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Marital Conflict, Children's Representations of Family Relationships, and Children's Dispositions Towards Peer Conflict Strategies
Author(s) -
Schudlich Tina D. Du Rocher,
Shamir Haya,
Cummings E. Mark
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
social development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.078
H-Index - 91
eISSN - 1467-9507
pISSN - 0961-205X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9507.2004.000262.x
Subject(s) - psychology , covert , developmental psychology , conflict resolution , family conflict , set (abstract data type) , social psychology , peer relations , narrative , peer group , philosophy , linguistics , political science , computer science , law , programming language
The links among marital relations and children's representations were examined. Forty‐seven children between the ages of 5 and 8 completed the Family Stories Task (FAST) to obtain their narrative representations of family relations and performed a variation of a puppet procedure (Mize & Ladd, 1988) to assess children's dispositions towards peer conflict strategies. Their parents completed a set of questionnaires regarding marital quality. Results demonstrated relations between marital conflict and children's dispositions towards peer conflict strategies in conflict situations. Children's more negative dispositions towards peer conflict and aggressive behavior in the peer conflict scenarios were each associated with more overt conflict behaviors by mothers and fathers, respectively, and more covert conflict behavior by mothers. In addition, children's internal representations of parent–child relations served as a mediator between marital conflict and children's notions about conflict behavior towards peers.