Feeling wary: how marital conflict and divorce influence adolescents' views toward intimate relationships and the mediating role of parenting style and perceptions of parents

Abstract

The effect of marital conflict on parent-child relationships and adolescents' views of intimate relationships was investigated using 172 high school and university participants aged 18-21. A questionnaire was filled out by the participants measuring amounts of emotional, verbal and physical marital conflict, perceptions of parents, parenting styles and wariness towards intimate relationships. Age, SES, ethnicity and divorce status of parents was also recorded. Results showed that the hypotheses, which predicted that divorce and different conflict types would affect wariness in different ways and that parenting variables would act as mediators, were partially supported. Verbal conflict had the strongest effect on wariness towards relationships in adolescents followed by emotional and physical conflict. However, conflict only accounted for 10% of the variance in wariness. Positive and negative father scores and neglectful and permissive parenting styles came through as partial mediators between conflict and wariness. The divorced group was more wary than the intact group and no parenting mediators emerged for the divorced group. Females rated fathers more positively than males and reported more internalising emotions in response to conflict. Males reported more authoritarian, neglectful and permissive parenting and reported more externalising emotions in response to conflict. Moderators such as divorce, SES, gender, ethnicity or age did not emerge when tested for. Overall the results identify the importance of perceptions of parents, parenting style, divorce and gender in affecting the impact of marital conflict on adolescents' wariness towards relationships and supports interventions in these areas.