Citation

Cui M, Donnellan MB, Conger RD. Dev. Psychol. 2007; 43(6): 1544-1552.

Affiliation

Department of Family and Child Sciences, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306, USA. mcui@fsu.edu

Copyright

(Copyright © 2007, American Psychological Association)

DOI

10.1037/0012-1649.43.6.1544

PMID

18020831

Abstract

The present study examines reciprocal associations between marital functioning and adolescent maladjustment using cross-lagged autoregressive models. The research involved 451 early adolescents and their families and used a prospective, longitudinal research design with multi-informant methods. Results indicate that parental conflicts over child rearing predicted adolescent depressive symptoms and delinquency. In turn, these adolescent problems exacerbated parental conflicts over child rearing. Furthermore, conflict over child rearing served as the nexus through which more generalized marital dissatisfaction and adolescent adjustment problems were reciprocally interrelated. This research replicates earlier observations that marital problems intensify adolescent maladjustment and extends the literature by demonstrating that adolescent problems also predict marital conflict and ultimately marital dissatisfaction. In sum, the present study demonstrates that marital dissatisfaction, conflict over child rearing, and early adolescent adjustment difficulties are interwoven in a dynamic family system marked by reciprocity along these dimensions.

Language: en