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Triadic Coordination: An Observational Method for Examining Whether Children Are “Caught in the Middle” of Interparental Discord *
Author(s) -
Westerman Michael A.,
Massoff Melinda
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
family process
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.011
H-Index - 74
eISSN - 1545-5300
pISSN - 0014-7370
DOI - 10.1111/j.1545-5300.2001.4040100479.x
Subject(s) - spouse , psychology , observational study , construct (python library) , developmental psychology , task (project management) , observational methods in psychology , scale (ratio) , social psychology , cognitive psychology , sociology , medicine , physics , management , pathology , quantum mechanics , anthropology , computer science , economics , programming language
Triadic coordination refers to how a parent coordinates his or her contributions with the spouse's bids toward their child. This construct provides a basis for studying specifically triadic family interaction processes. In particular, it offers a new approach for examining whether children are “caught in the middle” of marital discord. We conducted an initial, small‐scale study of mother‐father‐child interactions in a structured task in order to pursue the methodological goal of developing an observational procedure for measuring triadic coordination processes. The results suggest that the approach has considerable promise for making a contribution to future research on marital discord and child functioning. We found that processes of triadic coordination can be assessed reliably. Other findings included an interesting pattern of results, which merits further investigation in future studies, concerning relations between whether and how a parent disagreed with or opposed the spouse's bids toward their child, on the one hand, and other measures of family functioning and measures of child functioning, on the other hand.