Assessing the links between interparental conflict and child adjustment: The conflicts and...

Journal of Family Psychology1996, Vol. 10, No. 4, 454-473

Copyright 1996 by the American Psychological Association, Inc.0893-320(V96/$3.00

Assessing the Links Between InterparentalConflict and Child Adjustment:

The Conflicts and Problem-Solving Scales

Patricia K. KerigSimon Fraser University

Two hundred seventy-three couples completed the Conflicts and Problem-SolvingScales (CPS), which assess dimensions of interparental conflict that affect children,including frequency, severity, resolution, and efficacy. Factor analyses revealed reli-able scales for conflict strategies involving cooperation, avoidance, stalemate, physicalaggression, verbal aggression, and child involvement. The CPS correlated with othermeasures of marital conflict, and gender differences in partners' conflict strategieswere found. One hundred sixteen of the wives and 79 of the husbands participated ina larger study involving their school-age child. Parents' and children's descriptions ofinterparental conflict agreed with one another. There were gender differences in theways in which the CPS scales were related to parents' and children's reports of childsymptoms.

Exposure to interparental conflict is a preva-lent source of stress for children. Conflictwithin a marriage has been shown to have neg-ative effects on parenting (Belsky, Rovine, &Fish, 1989; C. P. Cowan, Cowan, Heming, &Miller, 1991; Cox, Owen, Lewis, & Henderson,1989; Kerig, Cowan, & Cowan, 1993; Pratt,Kerig, Cowan, & Cowan, 1992) and to be pre-dictive of problems in child adjustment (Amato& Keith, 1991; Crockenberg & Covey, 1991;Jouriles, Murphy, & O'Leary, 1989; Jouriles,

This research was funded by Grant 410-94-1547from the Social Science and Humanities ResearchCouncil of Canada. Portions of these data were pre-sented at the biennial meetings of the Society forResearch in Child Development, March 1995, Indi-anapolis, Indiana.

I thank Corina Brown for her help with all phasesof the research, the families who participated, and thefollowing students who assisted in data collection,entry, and coding: Surinder Antal, Mandeep Arneja,Karen Bentley, Ken Brown, Sally Caron, SandraChopping, Wendy Chua, Linda Duarte, CheyeneDyer, Janice Ebenstiner, Rachel French, SuzanneHutchinson, Mary Ann Jean, Greg Klassen, Lin Lim,Riyaz Motan, and Renee Patenaude.

Correspondence concerning this article should beaddressed to Patricia K. Kerig, Department of Psy-chology, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BritishColumbia, Canada V5A 1S6. Electronic mail may besent via Internet to [email protected].

Pfiffner, & O'Leary, 1988; Katz & Gottman,1993; Porter & O'Leary, 1980). However, re-searchers are increasingly turning their attentionto studying the mechanisms by which maritalconflict affects child development. Marriagesmay not differ so much in whether or not con-flicts occur but, rather, on such dimensions astheir severity, frequency, and resolution (Grych& Fincham, 1990). Although severe coupleconflicts may place families at risk for othermajor stressors, such as family violence or mar-ital dissolution, conflict can also be viewed as anormative part of family life (Emery, 1992;Fitzpatrick, 1988; Katz, Kramer, & Gottman,1992). Therefore, it is important to understandhow even well-functioning families negotiatetheir differences.

Understanding the effects of interparentalconflict on children has been limited by theavailable measures of the marital relationship,which tend to focus on unidimensional ratingsof marital quality or frequency of conflict. Thelack of specificity in the commonly used mea-sures of marital relationships has been recentlycriticized by a number of researchers (Chris-tensen & Heavey, 1990; Grych, Seid, & Fin-cham, 1992; Jenkins & Smith, 1991; Jouriles,Murphy, et al., 1991). Although advances havebeen made in discriminating patterns of coupleconflict predictive of marital adjustment (Chris-

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INTERPARENTAL CONFLICT AND CHILD ADJUSTMENT 455

tensen & Heavey, 1990; Noller & White, 1990),the need remains for more attention to factorsthat might moderate the influence of maritaldistress on parenting and child development. Animportant contribution to this research endeavorwas Grych et al.'s (1992) development of theChildren's Perceptions of Interparental ConflictScale, which assesses a number of qualities ofinterparental disagreements from the child'sperspective. However, this measure has not yetbeen complemented by an adult self-report mea-sure with the same degree of specificity regard-ing the aspects of marital conflict that affectparenting. Parents and children may have dif-ferent, but equally valid, perceptions of the fam-ily system of relationships (Kerig, 1995b), andit is therefore useful to gain data from multipleperspectives in the family.

The purpose of the present study was to fillthis gap in the existing methodology by devel-oping a new measure of couple conflict strate-gies. The Conflicts and Problem-Solving Scales(CPS) were developed to assess the major di-mensions of interparental conflict identified inthe literature: their Severity and frequency, thecontent of disagreements, whether or not con-flicts are satisfactorily resolved, the perceivedeffectiveness of partners' problem-solving abil-ities, and the various conflict strategies partnersuse in their attempts to resolve conflicts.

Dimensions of Interparental Conflict

Severity and Frequency

The more that interparental conflicts are dis-ruptive of family functioning, the more likely itis that children will perceive them to be distress-ing (Grych & Fincham, 1990), and the morelikely it is that parents' quarrels will interferewith children's ability to rely on their family asa safe emotional environment in which theirneeds can be met (Davies & Cummings, 1994).Consistent with this, empirical evidence con-firms that children who perceive their parents'fights as frequent and intense also are higher insymptoms and behavioral problems (Grych &Fincham, 1993).

Content of Disagreements

The measures of marital quality and conflictmost frequently used in research on marriage

and parenting include the Marital Agendas Pro-tocol (Notarius & Vanzetti, 1984), the MaritalAdjustment Test (Locke & Wallace, 1959), theDyadic Adjustment Scale (DAS; Spanier,1976), and PREPARE (Flowers & Olson,1986). Each measure presents a list of commonissues about which partners are asked to ratetheir frequency of disagreement. Although theirstructure is similar, the content of these mea-sures is widely divergent. Among the 21 topicslisted by these measures altogether, only 6 ap-pear on three of the four questionnaires. Thelack of correspondence among the topics cov-ered by these measures is problematic in thatcouples may quarrel with different levels offrequency and urgency about some issues thanothers.

In addition, one centrally important area ofpotential disagreement between parents con-cerns content related to children and child-rearing issues. It has been posited that quarrelsbetween parents that are directly related to chil-dren, such as disagreements about child rearing,will have a more negative impact on parentingand child development (Dadds & Powell, 1991;Forehand & McCombs, 1989; Grych & Fin-cham, 1990; Jouriles, Murphy, et al., 1991).However, child content is included in only twoof the measures of marital discord most widelyused in research. Therefore, there is a need fora measure of marital conflict that is comprehen-sive in its inquiry as to the kinds of issues overwhich couples might quarrel and that, in partic-ular, includes questions as to how frequentlychildren and child rearing are topics of disagree-ment.

Conflict Resolution and Efficacy

Another aspect of interparental conflict thataffects children is the degree to which quarrelsare successfully resolved (E. M. Cummings,Ballard, El-Sheikh, & Lake, 1991; Grych &Fincham, 1990). Children perceive resolved an-ger as a less negative event (E. M. Cummings,Vogel, Cummings, & El-Sheikh, 1989), andresolution can ameliorate the effects of observ-ing interadult aggression (E. M. Cummings etal., 1991). The CPS provides for an assessmentof the perceived outcome of conflict resolutionstrategies based on an adaptation of Rands, Lev-inger, and Mellinger's (1981) measure. As de-rived from the Marital Agendas Protocol (No-

456 KERIG

tarius & Vanzetti, 1984), the CPS also allowsfor an assessment of relational efficacy and theeffectiveness of problem-solving abilities (mea-sured by the proportion of quarrels that partnerssatisfactorily resolve).

Conflict Strategies

The measure of conflict strategies currentlyused most widely by researchers in the area ofmarriage and parenting, the Conflict TacticsScales (CTS; Straus, 1979), tends to be heavilyweighted on the violent and dysfunctional endof the conflict spectrum, and there are only asmall number of items available to constructadditional subscales that would allow for finerdiscriminations among nonaggressive strategies(cf. Margolin, 1990). Although exposure to ver-bally and physically abusive interparental con-flicts is associated with distress and maladjust-ment in children (Fantuzzo et al., 1991; Holden& Ritchie, 1991; Jouriles et al., 1989), it hasalso been proposed that children may benefitfrom observing their parents engage in conflictresolution involving mutually respectful prob-lem solving (Davies & Cummings, 1994; Em-ery, 1992; Grych & Fincham, 1993). Therefore,a broader sampling of prosocial strategies isneeded to test the hypothesis that some forms ofnonaggressive marital conflict may be construc-tive for couples and their children.

In addition, assessment of a wider range ofconflict strategies may provide an opportunityto examine gender differences in the ways thatmen and women respond to marital conflict,differences that are becoming of increasing in-terest in research on marriage and parenting(P. A. Cowan, Cowan, & Kerig, 1993; Howes &Markman, 1989; Jouriles & LeCompte, 1991;Noller & Fitzpatrick, 1991; Parke & Tinsley,1987). Husbands and wives differ in their pre-ferred ways of handling conflict, and these dif-ferences may be greater in distressed marriages(Markman, Silvern, Clements, & Kraft-Hanak,1993). Whereas women are more likely to en-gage directly in conflict with their spouses, menare described as withdrawing or avoiding con-flict (Christensen & Heavey, 1990; Gottman &Levenson, 1988). Furthermore, as Miller, Dana-her, and Forbes (1986) have pointed out, mostresearchers have defined conflict as involvingattempts to influence another person to acceptone's own point of view. An alternate perspec-

tive, in which conflict is defined as a challengeto the maintenance of interpersonal harmony,calls for strategies for mitigating negative affectin oneself and others. Conflict mitigation is astrategy more frequently observed in girls dur-ing peer conflicts (Miller et al., 1986) and inmothers and daughters during family interac-tions (Vuchinich, Emery, & Cassidy, 1988).However, conflict mitigation strategies have notbeen assessed by the majority of couple conflictmeasures used to date.

Therefore, as a means of affording an oppor-tunity to explore hypotheses regarding con-structive versus aggressive conflicts, as well asgender differences, a measure was constructedto provide a more detailed typology of nonvio-lent strategies for marital problem solving.These strategies were derived from a review ofthe literature on marital conflict and conflictresolution, including Christensen and Heavey(1990), Gottman (1995), Noller and White(1990), and Vuchinich (1987). In particular,Pruitt and Rubin's (1986) differentiation ofstrategies of avoidance, yielding, contending,compromise, and collaboration was used. Ac-cording to Pruitt and Rubin (1986), avoidanceallows one to escape from conflict, whereasyielding represents a nonassertive strategy de-signed to preserve harmony at all costs. Con-tending involves attempting to control anotherperson to get one's individual needs met,whereas compromise involves meeting theother person halfway. Such attempts are to bedistinguished from true collaboration, which in-volves joint problem solving to find a solutionthat takes into account both partners' needs.However, the typologies just described fail toinclude abusive or violent conflict strategies,which have important consequences for the de-velopment of children who are exposed to them(E. M. Cummings, Zahn-Waxier, & Radke-Yarrow, 1981; Sternberg et al., 1993). There-fore, scales regarding verbal aggression andphysical aggression were included in the presentmeasure.

Child Involvement in InterparentalConflict

Conflict between parents can be expressed ina number of different ways within the family,and an understanding of how children are af-fected by interparental discord may be im-


proved by attending to the degree to whichchildren are involved in their parents' argu-ments. Children have been found to show moredistress when they are directly exposed to in-terparental quarreling (J. S. Cummings, Pelle-grini, Notarius, & Cummings, 1989; Forehand& McCombs, 1989; Grych & Fincham, 1993;O'Brien, Margolin, John, & Krueger, 1991;Porter & O'Leary, 1980) or when the content ofinterparental disagreements concerns children(Jouriles, Murphy, et al., 1991) and child-rear-ing issues (Jenkins & Smith, 1991; Snyder,1979). However, these constructs do not en-compass the entirety of ways that marital con-flict may affect parent-child relationships.Children may not only observe their parentsquarreling or hear their parents fighting aboutthem but may also become directly involved ininterparental conflicts, such as by attempting tointervene (E. M. Cummings, Iannotti, & Zahn-Waxler, 1985; O'Brien et al., 1991; Vuchinichet al., 1988) or by becoming "triangulated"within the marital relationship (Minuchin, 1974;Westerman, 1987). Triangulation may take avariety of forms (Engfer, 1988; Kerig, 1995b;Minuchin, 1974). For example, a child maydevelop a special relationship or coalition withone parent, play the role of go-between in at-tempting to mediate parental disputes, or be-come a scapegoat for parents who are attempt-ing to circumvent or displace their marital strife.Children's experiences of loyalty conflicts orbeing "caught in the middle" between parentshave been studied in the context of divorce(Buchanan, Maccoby, & Dornbusch, 1991; Ca-mara & Resnick, 1988; Johnston, Campbell, &Mayes, 1985) as well as intact families (Chris-tensen & Margolin, 1988; Gilbert, Christensen,& Margolin, 1984; Jouriles, Bourg, & Farris,1991; Kerig, 1995b; Vuchinich et al., 1988).

Although Grych et al.'s (1992) measure ofthe child's perspective on interparental conflictincludes a subscale of triangulation, thereis a need for a measure that assesses this phe-nomenon from the parents' perspective. TheO'Leary-Porter Scale (OPS; Porter & O'Leary,1980) has been widely used as a parent-reportmeasure of children's exposure to interparentalconflict. However, this scale does not reflect thechild's active involvement and intervention inparental conflicts in a manner that parallels thetriangulation subscale in Grych et al.'s (1992)child measure, nor does it capture the differentforms that triangulation might take.

The Present Study

In sum, the purpose of the present study wasto develop a measure of interparental conflictthat would be sensitive to the different dimen-sions of conflict that might affect parenting andchild development. The factor structure, reli-ability, and validity of this new measure wereassessed, as well as its utility in predicting mar-ital quality and satisfaction with conflict reso-lution. A subset of couples with school-agechildren was included to assess the correspon-dence between parents' and children's percep-tions of interparental quarreling and to assessthe relationship between the CPS and children'sadjustment.

Method

Participants

Participants in this research were 273 couples re-cruited through letters sent to day-care centers, pre-schools, and couple relationship and parenting class-es; fliers posted at recreation centers, libraries,mental health clinics, and family service agencies;and announcements in community newspapers. Ofthe couples, 98% were legally married and 97% hadat least one child, and the average length of theirrelationship was 12 years (range = 1 to 26 years).Mean ages were 38.53 years for men and 36.12 yearsfor women. Of the women, 89% were Caucasian,6.3% were Asian, 1.5% were East Indian, 1% wereAfrican, 0.5% were First Nations, and 0.5% wereHispanic. Of the men, 89% were Caucasian, 6.5%were Asian, 1.9% were East Indian, 1% were His-panic, 1% were African, and 0.5% were First Na-tions. The median education level involved voca-tional school or some college for both men andwomen. The median couple income for the samplewas $50,000 (Canadian) per year. Twenty-seven per-cent of the couples reported either current or previousinvolvement in couple therapy, 6.5% had been infamily therapy, and 12% reported involving theirchildren in child therapy.

Among these couples, 116 who had an eldest child7 to 11 years of age also agreed to participate in alarger study involving both themselves and their chil-dren. All 116 wives and 79 husbands completed thispart of the study. There were 63 boys (M age = 8.49years, SD = 1.71) and 51 girls (M age = 8.80 years,SD = 1.57) in this subsample.

Procedure

Couples who agreed to participate were mailed aconsent form, a demographic questionnaire, and a

458 KERIG

packet of measures. Partners were requested to fillout their forms independently and were providedwith separate stamped envelopes in which to returnthe forms. Parents with school-age children visited alaboratory at Simon Fraser University, where eachparent and child separately filled out an additional setof questionnaires. Children completed their measuresin an interview format with a research assistant.

Measures

All couples: CPS. The CPS (Kerig, 1995a) wasdesigned to measure four dimensions of couple con-flict (frequency, severity, resolution, and efficacy), aswell as a variety of conflict strategies. Frequency is arating of the number of times parents engage in majorand minor conflicts in a year on a 6-point ordinalscale ranging from once a year or less (scored 1 forminor conflicts and 2 for major conflicts) to justabout every day (scored 6 for minor conflicts and 12for major conflicts). Scores for major and minorconflicts are summed, resulting in possible totalscores ranging from 3 to 18. Severity of problems ismeasured by parents' ratings of the degree to whichthey disagree about 21 content areas. These contentareas were compiled from the disparate lists con-tained in the most commonly used marital measuresin the literature, including the DAS (Spanier, 1976),the Marital Adjustment Test (Locke & Wallace,1959), PREPARE (Flowers & Olson, 1986), and theMarital Agendas Protocol (Notarius & Vanzetti,1984). Each content area is rated from 0 (no problem)to 100 (a severe problem), and the average of theseratings is used as an overall index of problem sever-ity. Efficacy is the average proportion of maritalproblems partners report they are able to solve (from0% to 100%), modeled after Notarius and Vanzetti's(1984) measure. The average percentage of problemssolved is used as the overall measure of efficacy. Incontrast to the Efficacy scale, which asks for a quan-titative assessment of the percentage of problemssolved, the Resolution scale calls for a more qualita-tive rating of the emotional tone of the aftermath ofproblem-solving attempts. As derived from Rands etal.'s (1981) scale, ratings are made on 4-point scalesranging from never (0) to almost always (3) accord-ing to the frequency with which 13 different resolu-tions are achieved. These resolutions range fromhighly positive and resulting in increased intimacy(e.g., "We feel closer to one another than before thefight"; scored 2) to highly negative, involving con-tinued or escalating acrimony (e.g., "We end upfeeling angry and annoyed with each other"; scored—2). The midpoint reflects unclear or partial resolu-tion, such as abandoning the issue (E. M. Cummingset al., 1991). These ratings are summed to create theResolution scale score, which represents the degreeto which positive or negative affect dominates theresolution of conflicts.

The CPS also rates a variety of conflict strategiesusing a list of 44 tactics derived from the literature onmarital and interpersonal conflict (Christensen &Heavey, 1990; Gottman, 1995; Noller & White,1990; Pruitt & Rubin, 1986; Rausch, 1974; Straus,1979; Vuchinich, 1987). Participants rate the fre-quency with which they and their partners used eachstrategy in the previous year; therefore, separate selfand partner conflict strategy subscales can be formed,or the frequencies can be summed over both scales toobtain an overall description of the relationship.1

CTS. The CTS (Straus, 1979) is a 17-item self-report questionnaire that has been widely used instudies of marital conflict and aggression. Three sub-scales are rated: Reasoning (3 items), Verbal Aggres-sion (6 items), and Violence (8 items). Items arescored according to how often each tactic has beenused in the previous year by the respondent or his orher partner; ratings are made on a 7-point scaleranging from never (0) to more than 20 times (6). TheCTS was validated on a large nationally representa-tive sample and demonstrated adequate reliabilityand internal consistency, with reliability coefficientsranging from .50 to .69 for the Reasoning scale, from.77 to .80 for the Verbal Aggression scale, and from.62 to .83 for the Violence scale.

DAS. Fathers' and mothers' independent ratingsof their marriage were obtained on the DAS (Spanier,1976), one of the most widely used measures of thequality of the marital relationship in the researchliterature. This is a 32-item scale on which partnersrate their marital relationship. The validity of theDAS has been evidenced by its high correlations withsimilar marital scales. Acceptable levels of internalconsistency have been established for the subscales.Only the ratings of overall adjustment (a = .96) wereused in the present study. In the present sample, themean overall adjustment scores were 107.44 (SD =15.30) for fathers and 107.36 (SD = 18.17) for moth-ers. Of fathers' and mothers' scores, 24.4% and21.5%, respectively, fell within the distressed range(<97). Mothers' and fathers' scores were signifi-cantly correlated (r = .63, p < .001).

Global evaluation of marital quality. Because ofthe overlap in content of the CPS and the DAS, highcorrelations between the two measures were ex-pected. As a means of providing a less confoundedindex of marital satisfaction with which to assess theconstruct validity of the CPS, Fincham and Brad-bury's (1987) recommendation was followed thatpartners provide a global evaluation of their mar-riage. Partners rated their happiness with their maritalrelationship on a 7-point scale ranging from ex-tremely unhappy (0) to perfect (6).

Satisfaction with conflict resolution. Partners alsorated, on a 5-point scale ranging from very dissatis-

1 The complete instrument and scoring instructionsare available from Patricia K. Kerig.


fied (0) to very satisfied (4), how satisfied they werewith the strategies they had for conflict resolution.

validity, good internal consistency (K-R 20 = .83),and concurrent validity with other child anxietymeasures.

Parent and Child Measures

Parent reports of marital conflict. Mothers andfathers rated the frequency of child exposure to in-terparental conflict on the OPS (Porter & O'Leary,1980). This scale consists of 10 items regarding howoften children are present when their parents argue ona variety of topics and the extent to which childrenare exposed to physical or verbal aggression betweentheir parents. Items are rated on a 5-point scale rang-ing from never (0) to very often (4) and are summedto create one score for exposure to interparental con-flict. The authors have reported good internal consis-tency (a = .86) and reliability (r = .96) over a2-week period.

Child reports of interparental conflict. Children'sreports of their parents' conflicts were obtained onthe Children's Perceptions of Interparental Conflictquestionnaire (CPIC; Grych et al., 1992). Childrenare presented with 51 statements regarding feelingsthey might have when their parents argue (e.g., "I feelcaught in the middle when my parents have argu-ments" or "When my parents argue I'm afraid thatsomething bad will happen"), and they are asked torate whether each statement is true (2), sort of true(1), or false (0). The CPIC rates children's percep-tions on nine subscales: Intensity (a = .82), Resolu-tion (a = .83), Frequency (a = .70), Threat (a =.82), Coping Efficacy (a = .69), Self-Blame (a =.61), Content (a = .74), Triangulation (a = .71), andStability (a = .65). Factor analysis showed that thesubscales loaded onto three factors: Conflict Proper-ties, Threat, and Self-Blame. The CPIC was validatedon a sample of 222 children and cross-validated on144 children; good test-retest reliability and internalconsistency were established. Children's CPICscores correlated with their parents' reports on theCTS (Straus, 1979), Marital Adjustment Test (Locke& Wallace, 1959), and OPS (Porter & O'Leary,1980). The CPIC also predicted parents' reports ofchildren's aggression and depression and children'sself-reports of internalizing symptoms.

Child adjustment. Mothers and fathers rated childbehavior on the Child Behavior Checklist (Achen-bach & Edelbrock, 1991), a well-validated, reliable,and widely used measure of children's behaviorproblems. Factor analyses have confirmed three con-sistent scales of child symptoms: Internalizing (e.g.,anxiety and depression), Externalizing (e.g., aggres-sion and misbehavior), and Total Problems.

Child anxiety. Children's ratings were obtainedon the Children's Manifest Anxiety Scale-Revised(Reynolds & Richmond, 1978), a 28-item self-reportquestionnaire that assesses a child's level of manifestanxiety. The instrument has demonstrated construct

Results

Factor Analysis of the CPS ConflictStrategy Items

The generalized least squares method wasused to enter husbands' and wives' scores onthe 44 conflict strategy items into separate ex-ploratory factor analyses. It was expected thatthe subscales would be related to one another;therefore, an oblique rotation (oblimin) wasused.

The factor pattern matrices for husbands' andwives' scores are shown in Table 1. A six-factorsolution was found to fit the data for both wives,X2 (551, N = 273) = 522.70, p < .80, andhusbands, x2 (551, N = 273) = 569.53,p < .28,and was accepted over other solutions on thebasis of consideration of several criteria, includ-ing the following: root one (i.e., eigenvalue s1.00), scree, and interpretability of the factors(Johnson & Wichern, 1988). Items were in-cluded on a factor if the item loading was .30 orhigher; in cases in which an item loaded ontotwo factors, the largest factor loading was usedto determine placement. The first factor, termedVerbal Aggression, included items involvingyelling, accusing, insulting, and so forth. Thesecond factor involved items reflecting threat-ening or inflicting harm and was labeled Phys-ical Aggression. The third factor, labeled Col-laboration, included items such as trying toreason with the other person, talking about theissue, and expressing thoughts and feelings. Thefourth factor assessed nonconstructive strate-gies and was termed Stalemate, because itseemed to reflect partners who had reached animpasse in their attempts to end their quarreling.The fifth factor, involving such items as tryingto ignore the problem, leaving the scene, andgiving in to the other person to escape argu-ment, was termed Avoidance-Capitulation. Thefinal factor, Child Involvement, was formed ofitems including arguing in front of the child,involving the child in the argument, and arguingabout child-related matters.

The items that loaded on the respective fac-tors were identical for husbands and wives, withthe exception of three items: "Seek intervention

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462 KERIG

from a counselor/therapist/friend" was associ-ated with the Stalemate factor for wives andwith the Collaboration factor for husbands;"Cry" was associated with the Stalemate factorfor wives and did not load on any factor forhusbands; and "Try to smooth things over" wasassociated with the Avoidance factor for wivesand with the Collaboration factor for husbands.Scales were formed by summing unit-weightedscores only on items that loaded onto their re-spective factors for both men and women.

The internal consistencies of the conflictstrategy subscales were assessed by computingcoefficient alphas (see Table 2). Scales for bothhusbands and wives were found to be reliable.

The intercorrelations among the conflict strat-egy scales for wives and husbands were calcu-lated (see Table 3). As expected, there werestrong associations among the factors assessingnoncooperative strategies for negotiating con-flict, such as Verbal Aggression and PhysicalAggression. There were also negative correla-tions between scales assessing constructivestrategies (e.g., Collaboration) and nonconstruc-tive strategies (e.g., Verbal Aggression).

As a means of further assessing the structureof the CPS, all scales, including the six conflictstrategy scales and the four conflict dimensionscales (Frequency, Severity, Resolution, and Ef-ficacy), were entered into exploratory factoranalyses performed separately for husbands andwives. The factor pattern matrices from bothanalyses are presented in Table 4. Although thesolutions did not reach conventional levels ofsignificance, / (25, N = 267) = 43.79, p <.01, for wives and ^ (25, N = 267) = 48.22,p < .01, for husbands, consideration of criteria

Table 2Internal Consistencies (Coefficient Alpha) forRelationship Scales in the Conflicts andProblem-Solving Scales

Scale Wife Husband

FrequencySeverityResolutionEfficacyCollaborationAvoidance-CapitulationStalemateVerbal AggressionPhysical AggressionChild Involvement

.75

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EMTERPARENTAL CONFLICT AND CHILD ADJUSTMENT 463

Table 4Factor Pattern Matrix From Factor Analysisof Conflicts and Problem-Solving Scales

Wife Husband

Scale 1 1

FrequencySeverityResolutionEfficacyCollaboration

.89 - .26 .63 - .04JO .17 A9 - .30

-.42 .56 -.39 ,49.07 49 -.07 41

-.38 .45 .07 .!!_.06Avoidance-Capitulation 49 .06 .36 -.09

Stalemate .54 .25 /73 -.16Verbal Aggression .73 .14 .86 -.07Physical Aggression 36 .12 J& .12Child Involvement .50 .15 .77 .01

% of varianceEigenvalueTotal variance i

30.90 22.60 47.30 11.004.72 1.25 4.73 1.10

53.50 58.30Note. Weights larger than .30 are underscored.

including root one, scree, and interpretabilitysuggested that a two-factor solution best fit thedata for both husbands and wives, consistentwith two general factors of constructive andnonconstructive conflict resolution strategies.

Agreement Between Husbands and Wiveson the CPS

Correlations were calculated between part-ners' descriptions of their relationship and theirdescriptions of one another on the CPS. Hus-bands and wives agreed in their descriptions oftheir relationship, correlations ranging from .26(p < .001) for Avoidance-Capitulation to .69(p < .001) for Physical Aggression; the mediancorrelation was .59. Only correlations forAvoidance and Efficacy fell below .42. In ad-dition, correlations were calculated betweenhusbands' and wives descriptions of the hus-band's conflict strategies (husband's ratings ofself correlated with wives' ratings of partner)and between husbands' and wives' ratings ofthe wife's conflict strategies (wives' ratings ofself correlated with husbands' ratings of part-ner). There was significant agreement betweenpartners' ratings for all of the subscales. Corre-lations ranged from .29 (p < .001) for ratings ofwives' avoidance to .73 (p < .001) for ratings ofhusbands' physical aggression, with a mediancorrelation of .54.

Gender Differences in Conflict Strategies

Gender differences in husbands' and wives'use of the conflict strategies were assessed byexamining mean differences in partners' self-ratings; t tests for paired samples were per-formed. These analyses showed that husbandsdescribed themselves as higher on Avoidance-Capitulation than did wives, t(267) = 7.08, p <.001 (M = 7.44, SD = 3.78, for husbands andM = 4.79, SD = 2.92, for wives). In contrast,wives endorsed all of the other conflict strate-gies more often in their descriptions of them-selves. The following t values, along withmeans for wives and husbands, respectively,were obtained: Collaboration, t(261) = -2.49,p < .05, Ms = 15.47 (SD = 2.50) and 15.00(SD = 2.43); Stalemate, t(261) = -12.15, p <.001, Ms = 7.44 (SD = 3.78) and 4.70 (SD =2.92); Verbal Aggression, t(261) = -5.05,p < .001, Ms = 12.41 (SD = 4.61) and 11.00(SD = 4.53); Physical Aggression f(267) =-3.15, p < .01, Ms = 1.54 (SD = 2.25) and1.84 (SD = 1.12); and Child Involvement,t(267) = -2.44, p < .05, Ms = 5.89 (SD =3.16) and 5.39 (SD = 3.05).

Stability

Forty-eight couples filled out the CPS a sec-ond time, approximately 3 months after theyfirst completed the measure. Test-retest corre-lations between the two times were acceptablyhigh for each of the scales, ranging from a lowof .53 (p < .01) for Child Involvement to a highof .87 (p < .001) for Severity, with a mediancorrelation of .63.

Convergent and Discriminant Validity

Correlations between wives' and husbands'ratings on the CPS and the DAS, CTS, and OPSare displayed in Table 5. Significant correla-tions were found between overlapping scales ofthe CPS and other measures of marital conflict.For instance, there were positive correlationsbetween the CTS Reasoning scale and the CPSCollaboration scale, as well as between the Ver-bal Aggression and Physical Aggression scaleson the two measures. Divergent validity wasindicated by the nonsignificant correlations be-tween dissimilar scales of the two measures.Similarly, the CPS scales and the subscales of

464 KERIG

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the DAS showed high correspondence. Corre-lations between parents' OPS ratings of childexposure to interparental conflict and the CPSChild Involvement scale were also significantfor both husbands and wives.

Prediction of Global Ratings ofMarital Happiness

As a means of determining whether the CPSscales were predictive of marital quality, multi-ple regressions were performed with the globalratings of marital happiness as the dependentmeasure and CPS subscales as predictors, en-tered simultaneously. For husbands, the CPSpredicted a significant proportion of variance inglobal marital quality, R2 = .54, F(10, 210) =24.17, p < .001. Five of the CPS subscalescontributed significantly to the prediction: Res-olution (/3 = .45, p < .001), Frequency (|3 =- . 2 1 , p < .001), Severity (0 = -.\5,p < .01),Efficacy (|3 = .13, p < .05), and Verbal Ag-gression ()3 = .15, p < .05). The results for theStalemate scale approached significance (/3 =- .13 , p < .10). For wives, the CPS also pre-dicted a significant proportion of variance inglobal marital quality, R2 = .51, F(10, 243) =25.28, p < .001. Two of the CPS subscalescontributed significantly to the prediction: Res-olution (/3 = .42, p < .001) and Efficacy (/3 =.21, p < .001). The results for the Avoidancescale approached significance (j3 = —.18,p < .10).

Prediction of Partners' Satisfaction WithConflict Resolution

Multiple regressions were also conducted inwhich the CPS scales were used to predict part-ners' global ratings of their satisfaction withtheir marital problem-solving strategies. Forhusbands, the CPS was a good predictor ofsatisfaction with conflict resolution, R2 = .60,F(10, 210) = 28.96, p < .001. Two of the CPSsubscales contributed significantly to the pre-diction: Resolution (/3 = .50, p < .001) andCollaboration (/3 = - . 2 1 , p < .001). The resultsfor the Frequency scale approached significance(/3 = - . 13 , p < .10). For wives, the CPS alsopredicted a significant proportion of variance inglobal satisfaction with conflict resolution,R2 = .68, F(10, 243) = 51.76, p < .001. Fourof the CPS subscales contributed significantly

to the prediction: Resolution (|3 = .32, p <.001), Collaboration (|3 = .29, p < .001),Severity (/3 = - .19, p < .01), and Efficacy(|3 = .14, p < .01).

Correspondence of the CPS to Children'sPerceptions of Interparental Conflict

Correlations were calculated to assess the re-lationship between fathers' and mothers' ratingson the CPS and children's ratings on the CPIC.As the results reported in Table 6 show, therewere significant correlations between parents'and children's reports on overlapping scales ofthe two measures. Children and parents ratedthe frequency and severity of interparental con-flicts similarly, and threat, as rated by the child,was associated with physical aggression, asrated by parents. Child assessments of stabilitywere related to parents' assessments of theirproblem-solving efficacy. Triangulation on theCPIC was related to parents' ratings of childinvolvement on the CPS. However, there wereno relationships between children's and par-ents' ratings of resolution. Correlations werealso not significant between the CPS subscalesand children's self-blame or coping efficacy.

CPS and Parent Ratings ofChild Symptoms

The relationships between parents' CPS rat-ings and their reports of children's internalizingand externalizing on the Child Behavior Check-list were assessed. Previous research has sug-gested that there may be gender differences inthe ways in which interparental conflict affectschildren; therefore, these analyses were per-formed separately for boys and girls. Table 7shows the correlations between interparentalconflict strategies and parents' ratings of theirchildren on the Child Behavior Checklist. Thepattern of these effects was somewhat differentfor boys and girls.

CPS and Child Ratings of Anxiety

As Grych et al. (1992) have noted, parentsmay be good observers of externalizing symp-toms, whereas children are more accurate re-porters of their own internalizing problems. Itwas therefore of interest to assess whether theCPS subscales were related to children's reports

466 KERIG

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of internalizing symptoms. As the correlationsreported in Table 7 show, children's ratings oftheir own anxiety were related to their parents'reports of conflict strategies. In particular, chil-dren's anxiety was higher when parents en-gaged in frequent and aggressive conflicts andinvolved the child in their disagreements. Chil-dren's anxiety was lower when parents reportedusing collaborative means for negotiating theirdifferences.

Discussion

The conflict strategy scales of the CPS fitwell with Vuchinich's (1987) and Pruitt andRubin's (1986) typologies, distinguishingamong collaborative techniques, avoidance ofthe problem, and aggressive tactics. In addition,the scale concerning child involvement in inter-parental conflict made a unique contribution tothe assessment of the ways in which men andwomen attempted to negotiate their differences.Partners agreed reasonably well in their descrip-tions of themselves and one another, and theCPS corresponded well with the CTS and theDAS, suggesting that it is a valid measure ofmarital conflict. The significant correlations be-tween individuals' descriptions of themselvesand their partners' ratings of them suggest thatthese self-reports are not attributable solely tosocial desirability.

There were some gender differences in theendorsement of the various conflict resolutionstrategies. Men described themselves as moreoften using capitulation and avoidance,whereas, in this largely normative sample inwhich levels of marital conflict and violencewere low, wives were more likely to ascribe tothemselves even such control-oriented tech-niques as verbal and physical aggression. It maybe that men's ratings on self-report scales suchas the CPS are influenced more by social desir-ability than those of women. It is also the casethat the CPS neglects the assessment of psycho-logical abuse, and the extreme forms of physicalabuse, that occur in relationships characterizedby battering (Hudson & Mclntosh, 1981;Marshall, 1992; Tolman, 1989). Therefore, arevised version is in progress that will extendthe appropriateness of the measure to the studyof woman abuse. However, these data are con-sistent with previous research on normativecouples suggesting that, in intimate relation-

ships, women are more likely to engage direct-ly—and even forcefully—with conflict. Men, incontrast, may find conflict in intimate relation-ships to be uncomfortable and therefore seek toavoid it (Gottman & Levenson, 1988), even tothe extent of capitulating to their partners.

The CPS also seemed to describe the dimen-sions of marital conflict that contribute to mar-ital unhappiness. One of the ways of makingsuch assessments was to obtain partners' ratingsof their satisfaction with their problem-solvingstrategies. Resolution was the most powerfulpredictor of partners' satisfaction with theirconflict negotiation strategies, as consistentwith previous research (Ball, Cowan, & Cowan,in press). An unexpected finding was that hus-bands' subjective satisfaction with conflictstrategies was predicted by higher verbal ag-gression. Partners who "hash things out" andexpress their feelings may experience a sense ofsubjective relief after having aired their griev-ances. Suppression of conflict has been found tohave more negative consequences for couplerelationships than open engagement with con-flict (Gottman & Krokoff, 1989; Smith, Vivian,& O'Leary, 1990), perhaps because only differ-ences that are revealed may be resolved. TheCPS also was a strong predictor of both hus-bands' and wives' global ratings of maritalquality. It is noteworthy that resolution was thestrongest predictor of both marital adjustmentand satisfaction with problem solving; this is adimension not assessed by commonly usedmeasures of marital conflict such as the CTS.

These findings suggest that the CPS offers away of assessing the dimensions of interparentalconflict that are important in understandingmarriage and parenting. Data from those cou-ples who were parents of school-age childrenwere used to further assess the utility of the CPSin linking interparental conflict to child adjust-ment. Although exposure to interparental con-flict, as measured by the OPS, is only one of thedimensions of the "spillover" (Engfer, 1988;Kerig et al., 1993) of marital conflict ontoparent-child relationships, parents' ratings onthe OPS correlated with the Child Involvementscale of the CPS. In addition, parents' ratings ofmarital conflict on the CPS corresponded fairlywell with their children's perspectives on inter-parental conflict, as measured by the CPIC(Grych et al., 1992). Although correspondenceamong different raters is typically low in familyresearch (Achenbach, McConaughy, & Howell,


1987; Cook & Goldstein, 1993; Stanger &Lewis, 1993; Westerman & Schonholtz, 1993),there were reasonably strong correlations foundhere between parents' CPS ratings and chil-dren's reports on the CPIC. Children whoseparents were more physically aggressive duringinterparental conflicts reported perceiving ahigher level of threat, consistent with datashowing that exposure to interparental aggres-sion is associated with child distress (E. M.Cummings et al., 1991; O'Brien et al., 1991).Parents and their school-age children alsoagreed well with one another as to the extent towhich the child was involved, or triangulated, ininterparental conflicts. The poorer agreementbetween parents' and children's ratings of res-olution of interparental conflicts may suggestthat, unless children are directly exposed to theendings of their parents' quarrels, they are notin a good position to assess the degree to whichtheir parents satisfactorily resolve their argu-ments.

One of the main purposes of developing theCPS was to devise a measure that would beeffective in assessing the aspects of maritalquality that may affect child development. Bothparents' and children's ratings of child symp-toms were related to parents' conflict strategies.Consistent with previous research (E. M. Cum-mings et al., 1991), children's symptoms andself-reported anxiety were lower when parentsdemonstrated the ability to resolve their con-flicts successfully. However, the pattern of ef-fects was different for boys and girls when ratedby mothers or fathers. Boys showed more ex-ternalizing and other symptoms when their par-ents' conflicts were more frequent, severe, andaggressive and when these conflicts activelyinvolved them, as predicted by previous re-search (Grych et al., 1992; Jouriles, Murphy, etal., 1991). In contrast, however, girls' external-izing problems were linked only to their moth-ers' reports of conflict severity. Mothers', butnot fathers', ratings of interparental conflictwere associated with child internalizing symp-toms, and the links were somewhat stronger forboys than for girls. For boys, but not girls,internalizing was positively related to mothers'reports of the frequency and verbal aggressive-ness of conflicts. An unexpected gender effectemerged in that children's self-reports of anxi-ety were better predicted by their cross-sex par-ents' CPS ratings. Boys reported more anxietywhen mothers rated conflicts as frequent, se-

vere, stalemated, and verbally and physicallyaggressive. Girls reported more anxiety whenfathers rated conflicts as frequent, severe, ver-bally aggressive, and involving the child. Theseresults point to the need not only to furtherinvestigate gender differences in the effects ofinterparental conflict on children but to examinethese effects from the perspective of multiplefamily members (Achenbach et al., 1987).

There are a number of limitations of thepresent study that should be considered. Thesample was predominantly Caucasian and mid-dle class, and most of the couples were rela-tively maritally satisfied. Further research willbe needed to demonstrate whether the findingsreported here generalize to other populations. Inaddition, the present research included childrenranging in age from 7 to 11 years and did notconsider the possible effects of developmentaldifferences among them. On a theoretical level,middle childhood has been identified as a dis-crete developmental period that warrants atten-tion (Forehand & Wierson, 1993; Greenspan &Pollock, 1991); on a pragmatic level, cognitiveand language development limits children'sability to introspect and self-report about inter-parental conflicts before latency age. Therefore,it is not surprising that most of the measuresavailable to assess children's perspective ontheir parents' conflicts have been developedspecifically for school-age children (e.g., Grychet al., 1992; Kurdek & Berg, 1987; Rossman &Rosenberg, 1992). However, research also indi-cates that, over the course of development, chil-dren reason about, respond to, and cope withstressors such as family conflict in distinctlydifferent ways (Altshuler & Ruble, 1989; Com-pas, Worsham, & Ey, 1992; E. M. Cummings etal., 1991; E. M. Cummings, Zahn-Waxier, &Radke-Yarrow, 1984; Grych & Fincham, 1993;Jenkins, Smith, & Graham, 1989; Johnston etal., 1985; Kliewer, 1991). It would be valuableto extend the methodology available for assess-ing children's perceptions of interparental con-flict across the entire range of the childhoodyears so as to investigate these developmentaldifferences. Similarly, the parents involved inthe present study were mostly in their mid-30sto late 30s. Adult developmental issues were notexamined, whether related to age or stage in thefamily life cycle (Carter & McGoldrick, 1988).It may be that the content and form of maritalconflict, and its effect on parenting, will change

470 KERIG

over the life span. This will be an importantissue for future research.

In sum, the data presented here suggest thatthere is agreement between different familymembers regarding a number of aspects of in-terparental conflict that affect child develop-ment. Although children's own perceptions oftheir parents' quarreling may mediate the ef-fects of the family affective environment onthem (Grych & Fincham, 1990), parents in thisnormative sample also appeared to be sensitiveto the ways in which their conflicts might affecttheir children. It may be that distressed mar-riages are characterized by not only greater in-volvement of the child in interparental conflictsbut also less awareness by parents of the waysin which their quarreling affects their children.It will be of interest to examine more directlywhether children benefit from observing con-structive conflict negotiation between their par-ents and, in particular, whether children's abil-ity to solve their own interpersonal conflicts ispredicted by the model that their parents' rela-tionship presents to them. Further longitudinalresearch on both clinical and normative popu-lations is needed to assess the extremes of thesedifferent dimensions of interparental conflictand the ways in which family patterns such astriangulation evolve.

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Received June 1, 1995Revision received November 14, 1995

Accepted November 16, 1995 •

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