college students' cognitive and emotional reactions to simulated marital and family conflict

Cognitive Therapy and Research, Vol. 19, No. 6, 1995, pp. 707-724

College Students' Cognitive and Emotional Reactions to Simulated Marital and Family Conflict 1

M a r y O'Brien, 2 Ka thy Balto, Stephanie Erber, and Chris t ina Gee New York University

This study examined cognitive and emotional reactions to simulated marital and family conflicts as experienced by college students from homes with physically aggressive (PA) and nonphysically aggressive (NPA) marital relationships. Individuals from PA homes reported experiencing more physiological arousal and negative affect in response to simulated marital and family conflict than did individuals from NPA homes. In addition, PA respondents were less likely to provide spontaneous suggestions regarding how marital conflict could proceed more constructively than were NPA respondents. These results suggest that marital conflict witnessed in the home may influence young adults' thoughts and feelings regarding marital conflict in novel situations, and present the possibility that marital conflict witnessed between one's parents leads to the development of a marital conflict representation which guides social information processing of newly encountered marital interactions.

KEY WORDS: marital conflict; adolescents' cognitive and emotional responses.

1This research has been supported in part by New York University funding for junior faculty. Our appreciation goes to Kareston Koenen, Kristy Martin, Carla Edelstein, Natalie Kusturic, Hilary Combs, Robin Mayers, Gregory Orenbach, Debra Farbman, and Randi Dorman who assisted with data collection, data transcription, and/or coding. This manuscript has benefited by reviews of earlier drafts by Ian Gotiib and an anonymous reviewer.

2Address all correspondence regarding this article to Mary O'Brien, Department of Psychology, 6 Washington Place, Room 483, New York University, New York, New York 1OOO3.

707

0147-5916/95/1200-0707507.50~ O 1995 Plenum Publishing Corporation

708 O'Brlen, Balto, Ether, and Gee

According to a national survey, just over 16% or one out of six American couples experienced an incident involving physical assault during 1985 (Straus & GeUes, 1990). Applying this rate to the approximately 54 million couples in the United States that year results in an estimate of about 8.7 million couples who experienced at least one assault (Straus & Gelles, 1990). What are the immediate and long-term effects of witnessing interparental violence on children and adolescents? It has been demonstrated that angry interactions even among strangers cause distress in young children (Cummings, 1987; Cummings, Iannotti, & Zahn-Waxler, 1985), and many studies have documented a positive relationship between marital violence and emotional and/or behavioral problems in children and adolescents (for reviews see Emery, 1982; Fantuzzo et al., 1991; Grych & Fincham, 1990). Furthermore, associations have been found between childhood exposure to interparental violence and the expression of violence within one's intimate relationships in adulthood (Carlson, 1990; Doumas, Margolin, & John, 1994; Kalmuss, 1984; Rosenbaum & O'Leary, 1981; Straus & Gelles, 1990). More information is needed regarding the processes through which witnessing interparental violence in childhood may lead to the commission or experience of violence in adult intimate relationships.

Social learning theory suggests that, through modeling processes (Bandura, 1986), as children witness conflict between their parents they learn strategies regarding the negotiation and resolution of intimate interpersonal conflict. Children who are exposed to violence between their parents will have the opportunity to learn coercive, violent strategies for marital conflict resolution while children who are exposed to constructive conflict between their parents will have the opportunity to learn constructive conflict resolution strategies. Information-transformation theories (i.e., schema theory, working models) suggest that information that is available in one's social environment is transformed in memory into knowledge structures that guide future social information processing, providing a link between early socializing experiences and cognitive processing in similar situations in the future (Dodge, 1993). Thus, individuals may develop schemata regarding marital conflict, consisting of expectations regarding how conflict proceeds, a series of scripts regarding how conflictual interactions get played out, and a range of motor, autonomic, and affective reactions to intimate interpersonal conflict based on their experiences witnessing interparental conflict. In the future, as individuals witness or participate in marital conflict, they are likely to experience affect, engage in behaviors, and think about conflict in ways that are consistent with activated schemata. Individuals who have developed schemata or working models based on watching their parents engage constructively in conflict negotiation may have a very different set of cognitive, physiological, affective, and behavioral

Reactions to Simulated Conflict 709

reactions to marital conflict than those who have witnessed their parents engage in physical violence.

Previous empirical work has suggested an association between early socialization experiences and the development of social cognitions regarding interpersonal interactions. For example, in a study of the effects of physical abuse on the development of social information processing, Dodge, Bates, and Pettit (1990) found that abused children developed biased and deficient patterns of thinking in social situations, including a failure to attend to relevant cues, a bias toward attributing hostile intentions to others, and a lack of competent behavioral strategies to solve interpersonal problems. These patterns, in turn, predicted the onset of children's aggressive behavior problems 6 months later. Perhaps the experience of physical harm leads a child to conceptualize and process his/her interpersonal world in deviant ways that later perpetuate the cycle of violence (Dodge et al., 1990).

A similar process may occur for individual witnesses of interparental violence. Research has indicated that boys who witness physical aggression between their parents are less skilled evaluators of novel marital and family conflict than those who have not witnessed interparental aggression, (O'Brien, Margolin, John, & Krueger, 1991). When presented with simulated interparental conflict interactions, boys who had never witnessed physical violence between their parents were more likely than boys who had witnessed interparental violence to criticize aspects of the conflict, praise aspects of the conflict, think about where the conflict might lead, and suggest ways that the conflictual conversations and families should proceed differently so as to reduce conflict. Conversely, sons from violent homes were more likely than those from nonviolent homes to suggest acting upon the conflict (O'Brien et al., 1991). Children from violent homes may lack skills in cognitively processing conflict; their scripts regarding how to engage and resolve conflict constructively may be inadequate, making it more difficult to contain anxiety generated by conflict and increasing the likelihood that they will act out behaviorally.

In terms of children's affective responses to interparental conflict, Cummings and colleagues (Cummings, Vogel, Cummings, & El-Sheikh, 1989; Cummings, Zahn-Waxler, & Radke-Yarrow, 1981) have found that children exhibited more distress when observing angry exchanges between adults that involved physical aggression compared to conflictual exchanges that involved only verbal anger. Additionally, children who reported a history of physical conflict between their parents exhibited greater distress when their mother was angrily confronted during an experimental session than did children who had not witnessed interparental aggression (Cum- mings, Pellegrini, Notarius, & Cummings, 1989).

710 O'Brien, Baito, F__x~r, and Gee

Perhaps part of the legacy of exposure to violent interparental conflict is the presence of extreme affective reactions and restricted cognitive processing abilities when faced with marital conflict. Although there is some support for this premise in studies of children, there has been little investigation as to whether these relationships exist in early adulthood. The present study was designed to examine cognitive and emotional reactions to simulated conflicts as expressed by young adults who have and have not witnessed physically aggressive marital conflict between their parents. A technique that has been used to detect differences in cognitive and emotional reactions to marital conflict among children (O'Brien et al., 1991), the Articulated Thoughts Dur- ing Simulated Situations paradigm (ATSS; Davison, Feldman, & Osbom, 1984; Davison, Robins, & Johnson, 1983; Davison & Zighelboim, 1988), was used to evaluate young adults' reactions to family conflict. The ATSS procedure involves audiotaped presentation of stimulus situations (in this case, family conflicts), interrupted at intervals to allow subjects to "think aloud." ATSS was designed to present stressful situations in a sufficiently vivid manner to activate affect and cognitions which might otherwise be difficult to detect with questionnaire procedures (for a discussion of the methodological strengths of the ATSS procedure, see Davison et al., 1984, 1983; Haaga, 1989).

If individuals do have representations of marital conflict based on their experiences witnessing their own parents' arguments that are activated and used in evaluating novel marital conflict situations, then individuals who have been exposed to different models of marital conflict should attend to different aspects of novel marital conflict, have different expectancies regarding the process of marital conflict, and have different affective reactions to marital conflict. For example, the discrepancy principle suggests that, if an individual has a schematic prototype for an event, aspects of the event that are somewhat different from those encountered in the past are most likely to receive attention, while those that are very familiar are less likely to receive attention (Mussen, Conger, Kagan, & Huston, 1990). Schema- discrepant information receives added attention at input if task conditions allow (Fiske & Taylor, 1991). Thus, given the relative frequency of high-intensity conflict strategies witnessed by individuals from aggressive homes, it was hypothesized that, in response to simulated marital interactions, individuals who have witnessed interparental violence will be less likely to comment on high-intensity conflict processes depicted in the taped interactions than will individuals who have not witnessed interparental violence. Con- versely, given the relative, novelty of constructive marital conflict resolution strategies for individuals from aggressive homes, individuals who have witnessed interparental violence will be more likely to comment on low-intensity, skillful conflict negotiation strategies than will individuals from low-conflict homes. Additionally, individuals who have witnessed marital


conflict between their parents will be less likely than individuals who have not witnessed marital conflict to spontaneously provide ideas regarding how marital conflict could proceed more constructively because they have had less experience with and thus less knowledge of such possibilities. The marital literature as well as schema theory suggests that individuals make predictions about the outcomes of current events based on their previous experiences with such events (Epstein & Baucom, 1993; Fiske & Taylor, 1991). Thus it was hypothesized that individuals who have witnessed highly coercive, aggressive conflict between their parents will be more likely to anticipate negative outcomes as the result of marital conflict than will individuals who have not witnessed interparental violence. Conversely, individuals who have witnessed constructive marital conflict will be more likely to anticipate positive outcomes as a result of marital conflict than will those who have witnessed aggressive marital conflict. Finally, based on theoretical and empirical work regarding schema-triggered affect (Fiske & Taylor, 1991) it was hypothesized that respondents who have been exposed to physically violent marital conflict in their home environments will have more negative affective reactions to simulated marital conflict than will respondents from families without physically aggressive marital conflict.

METHOD

Subjects

The subjects were 66 (46 female and 20 male) undergraduate students enrolled in an introductory psychology course at a university in the north- east. These individuals were not preselected on any measures and participated in order to receive credit toward course requirements. These individuals were on average 19 years old. Eleven percent of the participants were African-American, 21% were Asian, 47% were Caucasian, 12% were Latino, and 9% were other ethnic minorities. Participants' mean scaled score on the Wcchsler Adult Intelligence Scale--Revised Information sub- test (WAdS-R; Wechsler, 1981) was 10.78.

Participants were administered a revised version of the Conflict qhc- tics Scale--Form N (CTS; Straus, 1979) for young adults, which evaluates the intensity and type of marital conflict that individuals have witnessed between their parents. Participants reported the frequency with which they saw or heard their parents use various conflict tactics, ranging from "discussed the issue calmly" to "used a knife or gun," in the history of the parents' marital relationship. Subjects rated each item of a 4-point scale ranging from 0 (never witnessed this event) to 3 (witnessed this event lots of

712 O'Brien, Balto, Erber, and Gee

times). Following Straus (1982), two summary scales were created, the Physical Abuse and the Verbal/Symbolic Abuse Scales. The Physical Abuse Scale consists of CTS items k through r, which measure parents' use of physical force against each other, and the Verbal/Symbolic Abuse Scale consists of CTS items d through f and h through j, which measure parents' use of verbal and nonverbal acts which symbolically hurt each other, and use of threats to hurt each other. Total scores on each of the two scales were derived by summing across all scale items and across descriptions of mother's and father's behavior. The alpha coefficients for the physical and verbal/symbolic abuse scales were .72 and .85, respectively.

Each subject was classified into one of two marital conflict groups: physical aggression (PA) or no physical aggression (NPA) depending on whether or not they had witnessed either parent direct any physical aggression toward the other at any time during their parents' marital history. If a subject reported witnessed either parent direct any physical aggression toward the other, they were placed in the PA group (n = 28), and if they reported never witnessed either parent direct physical aggression toward the other they were placed in the NPA group (n = 38). The mean Physical Abuse Scale score for the PA group was 4.8 (SD = 4.6). Subjects in the PA group reported witnessing higher levels of verbal/symbolic aggression, t(64) = 4.79, p < .01, and lower levels of calm discussion of conflictual issues (CTS item a) between their parents, t(64) = 3.78, p < .01, than did subjects in the NPA group. Mean Verbal/Symbolic Aggression Scale scores from PA and NPA respondents were 16.54 (SD = 5.44) and 10.03 (SD = 5.47), respectively. Mean scores in response to CTS item a, regarding how often parents discuss conflictual issues calmly, were 3.64 (SD = 1.39) for the PA group and 4.71 (SD = .89) for the NPA group. Thus, subjects in the PA group are characterized by witnessing higher levels of physical and verbal/symbolic aggression and lower levels of calm, rational discussion of conflictual issues between their parents, compared to the NPA group.

General information questionnaires filled out by each of the respondents were analyzed to determine whether the two groups were de- mographically comparable. The groups did not differ in terms of age [t(64) < 1], gender [Z2(1) = 2.40], ethnicity, [Z2(4) = 9.09, p = n.s.], college grade-point average [t(64) < 1], or scaled score on the WAIS-R Informa- tion subscale [t(64) < 1].

Procedures

Articulated Thoughts During Simulated Situations. For the ATSS procedure, subjects were asked to sit in front of a desk on top of which were


two tape recorders and a microphone. Before beginning the procedure, each subject was told the following:

"In a few minutes you will be listening to several audiotapes of married couples talking with each other. While you are listening to these tapes, I would like you to imagine that you are at your parents' home and you overhear these conversations between you own parents. The conversations will pause several times. At each pause, I would like you to talk out loud about whatever you are thinking and feeling as you listen to the conversations. Each pause will last for about 30 seconds, and I'd like you to try to talk during the whole pause."

Next, each subject was administered one practice tape followed by the actual experimental tapes depicting six simulated marital interactions. The six marital interactions were divided into three segments. After each of the three segments, there was a tone followed by a 30-s pause, during which time subjects tuned in to their own thoughts and feelings and reported them into the tape recorder. Audiotapes were utilized because they allowed the conflicts to be standardized across individuals and were chosen over videotape because they lack concrete visual cues pertaining to the identity of the actors in the interaction, thereby making it easier for individuals to imagine that the conflicts involve their own parents.

The following three marital conflict situations were depicted on the tapes: (a) a husband-wife conflictual discussion regarding household chores and responsibilities, (b) a husband-wife conflictual discussion regarding parenting their college-age son/daughter, (c) a husband-wife discussion regarding their anger toward their college-age son/daughter. The marital conflict topics were selected based on previous research indicating that parents frequently argue about household chores and parenting issues in front of their adolescent children (Forehand & McCombs, 1989). For each situation there was a low- and high-intensity version, resulting in six tapes in total. In the low-intensity version of the three situations, each dyad discussed the issues calmly and courteously, for example, by listening to each other, not raising their voices, and respecting and cooperating with each other. In the high-intensity versions of each situation, the dyads participated in more heated discussions. In the two high-intensity discussions that involved conflict regarding marital and parenting issues, the dyads raised their voices, criticized each other, and cut each other off midsentence. In the high-intensity discussion pertaining to the couples' mutual anger with their college-age son/daughter, the dyad raised their voices and were allied in expressing high levels of frustration and dissatisfaction with their son/daughter. Length of discussion and number of lines spoken by each actor were held constant across tapes. The order of administration of the six tapes was randomized across respondents.


To determine the extent to which subjects found the conflict tapes realistic, after listening to each tape, respondents were asked to rate on a scale ranging from 1 (not at all realistic) to 5 (very realistic) how realistically the tape portrayed family conflict. Subjects' ratings of each tape were examined through a 2 × 3 x 2 (Group x Situation × Intensity) repeated-measures analysis of variance (ANOVA). 3 There were no significant main effects for marital conflict group, F(1, 64) < 1, nor 'were there significant Group x Tape Intensity, F(1, 64) < 1, or Group x Tape Content, F(2, 63) = 1.26, interactions. Means for the PA (M = 3.11) and NPA (M = 3.27) groups indicate that both groups perceived the six tapes to be somewhat realistic. A significant main effect for conflict tape intensity indicates that respondents perceived the high-intensity tapes to be more realistic than the low- intensity tapes, F(1, 64) = 11.91, p < .01; means for the high- and low-intensity tapes were 3.37 and 3.04, respectively.

To evaluate whether the high-intensity tapes were in fact perceived to be more conflictual than the low-intensity tapes and whether the three different conflict content domains were perceived to be equally conflictual, a second manipulation check was conducted. After listening to each tape, respondents were asked to rate on a scale ranging from 1 (much milder) to 5 (much stronger) how the conflict portrayed on the tapes compared to conflict that they heard between their own parents. There were no significant main effects for conflict content, F(2, 63) < 1, or for Content x In- tensity interactions, F(2, 63) < 1. There was, however, a main effect for conflict intensity, F(1, 64) = 39.96, p < .01, indicating that the three high- intensity conflict tapes were perceived to be more intense than the three low-intensity conflict tapes; means for the high- and low-intensity tapes were 2.84 and 2.15, respectively.

ATSS Coding. Responses to the six ATSS stimulus tapes were transcribed, and were rated by graduate student coders along 11 dimensions. Coder training consisted of 10 1-hour sessions reviewing the definitions of coding dimensions, discussing methods for identifying codes, and evaluating coder reliabilities with practice tapes. Coding time was approximately 20 min for each subject's responses on all tapes. Three coders independently

3Note that the term ANOVA is used here, rather than MANOVA (multivariate ANOVA), so as not to confuse the reader who might expect a full factorial MANOVA which has multiple dependent variables when the term MANOVA is used. Nonetheless, MANOVA was used in place of the univariate mixed model approach to repeated measures (see O'Brien & Kaiser, 1985, for a readable introduction). Multivariate tests of significance, rather than averaged tests of significance, were reported. As noted by Cliff (1987, p. 411), the MANOVA provides for a more conservative, although generally more appropriate, analysis of repeated-measures designs. The MANOVA procedure allows for violations of the sphericity assumption, which often compromises the results of a mixed-model ANOVA for repeated measures (O'Brien & Kaiser, 1985, p 317).


assessed each subject's articulated responses to all six tapes, producing six ratings on each of the 11 dimensions for each coder on each subject. Coded dimensions were not mutually exclusive. Coders assigned a score of 0 (not at all) if the subject mentioned nothing of relevance to a particular coding dimension, and a score of 1 (present) when the subject mentioned statements pertinent to a dimension.

The coding system focused on respondents' observations regarding the processes that the dyads were using to discuss conflictual issues, comments regarding alternative ways that the conflictual discussions could proceed, predictions about conflict outcome, and respondents' own emotional responses to the discussions. Three codes were dropped due to low base rates, and two codes were dropped because they were not relevant to testing the theory-based hypotheses put forward in this manuscript. 4 The following six codes were examined in this study: (a) comments regarding high intensity referred to respondents ' discussion of the actors' angry affect and/or hostile style of interacting (i.e., their tendency to cut each other off midsentence, call each other names, blame each other for problems, etc.) For example, comments such as "They really sound angry" and "They got all hot and bothered" were included in this code; (b) comments regarding low intensity referred to respondents ' discussions of the actors' calm affect and/or constructive style of interacting (i.e., their tendency to listen to each other, acknowledge that the other person has a reasonable point of view, propose solutions to the problem in a nonthreatening, non- accusatory manner, etc.). For example, comments such as "Well, this is a rational, healthy conversation" and "They are communicating calmly" were included in this code; (c) prescription was coded for constructive suggestions concerning how the actors should proceed differently so that the conflict would be resolved more effectively, and/or the marital/family relationships would be more satisfactory. For example, comments such as "They should listen to each other more" and "They should spend time gathering their thoughts together instead of just yelling" were included in this code; (d) negative outcome pertained to pessimistic predictions regarding how the conflict would end. Statements such as "The way these people are talking to each other is going to lead to a divorce" and "They really aren't solving anything, in fact, they are making matters worse" were in-

4The following three codes were dropped because of low endorsement: respondents' own positive emotions in response to the conflictual discussions, respondents' reported attempts to verbally or physically intervene in the conflict situations, self-distracting comments that were tangential and unique and reflected an inability to deal directly with the simulated conflict situations. The following two codes were droppod because they did not contribute to hypotheses testing: negative evaluation captured the critical comments that were directed toward the actors in the conflictual interactions, and positive evaluation reflected praise of the actors and support or empathy for their positions.

716 O'Brien, Balto, Ether, and Gee

cluded in this code; (e) positive outcome pertained to optimistic predictions regarding how the conflict would end. Statements such as "This conversation will really help the family understand each other better" were included in this code; and (f) comments regarding respondents" negative emotions captured respondents discussions of their own negative feelings while they were listening to the conflict tapes. Statements such as "This conversation really bugs me" and "I would feel nervous if I heard this in my house" were included in this code.

The reliability of coders was assessed by Cohen's kappa (Cohen, 1960) conducted on each of the six coded dimensions for each of the three coder pairs. Each coded dimension was analyzed for a agreement across all tapes. Following Bakeman and Gottman (1986), kappa was selected because it corrects for chance agreement. Average kappas for each of the six coded dimensions were the following: .54 for comments regarding high intensity, .75 for comments regarding low intensity, .73 for prescription, .60 for negative outcome, .48 for positive outcom~ and .74 for comments regarding respondents' negative emotions. Fleiss (1981) characterized kappas of .40 to .60 as fair, .60 to .75 as good, and over .75 as excellent. Thus, acceptable levels of reliability were achieved for all coded dimensions.

Self-Reported Arousal Checklist. After every tape, respondents were asked to evaluate their physiological arousal in a format patterned after the work of Shields and Stern (1979). On a 5-point scale ranging from 0 (not at all) to 4 (greatly), subjects rated the extent to which they experienced the following: Face felt hot or flushed; hands or body got sweaty; I got a lump in my throat and/or my eyes got teary; my body felt restless; my heart was beating faster, was pounding, or was beating louder; I was breathing faster; I felt a rush of energy. These seven items were averaged to create one Physiological Arousal Scale. The alpha coefficient for this scale was .88.

Feelings Checklist. After every tape, respondents were asked to indicate how they were feeling on five 7-point bipolar scales. They reported how happy they felt (scale ranged from very unhappy to very happy), how nervous they felt (scale ranged from very relaxed to very nervous), how hopeful they felt (scale ranged from very hopeless to very hopeful), how angry they felt (scale ranged from very calm to very angry), and how fright- ened/scared they felt (scale ranged from very secure to very scared). Three items were reverse-scored (i.e., nervous, angry, and scared), and then the five items were averaged to create one Feelings scale. Higher scores on the Feelings scale indicated more positive feelings while lower scores on the Feelings scale indicated more negative feelings. The alpha coefficient for this scale was .76.


RESULTS

Data were first averaged across the three coders. 5 The six coded ATSS dimensions were examined through two 2 (Conflict Group) x 3 (Tape Con- tent) × 2 (Tape Intensity) repeated-measures multivariate analyses of variance (MANOVAs) and two 2 (Conflict Group) x 3 (Tape Content) × 2 (Tape Intensity) repeated-measures ANOVAs. Comments regarding the conflict intensity, i.e., comments regarding high intensity and comments regarding low intensity, and predictions regarding conflict outcome, i.e., positive outcome and negative outcome codes, were examined in two separate repeated-measures MANOVAs. The prescription and comments regarding subject's own negative emotions codes were examined in two separate repeated-measures ANOVAs. Multivariate tests of significance, rather than averaged tests of significance, were reported for the ANOVAs. Self-reported physiological arousal and feelings in response to conflict tapes also were examined through two 2 x 3 x 2 (Conflict Group x Tape Content x Tape Intensity) repeated-measures ANOVAs. Since our hypotheses focus on differences between PA and NPA group responses to simulated marital and family conflict, only those results which tested our hypotheses, that is, marital conflict group main effects and Marital Conflict Group x Tape interactions (Marital Conflict Group x Conflict Tape Content, Marital Con- flict Group x Conflict "l~pe Intensity, and Marital Conflict Group x Conflict Tape Content x Conflict Tape Intensity) will be reported.

A word count was conducted on subjects' transcribed responses to the stimulus tapes. A repeated-measures ANOVA conducted on the word counts indicated that there were no significant main effects for marital conflict group, F(1, 58) < 1, tape intensity, F(1, 58) = 1.15, or tape content, F(2, 57) < 1, nor were there significant Group x Tape interaction effects. Thus, between-group differences in coded responses to the stimulus tapes were not due to differential rates of response between subjects. Subjects articulated an average of 175.5 words in response to each tape. Table I displays means and standard deviations of respondents' ATSS responses for all six coded dimensions, and for their responses to the physiological arousal and feelings checklists.

Conflict Intensity. Contrary to prediction there were no significant main effects for marital conflict group, F(2, 57) < 1, nor were there significant interaction effects for Marital Conflict Group × Tape Content, F(4, 55) =

50ne subject was eliminated from analyses conducted on self-reported physiological arousal and feelings data due to accidental omission of forms during study administration, and five additional subjects were eliminated from analyses conducted on cognitive responses to simulated situations due to technical difficulties with recording equipment which led to loss of data.

Tab

le I

. M

eans

and

Sta

ndar

d D

evia

tion

s fo

r th

e A

TSS

Cod

ed D

imen

sion

s an

d Po

st T

ape

Che

cklis

t V

aria

bles

a

Mar

ital

con

flic

t re

: ho

usew

ork

Mar

ital

con

flic

t re

: pa

rent

ing

Pare

nts

angr

y w

ith

adol

esce

nt

I_~w

int

ensi

ty

Hig

h in

tens

ity

Low

int

ensi

ty

Hig

h in

tens

ity

Low

int

ensi

ty

Hig

h in

tens

ity

NP

A

PA

NP

A

PA

NPA

PA

N

PA

P

A

NPA

PA

N

PA

PA

M

SD

M

SD

M

SD

M

SD

M

SD

M

SD

M

SD

M

SD

M

SD

M

SD

M

SD

M

SD

AT

SS r

espo

nses

Con

flic

t in

tens

ity

Low

.2

7 (.

41)

.30

(.46)

.0

1 (.0

9)

.06

(.22)

.1

6 (.3

6)

.18

(.35

) .0

1 (.0

9)

.04

(.20)

.1

6 (.3

2)

.08

(.28)

.0

0 (.0

0)

.02

(.10)

Hig

h .0

3 (.

12)

.00

(.00)

.3

0 (.4

1)

.18

(.32

) .0

3 (.1

2)

.00

(.00

) .2

3 (.3

7)

.10

(.25)

.0

0 (.0

0)

.02

(.10)

.1

7 (.2

7)

.26

(.36)

Pr

escr

ipti

on

.79

(.83

) .6

0 (.7

2)

.74

(.88)

.4

6 (.5

9)

.53

(.66)

.2

8 (.

46)

.64

(.80)

.3

8 (.5

5)

.31

(.44)

.4

4 (.6

3)

.40

(.55)

.3

8 (.5

5)

Con

flic

t ou

tcom

e

Posi

tive

N

egat

ive

Em

otio

ns

Aro

usal

Feel

ings

.07

(.22)

.0

6 (.2

2)

.04

(.19)

.0

2 (.

I0)

,04

(,19)

,0

0 (.0

0)

.01

(.ID

) .0

4 (,2

0)

.14

(.31)

.0

6 (.2

2)

.08

(,00)

.0

2 (,

I0)

.06

(.24)

.0

4 (.2

0)

.16

(.34)

.1

8 (.3

8)

.03

(.12)

.0

4 (.1

4)

.06

(.20)

.0

4 (.1

4)

.00

(.00)

.0

2 (.1

0)

.13

(.31)

.0

6 (.2

2)

.03

(.17

) .0

4 (.2

0)

.06

(.20)

.1

6 (.3

7)

.04

(.19

) .0

8 (.

28)

.16

(.34)

.1

2 (.3

3)

.10

(.27)

.0

4 (.2

0)

.14

(.29)

.2

0 (.3

5)

Post

tap

e ch

eckl

ists

.41

(.65

) .3

7 (.3

5)

.44

(.59)

.4

9 (.4

9)

.48

(.66

) .5

3 (.6

2)

.44

(.71)

.7

4 (.6

6)

.38

(.60)

.5

4 (.5

0)

.47

(.66)

.7

7 (.7

4)

4.4

(.76

) 4.

1 (.5

8)

4.2

(.83)

3.

8 (.6

9)

4.1

(.87

) 4.

0 (.6

6)

4.1

(.87)

3.

7 (.6

7)

4.5

(.98)

3.

9 (.5

6)

4.2

(.94)

3.

7 (.9

4)

aEm

otio

ns r

efer

s to

com

men

ts r

egar

ding

res

pond

ent's

neg

ativ

e em

otio

n~;

Aro

usal

ref

ers

to t

he P

hysi

olog

ical

Aro

usal

Sca

le;

Fee

lings

re

fers

to

the

Feel

ings

Sca

le.

AT

SS =

A

rtic

ulat

ed T

houg

hts

Dur

ing

Sim

ulat

ed S

itua

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2.20, p = .08, Marital Conflict Group x Tape Intensity, F(2, 57) < 1, or Marital Conflict Group × Tape Content × Tape Intensity, F(4, 55) < 1.

Prescription. As predicted, there was a significant Marital Conflict Group × Tape Content interaction, F(2, 57) = 3.44, p < .05. The nature of this interaction was explored with foUowup t-tests. Results indicated that individuals who had witnessed physical aggression between their parents were less likely than those who had not witnessed physical aggression to spontaneously provide suggestions regarding ways that parents could engage conflict more constructively in response to the marital conflict tapes, t(58) = 1.73, p < .05, (M for PA group in response to marital conflict tapes = .43; M for NPA in response to marital conflict tapes = .68), but not in response to parent--child conflict tapes, t(58) < 1, p = n.s., (M for PA in response to parent-child conflict tape = .41; M for NPA in response to parent-child conflict tape = .36). There were no significant main effects for marital conflict group, F(1, 58) = 1.22, nor were there significant interaction effects for Marital Conflict Group × Tape Intensity, F(1, 58) < 1, or Marital Conflict Group × Tape Content × Tape Intensity, F(2, 57) < 1.

Conflict Outcome. Contrary to prediction there were no significant main effects for marital conflict group, F(2, 57) < 1, nor were there significant interaction effects for Marital Conflict Group × Tape Content, F(4, 55) < 1, Marital Conflict Group × Tape Intensity, F(2, 57) < 1, or Marital Conflict Group × Tape Content × Tape Intensity, F(4, 55) < 1.

Comments Regarding Subjects" Own Negative Emotions. Contrary to prediction there were no significant main effects for marital conflict group, F(1, 58) < 1, nor were there significant interaction effects for Marital Con- flict Group x Tape Content, F(2, 57) < 1, Marital Conflict Group x Tape Intensity, F(1, 58) < 1, or Marital Conflict Group × Tape Content × Tape Intensity,/7(2, 57) = 2.40, p = .10.

Self-Reported Physiological Arousal. As predicted, there was a significant Marital Conflict Group x Tape Intensity interaction, F(1, 63) = 6.31, p < .05. The nature of this interaction was explored with followup t-tests. Results indicated that PA respondents, compared to NPA respondents, reported experiencing significantly more physiological arousal in response to the high-intensity conflict tapes pertaining to marital conflict regarding parenting, t(64) = 1.72, p < .05, (M for PA group = .74; M for NPA group = .44) and parent-child conflict, t(64) = 1.64, p < .05, (M for PA group = .77; M for NPA group = .48) but not in response to the low-conflict tapes, t(64) < 1, p = n.s., (M for PA in response to low-intensity tapes = .48; M for NPA in response to low-intensity tapes = .42). There were no significant main effects for marital conflict group, F(1, 63) = 1.00, nor were there significant interaction effects for Marital Conflict Group x Tape Con-

720 O'Brien, Balto, Er~r, and Gee

tent, F(2, 62) = 3.03, p = .056, or Marital Conflict Group x Tape Content x qhpe Intensity, F(2, 62) < 1.

Self-Reported Feelings. As predicted, a significant main effect for marital conflict group indicated that respondents from the PA group reported experiencing significantly more negative feelings (i.e., sadness, anxiety, anger, hopelessness, and fear) and/or fewer positive feelings in response to the conflict tapes than did respondents in the NPA group, F(1, 63) = 4.69, p < .05. Mean scores for the PA and NPA groups, respectively, were 3.86 and 4.25. There were no significant interaction effects for Marital Conflict Group x "lhpe Content, F(2, 62) = 1.32, Marital Conflict Group x Tape Intensity, F(1, 63) = 1.22, or Marital Conflict Group x Tape Content x Tape Intensity, F(2, 62) = 1.48.

DISCUSSION

This study examined whether college students' articulated thoughts and feelings in reaction to simulated marital and family conflict differed depending on the marital conflict style that was demonstrated in their home environments. As hypothesized, individuals who had witnessed interparental violence were less likely than those who had not witnessed interparental violence to spontaneously suggest alternative ways that the marital conflict could proceed so that it would be resolved more constructively. Perhaps individuals from violent homes are less likely to present constructive alternatives because they have witnessed and thus know of fewer alternatives to intense and escalated marital conflict. In contrast, individuals from nonviolent homes who have witnessed more constructive conflict resolution may have more readily accessible ideas regarding alternative ways to engage in and resolve marital conflict. This finding extends Dodge's work which has found that children from violent homes have difficulty generating competent responses to interpersonal problems when explicitly asked to do so (Dodge et al., 1990). Together with previous work (O'Brien et al., 1991), the results of the present study suggest that the ATSS paradigm may be a useful method of assessing subtle differences in cognitive processes between groups of individuals with different socialization experiences regarding marital conflict.

As hypothesized, there were striking group differences with respect to self-reported affective and physiological reactions to marital and family conflict. Individuals who had witnessed interparental violence reported experiencing more negative feelings and physiological arousal in response to the simulated conflicts than did individuals who had not witnessed interparental violence. This finding is consistent with previous work indicating


greater arousal in response to conflict on the part of children from high- conflict homes, compared to those from low-conflict homes (Cummings et al., 1981; O'Brien et al., 1991).

In this study, results indicated that individuals who have witnessed marital violence are less likely to spontaneously generate ideas regarding constructive conflict negotiation processes and are more likely to demonstrate heightened affective arousal in response to simulated marital conflict interactions than are individuals who have not witnessed marital violence. It is possible that heightened affective reactions interfere with cognitive processing of events, and reciprocally that the lack of engagement in particular types of cognitive processing of the marital conflict may lead to escalated affective reactions. For example, previous research has indicated that negative affect is associated with worse performance on problem-solving tasks (Bugental, Blue, Cortez, Fleck, & Rodriguez, 1992). In addition, Dodge and Somberg (1987) have recently demonstrated that emotional arousal has a debilitating effect on aggressive children's interpretational ac- curacy. The simultaneous presence of cognitive and affective patterns in response to simulated marital conflict is not inconsistent with the possibility that individuals develop cognitive schemata (i.e., organizations of intercon- nected thoughts and emotions) regarding marital conflict which guide their experience of novel marital conflict. Of course, the significant results detected in this study should be accepted cautiously as they were based on a relatively large number of analyses and require replication.

Some of the findings that one would expect if reactions to marital conflict are organized schematically, however, were not detected in this study. College students who had witnessed marital violence were not more likely to make spontaneous comments regarding the calm affect and constructive conflict processes demonstrated in the low-intensity marital conflict tapes nor less likely to make comments regarding the aggressive and coercive conflict processes demonstrated in the high-intensity conflict tapes than were individuals who had not witnessed marital violence. In addition, individuals from physically aggressive homes were not more likely to make negative predictions and not less likely to make positive predictions regarding the outcome of marital conflict than were individuals from low-conflict homes. If individuals' perceptions of novel marital conflict are guided by event schemata regarding typical marital conflict interactions, one would expect those knowledge structures to influence experiences in novel ambiguous marital conflict situations. Perhaps the potential outcomes of the simulated conflictual interactions that we presented were not ambiguous enough, and thus individual differences were overwhelmed by the con- straining features of the tapes. Future studies should increase the ambiguity of the outcome of the conflictual interactions above that used in this study.

722 O'Brien, Baito, Erber, and Gee

Similarly, presenting subjects with one conflictual interaction which has both constructive and coercive conflict components may facilitate detection of individual differences in selective attention to aggressive versus constructive conflict process more effectively than did our procedure of presenting subjects with purely high-intensity, coercive conflict alternating with purely low-intensity, constructive conflict. Finally, the dichotomous coding system that was utilized may not have been sensitive enough to detect subtle cognitive differences among groups. In the future, a coding system which de- tects the number of statements made in each coding category, rather than simply the presence or absence of a particular type of thought, should be utilized.

Although these findings affirm that the ATSS procedure can be useful in detecting information processing differences among groups, future work may benefit from the inclusion of several methodological modifications. First, more striking group differences may be detected with careful attention to sampling of extreme groups (Davison et al., 1983). Also, in an effort to avoid overly stressing subjects, we may have been too conservative when designing the conflict tapes, as subjects' reported that even the high-intensity conflict tapes utilized in this study were slightly less conflictual than the level of family conflict they heard at home. Dodge and Somberg (1987) reported that, although a consistent pattern has been found such that aggressive children demonstrate a hostile attributional bias, a critical factor that influences the detection of this finding is children's own emotional involvement in the presented scenario; children are more likely to display attributional bias when they are affectively aroused than when not (Dodge & Somberg, 1987). Similarly, more affectively arousing conflict scenarios may increase the likelihood of detecting between group differences in social information processing. Combining the use of the ATSS procedure with techniques-that have been used to evaluate trait and event schemata, i.e., false positive memory tests, reaction time procedures, etc., would allow for a more comprehensive understanding of information processing differences among individuals with differing socialization experiences. Finally, future work is encouraged to examine possible associations between cognitive evaluations of interparental conflict and affect, behavior, and cognitions as a participant in intimate interpersonal conflict.

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college students' cognitive and emotional reactions to simulated marital and family conflict

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