital conflict; child coping; child adjustment.

39

0147-5916/97/0200-0039$12.50/0 C 1997 Plenum Publishing Corporation

INTRODUCTION

A consistent, albeit moderate, positive relationship has been found betweenmarital conflict and child internalizing and externalizing behavior problems(see Cummings & Davies, 1994; Emery, 1982; Fantuzzo & Lindquist, 1989;Grych & Fincham, 1990, for reviews). As indicated by many (Cummings& Davies, 1994; Emery, 1982; Fincham, 1994; Margolin, 1981), the nextimportant step in this field of research is to identify the process throughwhich marital conflict affects children. The way children respond to maritalconflict may have important implications for their overall adjustment (Cum-mings, 1987; Grych & Fincham, 1990; O'Brien, Margolin, John, & Krueger,1991). Grych and Fincham (1990) hypothesized that, when children becomeaware of marital conflict, they have an initial affective reaction and considerwhether the conflict will lead to negative outcomes for themselves and/ortheir parents. Children then evaluate why the conflict is occurring and whatthey can do in response, and they generate expectations for the efficacy ofpotential coping behaviors. Finally, children implement a behavioral re-sponse to cope with the marital conflict. Thus, according to Grych & Fin-cham's model, and other stress and coping models (Lazarus & Folkman,1984), children's efforts to cope with marital conflict involve an interrelatedsequence of affective, cognitive, and behavioral responses, which may inturn influence children's adjustment.

Cognitions that are particularly relevant for determining the impactof marital conflict on children are perceptions of the degree of threat thatmarital conflict presents, attributions of blame for marital conflict, and ex-pectancies regarding how effectively children can cope with marital conflict,(Grych & Fincham, 1990, 1993; Grych, Seid, & Fincham, 1992). Childrenwho perceive marital conflict to be highly threatening and blame themselvesfor the conflict may have particularly strong emotional reactions (Grych,& Fincham, 1993). Conversely, children's confidence in their abilities tohelp themselves or their parents, may decrease feelings of distress (Ban-dura, 1986). Criticism of interparental behavior may generate distress inchildren as children have difficulty perceiving their parents as imperfect(Dean, Malik, Richards, & Stringer, 1986). At the same time, children whoare able to criticize their parent's high-intensity, unskillful conflict discus-sions may in the long run prevent themselves from inadvertently repeatingstrategies for conflict resolution modeled by their parents.

According to family systems theory (Minuchin, Rossman, & Baker,1978) and previous empirical work (O'Brien, Margolin, & John, 1995), cop-ing behaviors that may be particularly relevant for determining the impactof marital conflict on children are the extent to which children involvethemselves in or distance themselves from interparental conflict. Family sys-

40 O'Brien, Bahadur, Gee, Balto, and Erber

tems theory suggests that clear boundaries between marital and child sub-systems such that children do not involve themselves in their parents' con-flict predicts to healthy child functioning, while diffuse boundaries indicatedysfunction (Minuchin et al., 1978). Research has indicated that childrenwho report utilizing coping strategies that involve them in their parents'marital conflict have more behavior problems than do children who do notreport utilizing self-involving coping strategies (O'Brien et al., 1995). Con-versely, children's use of coping strategies that distance them from parents'marital conflict is predictive of child reports of decreased rates of childmaladjustment (O'Brien et al., 1995).

The aim of the present study was to evaluate the relationship betweenchildren's coping patterns in response to marital conflict and their adjust-ment. It was hypothesized that children's tendencies to blame themselvesfor the marital conflict and to involve themselves in efforts to stop maritalconflict would be positively associated with behavior problems. Several meth-odological considerations based on previous work guided the design of thisstudy. First, evidence suggests that interparental conflict that is overt andintense is particularly disturbing to children relative to other modes of angerexpression (Cummings, Zahn-Waxler, & Radke-Yarrow, 1981, 1984; Emery& O'Leary, 1982; Jouriles et al., 1991). Thus, this study focused on children'sand mother's reports of the physically and verbally aggressive marital conflictthat had occurred in the family. Second, in order to assess multiple dimen-sions of child adjustment from multiple perspectives, mothers, teachers, andchildren each reported on several dimensions of child functioning. Third, anarrow age range of preadolescent children was recruited. Preadolescentchildren were the focus of this study because, although they are cognitivelymature enough to conceptualize and articulate their coping responses tomarital conflict, their sustained involvement with the family may renderthem still vulnerable to the effects of stressful family processes (Swearingen& Cohen, 1985). Fourth, multiple methods of assessing children's copingresponses to marital conflict were utilized in this study.

METHOD

Subjects

Forty-nine mother-child dyads were recruited from the New York Cityarea. Recruitment procedures included newspaper advertisements, as well asthe distribution of flyers in churches, schools, and other public facilities. Also,some families were recruited through records of participants in other studiesof child development who had indicated a desire to be involved in additional

Marital Conflict, Child Coping, and Child Adjustment 41

research. In order to participate in this study, dyads had to meet the followingcriteria: (a) The child participant had to be between 8 and 12 years old in-clusive, (b) both mother and child had to speak English, (c) each motherhad to be the biological parent of the child and a primary caretaker of thechild since the child's birth, (d) neither mother nor child could have receiveda psychiatric diagnosis in their lifetimes nor have resided in a shelter fordomestic violence, and (e) both the mother and child had to be willing toparticipate in one laboratory session. The questionnaires that mothers andchildren completed for this study were included as part of a larger study,and dyads received $25 for their participation. Forty-three of the mother-child dyads completed all of the measures pertinent to this report, and thusare included in further analyses.

Of the 43 mothers, 14% were African-American, 7% were Asian, 60%were Caucasian, 12% were Latino, and 7% were other ethnic minorities.Mothers were an average of 40.51 years old (SD = 5.19; range 31 to 52), andhad an average of 15.22 years of education (SD = 2.68; range 11 to 22). Medianfamily monthly income was $3,708 (range = $220 to $25,833) according tomother's reports. Of the 43 mothers, 40% were engaged in full-time paid em-ployment outside the home, 30% were engaged in part-time paid employmentoutside the home, and 30% were not engaged in paid employment outsidethe home. Sixty-seven percent of the mother-child dyads were from two-par-ent families in which the biological parents of the child had never been sepa-rated or divorced, while 33% of the mother-child dyads were from familiesin which the biological parents of the children had been separated and/ordivorced. Child participants were 20 girls and 23 boys who ranged in agefrom 8 to 12.9 years, with an average age of 10.15 years (SD = 1.38).

Procedure

Questionnaires were read aloud to children to minimize differencesin children's reading abilities. Mothers and children completed the ques-tionnaires in separate rooms and there was no communication betweenfamily members throughout the assessment period.

Measures

Demographic Variables

General Information Questionnaire. Mothers reported general demo-graphic information such as age, income, race, years married, family status,etc.

42 O'Brien, Bahadur, Gee, Balto, and Erter


Marital Conflict

Conflict Tactics Scale—Child Report (CTS; Straus, 1979). Childrenwere administered a modified 18-item version of the Conflict TacticsScale—Form N, in which they reported on the frequency with which theirmother and father directed conflict tactics, ranging from "discussed the is-sue calmly" to "used a knife or a gun" toward each other. Each CTS itemwas scored on a 4-point scale ranging from 0 (never) to 3 (lots of times).The 14 items included in Straus and Gelles' (1992) verbal/symbolic andphysical aggression scales (CTS items D, E, F, and H through R) weresummed, and child reports of mother and father behavior were summedto create a single child report of marital aggression. The 14 items in thismarital conflict scale measure mothers' and fathers' use of verbal and non-verbal acts which symbolically hurt each other, use of threats to hurt eachother, and use of physical force against each other. The standardized itemalpha coefficients for the child report of marital conflict for this samplewas .87. Fifteen children within this sample (approximately 35%) reportedwitnessing physical aggression between their mothers and fathers. Meansand standard deviations for all marital conflict, child coping, and child ad-justment variables are presented in Table I.

Conflict Tactics Scale—Mother Report (Straus, 1979). Mothers com-pleted a modified version of CTS—Form N in which they reported on thefrequency with which they and their partners engaged in 18 conflict behav-iors within the past year. Each CTS item was scored on a 7-point scaleranging from zero (never in the past year) to seven (more than three timesper week). Using the same procedure as with the child version of the CTS,the 14 items included in Straus and Gelles' (1992) verbal/symbolic andphysical aggression scales were summed, and mothers' reports of their ownbehavior and their partners' behavior were summed to create a singlemother report of aggressive marital conflict. The standardized item alphacoefficient for the mother report of marital aggression was .85 for this sam-ple. Child and mother reports of aggressive marital conflict were marginallycorrelated (r = .29, p < .06).

Child Coping Measures

All children were administered the Children's Marital Conflict CopingStrategies Interview, which evaluates children's spontaneously reportedstrategies for coping with marital conflict, prior to being administered aMarital Conflict Stimulus and Postconflict Questionnaire, which provideschildren with a list of thoughts and coping behaviors and asks them to


indicate the extent to which they experience and/or engage in each in re-sponse to their own parents' marital conflicts.

Children's Marital Conflict Coping Strategies Interview (CMCCSI;O'Brien et al., 1995). This semistructured interview is a modification of pre-vious measures of interpersonal cognitive problem solving (e.g., Asarnow,Carlson, & Guthrie, 1987; Compas, Malcarne, & Fondacaro, 1988; Spivack,Platt, & Shure, 1976). Children were asked to report about two types ofarguments that they may have witnessed between their parents (i.e., par-ent's verbal disagreements, and parent's physical aggression). After thechild described what he/she witnessed, the experimenter used a series ofstandard probes to elicit a complete description of the child's responses tothe conflict.

Table I. Means and Standard Deviations for Marital Conflict, Child Coping, and ChildAdjustment Variables by Child Sex

Variable

Reports of marital conflictChild reportMother report

Child Coping InterviewAvoidSelf-Involve

Postconflict QuestionnaireCoping behaviors

AvoidSelf-Involve

CognitionsPredict Negative OutcomeBlame SelfCriticize ParentsLoss of LoveEfficacy

Child adjustmentChild reports

Self-worthDepression

Mother reportsInternalizing behavior problemsExternalizing behavior problems

Teacher reportsInternalizing behavior problemsExternalizing behavior problems

Boys

M

11.0414.26

SD

9.4010.93

(

M

8.5014.65

3irls

SD

6.2611.18

0.740.43

0.920.84

0.950.25

0.760.44

8.358.61

3.605.95

7.405.85

4.483.84

0.041.432.650.355.35

4.231.343.240.652.33

-0.800.902.750.355.05

3.400.973.211.142.44

3.271.87

52.6152.74

50.3351.00

0.741.91

9.769.37

11.9510.51

3.451.05

51.8552.20

52.7455.58

0.491.64

11.5911.08

9.8910.40


Coding of Children's Marital Conflict Coping Strategy Interview. Eachcoping interview was tape-recorded and later transcribed to facilitate ac-curate coding. The first three authors, working independently, assignedtranscribed coping responses into one of 10 mutually exclusive codes. Theauthors were blind to children's conflict backgrounds.

Following O'Brien et al. (1995), the following 10 codes were used incategorizing children's responses: (a) Avoid refers to children's attempts todistance themselves from the conflict; (b) self-refy refers to children's effortsto involve themselves in some self-soothing or self-distracting thought oractivity; (c) seek peers/siblings includes instances of the children seekingcomfort from or proximity with peers and/or siblings; (d) seek authority re-fers to children's attempts to seek aid or intervention from a nonparentadult; (e) verbal intervention refers to children's attempts to tell the parentsto stop fighting; (f) self-blame capture children's attempts to deflect maritalconflict by calling attention to themselves or to clearly state self-responsi-bility for parent's marital conflict; (g) physical intervention refers to chil-dren's use of physical actions to stop the parent's conflict; (h) questionparent refers to children's attempts to process the conflict with a parentafter the conflict has ended; (i) express feelings captures children's directexpressions of emotion, such as laughing, crying, hitting an object, bitingone's nails, etc.; and (j) helpless refers to children's statements that thereis nothing they can do in a particular situation. An average kappa inter-coder reliability coefficient of .76 was obtained on the coding of children'scoping responses into 10 categories. After coders had completed evaluatingthe child coping data independently, disagreements were resolved by con-sensus.

Following O'Brien et al. (1995), responses from the avoid and self-relycategories were summed to create an Avoid Coping scale, since both ofthese codes were examples of children's efforts to stay out of their parents'marital conflict and/or to manage their affective arousal by themselves. Re-sponses from the verbal intervention, physical intervention, and self-blamecategories were summed to create a Self-Involve scale, since these codesreflected children's direct efforts to involve themselves in their parents' con-flict. The question parent code was eliminated from further analyses be-cause, unlike the other codes, question parent referred to children'sresponses after the marital conflict had ended. Also the helpless, expressfeelings, seek authority, and seek peer/siblings codes were eliminated dueto low base rates of occurrence.

Marital Conflict Stimulus. In order to active cognitions that may occurduring parents' marital conflict, children were presented with an approxi-mately 30-s taped discussion in which two adult actors (one male and onefemale) argued about housework. The actors participated in a heated dis-

cussion, in which they raised their voices, criticized each other, and cuteach other off in midsentence. This marital conflict topic was selected basedon previous research indicating that parents frequently argue about house-hold chores in front of their children (Forehand & McCombs, 1989). Chil-dren were told to imagine that they were at home in their rooms whenthey overheard their mothers and fathers having the taped discussion.

To determine the extent to which children perceived the enacted con-flict to be similar in intensity to the conflict that they heard at home be-tween their parents, the children were asked to rate on a 5-point ConflictIntensity scale whether the enacted conflict was louder and angrier thanthe conflicts that they heard between their own parents. A rating of 1 in-dicated that the enacted conflict was much more quiet and calm while arating of 5 indicated that the enacted conflict was much louder and angrierthan their parents' marital conflict. Children provided a mean rating of3.57 (SD = 1.14) on this scale, indicating that they perceived the enactedconflict to be about the same to a little louder than the interparental conflictthey heard at home. Correlations between children's ratings on the ConflictIntensity scale and their sex (r = .07), age (r = -.23), and family status(i.e., parents never separated/divorced vs. parents separated/divorced; r =-.07) were not significant.

Postconflict Questionnaire. Children then completed a PostconflictQuestionnaire which was derived from a review of the literature regardingchildren's spontaneous responses to marital conflict (for example, Cum-mings et al., 1981, 1989; Grych & Fincham, 1993; O'Brien et al., 1991,1995). Children were asked to indicate the responses they would have ex-perienced had the simulated conflict (or a conflictual discussion of similarintensity) occurred in their own homes.

Children indicated whether or not they would engage in a variety ofbehaviors if they saw or heard the taped conflict occurring between theirparents by rating several 4-point scales ranging from 0 (no) to 3 (definitely).(a) An Avoid scale was comprised of five questions regarding the extentto which children would stay out of their parents' conflict. Children's re-sponses to these five items were summed and the standardized item alphacoefficient for this scale was .84. (b) A Self-Involve scale was comprisedof eight questions which referred to children's efforts to physically inter-vene, verbally intervene, scapegoat themselves, and secure interventionfrom an adult in response to their parents' marital conflict. Children's re-sponse to these eight items were summed and the standardized item alphacoefficient was .78.

Children indicated whether or not they would think a variety ofthoughts if they saw or heard the taped conflict occurring between theirparents. (c) A Predict Negative Outcome scale was comprised of six ques-


dons which assessed children's thoughts regarding whether the conflictswould escalate and/or have negative implications for their families. Someitems were reverse scored (on a scale from 0 to -3). Children's responsesto the six items were summed and the scale had a standardized item alphacoefficient of .74. (d) A Blame Self scale was comprised of two questionswhich were rated on 4-point scales ranging from 0 (no) to 3 (definitely).Children's responses to the two items were summed and the standardizeditem alpha coefficient was .71. (e) A Criticize Parents scale was comprisedof five questions which evaluated the child's critical thoughts regarding par-ents' conflict behavior. Some items were reverse scored (on a scale from0 to -3). Children's responses to those five items were summed and thescale had a standardized item alpha coefficient of .66. (f) A Loss of Lovescale was comprised of two questions which were rated on 4-point scaleranging from 0 (no) to 3 (definitely). Children's responses to the two itemswere summed, and the scale had a standardized item alpha coefficient of.68. (g) An Efficacy scale was comprised of three questions which wererated on 4-point scales ranging from 0 (no) to 3 (definitely). Children's re-sponses to the three items were summed, and the scale had a standardizeditem alpha coefficient of .62.

Child Adjustment Measures

Self-Perception Profile for Children (What I Am Like; Harter, 1985). TheWhat I Am Like is a 36-item self-report scale that measures children's per-ceptions of their own competence. Items are scored on 4-point scales, andthere are six items to every subscale. Total scores for each subscale arecalculated by summing the six appropriate items and dividing by six to givean overall (perceived) competence score. Thus, the possible range of scoreson any subscale is 1 to 4, with low scores indicating low perceived compe-tence. Because we were interested in evaluating children's global percep-tions of their self-esteem, the Global Self-Worth scale was utilized in furtheranalyses. The standardized item alpha coefficient in this study sample was.68.

The Children's Depression Inventory-Short Form (CDI-Short Form;Kovacs, 1992). The CDI Short Form is a 10-item self-report questionnairein which children are instructed to describe how they have felt during thepast 2 weeks. Items are arranged in triplet sentence indicating absence ofdepression, moderate depression, or severe depression. Following Kovacs,each item was scored on a 3-point scale (ranging from 0 to 2), with allitem scores added to yield a total Depression score with a range of 0 to20. According to Kovacs, the CDI Short Form correlates r = .89 with a


full inventory, and the alpha reliability is equal to .80. The standardizeditem alpha coefficient for this study sample was .62.

Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL; Achenbach, 1991). The CBCL pro-vides descriptions of 118 problem behaviors likely to occur in children whoare 4 to 16 years of age. Each behavior item is scored 0 (not true in past6 months), 1 (somewhat or sometimes true), or 2 (very true or often true).Mothers used the CBCL rating form to evaluate their children's behavior.Gender- and age-based norms were used to obtain standardized T-scoreson the Internalizing and Externalizing Behavior Problem scales. The Inter-nalizing Behavior Problem scale measures children's feelings of depression,anxiety, and somatic discomfort, while the Externalizing Behavior Problemscale measures the extent to which children engage in aggressive and de-linquent behaviors. Standardized item alpha coefficients were .91 and .89,respectively, for the Internalizing and Externalizing Behavior Problem T-scores.

Child Behavior Checklist—Teacher Report Form (CBCL-TRF; Achen-bach, 1991). Each child's homeroom teacher (or a teacher who spent atleast 2 hours per week with the child) was asked to complete the TeacherRating Form of the CBCL, and was paid $5 upon our receipt of a com-pleted form. Gender- and age-based norms were used to obtain stand-ardized T-scores on the Internalizing and Externalizing Behavior Problemscales of the Teacher Report Forms. Standardized item alpha coefficientswere .88 and .96, respectively, for the Internalizing and Externalizing Be-havior Problem T-scores. Eighty-six percent of the teachers contacted forthis study sample returned completed CBCL-TRF forms. There were nosignificant differences between the children whose teachers did versus thosewhose teachers did not return completed rating forms for any assesseddemographic, independent, or dependent variables.

RESULTS

Analyses of the data occurred in four steps. First, T-tests comparingscores for boys and girls on each measure were conducted. Second, rela-tionships among coping responses were examined. Factor analysis was con-ducted and four underlying coping factors were identified. Third,correlations were conducted among the demographic, material conflict,child coping factors, and child adjustment variables. Fourth, hierarchicalregression analyses were conducted to evaluate the contribution of maritalconflict and child coping to the prediction of child adjustment. In eachregression analysis, demographic variables were entered at Step 1, marital


Marital Conflict, Child Coping, and Child Adjustment

Table EL Correlations Among Child Coping Variablesa

Variables

Child Coping Interview1. Avoid2. Self-Involve

Postconflict QuestionnaireBehaviors3. Avoid4. Self-Involve

Cognitions5. Negative Outcome6. Blame Self7. Criticize Parents8. Loss of Love9. Efficacy

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

-.20

-.07-.24

-.18.26 .04

.03-.20-.03

.15

.09

-.21.21

-.25-.08-.12

.03

.06

.16

.15

.30

.08.50p

.17

.35a

.34a

.21

.43b

.23

.06

.15-.01

.37a.25.06 .10

ap < .05, two-tailed.bp < .01, two-tailed.

Table III. Factor Pattern Matrix from Factor Analysis of Child CopingResponsesa

Subscale

Self-InvolveSelf-BlameSelf-Involve (interview)

Criticize ParentsNegative Outcome

AvoidEfficacy

Avoid (interview)Loss of Love

% of VarianceEigenvalueTotal variance

I

.87

.74

.53

.07

.08

-.01.43

-.31.29

24.402.20

68.70%

II

.12

.14-.40

.82

.80

.10-.09

-.11.35

19.401.74

III

.04

.20-.47

.11-.02

.77

.71

.06-.02

13.101.18

IV

.12-.22-.16

.01

.07

-.09.21

.77

.69

11.801.06

aWeights larger than .50 are underlined.

conflict was entered at Step 2, and child coping factors were entered atStep 3. An alpha level of .05 was used for all statistical tests.

In T-tests comparing scores for boys and girls on all measures, nostatistically significant differences were indicated. The intercorrelations

49

among coping scales are presented in Table II. Each coping scale was usedas a variable in the factor analysis because the sample size was not largeenough to provide adequate estimation if individual items were used (seeNunnally, 1978). A principal-components analysis was conducted with vari-max rotation. As presented in Table III, four factors were identified. TheSelf-Involve and Self-Blame scales loaded on the same factor, suggestingthat children's self-involving behavioral and cognitive responses to maritalconflict form a construct; this factor will be referred to as Self-Involve. Inaddition, children's anticipation of negative outcomes as a result of maritalconflict, and their critical thoughts regarding their parents' conflict behav-ior, loaded together to form a construct which will be referred to as Threat-ened/Critical. There were two different factors involving children'savoidance of their parents' conflict. Children's reports of staying out oftheir parents' marital conflict in response to the Postconflict Questionnaireloaded with children's reports of feeling efficacious when faced with inter-parental conflict, and this factor will be referred to as Confident Avoidance.Conversely, children's spontaneous reports of withdrawing from parents'marital conflict in response to the child coping interview loaded with chil-dren's reported worries that they would lose their parents' love when con-fronted with marital conflict, and this factor will be referred to as WorriedAvoidance. Factor scores were saved and utilized in later analyses.

Correlations among demographic, marital conflict, child coping fac-tors, and child adjustment variables are presented in Table IV As predicted,child reports of marital conflict were negatively associated with child re-ports of self-worth and positively associated with mother reports of childexternalizing behavior problems. Mother reports of marital conflict werepositively associated with teacher reports of child internalizing behaviorproblems. There were striking associations between children's reports ofself-involvement in their parents' marital conflict and their self-reportedfeeling of depression and low self-worth. Similarly, children's perceptionsof marital conflict as threatening and their critical evaluations of parents'marital conflict were positively associated with their self-reported feelingsof depression. The coping pattern of experiencing threat and criticalthoughts in response to marital conflict, however, was negatively correlatedwith teacher reports of child externalizing behavior problems. Children'sreports of worried avoidance in response to marital conflict were positivelyassociated with their self-reported feelings of depression. In contrast to thestrong associations between child coping and child reported adjustment,there were no significant associations between children's coping responsesto marital conflict and mother reports of child adjustment.

Follow-up regression analyses were conducted to evaluate the contri-butions of marital conflict and child coping responses to the prediction of


child adjustment after demographic variables had been considered. Six hi-erarchical regression analyses were conducted, one for each child adjust-ment measure. As presented in Table V, the nine independent variablesentered in three steps accounted for 53% of the variance in child reporteddepression. Final equation statistics indicated that the Self-Involve, Threat-ened/Critical, and Worried Avoidance coping factors each made inde-pendent contributions to the prediction of child depression. Higher levelsof Self-Involve, Threatened/Critical and Worried Avoidance coping wereassociated with higher levels of child depression. The nine independentvariables accounted for 39% of the variance in child reported self-worth.Final equation statistics indicated that children's reports of marital conflictmade a significant contribution to the prediction of children's self-worth.Higher levels of marital conflict were associated with lower levels of childreported feelings of self-worth.

As presented in Table VI, the four coping factors did not make asignificant contribution to the predictions of mother reports of child be-havior problems. Marital conflict, however, made a significant contributionto the prediction of mother reports of child externalizing behavior problemsand teacher reports of child internalizing behavior problems. The nine in-dependent variables accounted for 61% of the variance in teacher reportsof child externalizing behavior problems. Final equation statistics indicatedthat the Threatened/Critical and Worried Avoidance coping factors madesignificant contributions to the prediction of teacher reports of child exter-nalizing behavior problems. Children's reports that they perceived maritalconflict to be threatening, had critical thoughts regarding their parents' con-flict behavior, withdrew from marital conflict, and worried about losingtheir parents' love when confronted with marital conflict were negativelyassociated with teacher reports of child externalizing behavior problems.

DISCUSSION

This study was designed to evaluate children's exposure to maritalconflict and child coping as predictors of child adjustment. Several of thecoping factors were predictive of child reports of child depression. First,children's self-involvement in interparental conflict, that is their reports ofself-blame and plans to involve themselves directly in conflict, were pre-dictive of higher rates of child depression. These findings are consistentwith previous work which indicates that a combination of feelings of re-sponsibility for negative life events coupled with unsuccessful efforts to endthose events heighten feelings of helplessness and depression (Abramson,Seligman, & Teasdale, 1978). Even when children's efforts to intervene in


marital conflict are skillful, they are unlikely to be successful given chil-dren's relatively low power vis-a-vis their parents.

Second, children's perceptions of marital conflict as threatening andtheir critical thoughts regarding parents' high-intensity marital conflictprocess were predictive of higher rates of child depression. This finding isconsistent with theoretical work (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984) suggesting thatappraisal of a negative event as likely to lead to negative outcomes is as-sociated with heightened levels of emotional distress. Also, research sug-gests that children do not like to perceive parents as imperfect or as actingineffectually (Dean et al., 1986). For example, children who are abused bytheir parents sometimes engage in self-blaming or self-condemning cogni-tions rather than acknowledging that their parents may have mistreatedthem (Dean et al., 1986). Thus, it is not surprising that feelings of depres-sion accompany children's observations that the way their parents engagein conflict are ineffectual and problematic.

Third, children's worried avoidance, that is avoidance of marital con-flict and worry regarding loss of parental love, was predictive of higher rateof child depression. Although previous work suggests that avoidance ofmarital conflict is associated with lower levels of child maladjustment(O'Brien et al., 1995), the current findings suggest that the examination ofchildren's coping behaviors independent of accompanying thoughts may beincomplete/deceptive. Behavioral withdrawal from interparental conflictthat is accompanied by rumination regarding loss of parents' love is asso-ciated with child reports of higher levels of depression, yet behavioral with-drawal from interparental conflict that is accompanied by children'sassertions of self-confidence in their abilities to soothe themselves and/ortheir parents is not associated with higher levels of child maladjustment.Thus, these findings highlight the importance of evaluating patterns of chil-dren's interrelated thoughts and behaviors rather than any one coping do-main in isolation when attempting to understand the relationship betweenchildren's coping responses and overall adjustment. In addition, these find-ings suggest that there are several different ways of processing and respond-ing to marital conflict that are associated with depression in children.

In this study, the relationship among child exposure to marital con-flict, child coping, and child adjustment differed depending on the reporterof child adjustment. Although several child coping variables were predictiveof child reports of child internalizing behavior problems (i.e., depression),child coping was not predictive of mother or teacher reports of child in-ternalizing behavior problems. This finding is not inconsistent with previouswork within this area which has indicated differential relationships amongchild coping and child adjustment dependent on reporter. For example,Grych and colleagues (1992) found a positive association between children's


appraisals of threat and blame in response to marital conflict and children'sself reports of internalizing behavior problems. Neither parent or teacherreports of child internalizing problems, however, were consistently relatedto these appraisals. It is possible that common method variance heightensthe relationship between child reports of child coping responses and childadjustment. Alternatively, it is possible that children's cognitive and behav-ioral responses to marital conflict influence their own feelings in ways thatare imperceptible to others. Depression in children may be difficult foradults to identify. For example, in this study there were negative correla-tions between child reports of depression and teacher reports of child in-ternalizing behavior problems. Teachers and parents as outside observersmay have difficulty identifying child internalizing behavior problems, espe-cially when the problems are at a subclinical level. Some have suggestedthat children may be better informants for internalizing disorders than areparents or teachers (Herjanic & Reich, 1982; Weissman et al., 1987).

While the threatened/critical and worried avoidance child coping fac-tors were predictive of higher rates of child reported depression, they werepredictive of lower rates of teacher reported child externalizing behaviorproblems. Although anticipating negative outcomes to marital conflict andcriticizing parents' conflict process may be painful for children, these cog-nitive processes also may be protective. Children who are able to identifyinappropriate interpersonal processes and anticipate that such processeslead to problems may be less likely to simply incorporate and perpetuatepatterns of aggressive interpersonal behavior than those children who donot make these observations. For example, studies which evaluate the in-tergeneration of child abuse and neglect have found that adult women whoremember their abusive parents as rejecting and their childhoods as trou-bled were far less likely to reject their children than were mothers whohad yet to acknowledge the problematic nature of their childhoods (Main& Goldwyn, 1984). Moreover, in two separate prospective studies of at riskmothers followed from the postpartum period, it was found that motherswith histories of maltreatment who did not maltreat their own children weremore openly angry and better able to give a detailed coherent account oftheir earlier abuse than were repeaters (Egeland et al., 1987; Hunter etal., 1978). Thus, children who are able to criticize their parents' high-in-tensity conflict behavior and anticipate negative consequences of such be-havior may be less likely to engage in problematic interpersonal interactionswith peers. Similarly, children who avoid and worry about the implicationsof marital conflict may be less likely to mimic the conflictual behavior mod-eled by their parents.

These findings emphasize the need to examine multiple indicators ofchild adjustment simultaneously. The relationship between child coping and


child adjustment appears to be complex with different implications for dif-ferent aspects of functioning. These complicated findings are consistentwith previous work. For example, in a study of the relationship betweenlife stress, mediating/moderating processes, and adolescent development,Luthar (1991) found evidence that youths characterized as socially compe-tent and "resilent" were simultaneously depressed and anxious. Althoughparticular patterns of coping with stress may be protective for some areasof functioning, a cost may be exacted on other areas of functioning.

These data are consistent with prior research conducted on nonclinicfamilies, in that the relationship between child exposure to marital conflictand child adjustment was moderate. In their review of the literature onthe relationship between marital conflict and child adjustment, Grych andFincham (1990) indicated that, although correlations greater than .40 havebeen found in samples of clinic-referred children, correlations using com-munity samples have rarely exceeded .35. Child reports of exposure to mari-tal conflict were significantly predictive of decreased rates of child reportedfeelings of self-worth. In clinic populations where the relationship betweenmarital conflict and child adjustment is likely to be stronger, relationshipsamong marital conflict, child coping, and child adjustment variables alsomay be stronger. Future work is encouraged to examine the relationshipsamong marital conflict, child coping, and child adjustment in clinic popu-lations of children who have either witnessed severe levels of interparentalconflict or who are exhibiting severe emotional and behavioral problems.

This study sample was comprised of a mixture of children from intactand divorced families. Because children may experience and respond tomarital conflict differently depending on their family status, future workshould evaluate the relationships among marital conflict, child coping, andchild adjustment for divorced versus continuously intact families separately.Also, our data were cross-sectional, and thus although some of the findingswere consistent with a model in which marital conflict and child copingaffect child adjustment, they certainly did not prove such a model. In futurework, it will be important to investigate the interrelationships among mari-tal conflict, child coping, and child adjustment longitudinally.

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child exposure to marital conflict and child coping responses as predictors of child adjustment

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