Intra-Family Conflict in Relation to
Boys’ Adjustment at School
Several models of the development of
antisocial behavior emphasize the role of intra-family conflict on children’s
later relationships and adjustment (Brody, Stoneman,
& Burke, 1987; Patterson, Reid, & Dishion,
1992; MacKinnon-Lewis, Starnes, Volling, &
Johnson, 1997). Although individual
models posit different mechanisms of effect, in general, early dyadic
relationships within the family, such as interparental,
parent-child, and sibling relationships, have been viewed as the training ground
for the practice of verbal and physical aggression and other interpersonal
conflict strategies and skills. Both
positive and negative strategies learned in the home are hypothesized to carry
over into interactions in relationships in other contexts, such as with
teachers and peers in school (Deutsch, 1973; Shantz,
1987). Children who learn to use
destructive and aggressive/aversive conflict negotiation skills in the home are
hypothesized to then develop highly conflictual
relationships with teachers and peers, which in turn has been associated with
school failure, peer rejection, and later antisocial outcomes such as
involvement with deviant peers and juvenile delinquency (Loeber
& Dishion, 1983; Patterson et al., 1992).
Much of the extant research has
focused on demonstrating cross-sectional or short-term longitudinal
associations between conflict occurring in two family
subsystems (Brody et al., 1987; MacKinnon, 1989), or between conflict in one
family dyad and child aggression (Patterson et al., 1992; Stocker & Dunn,
1990; Stormshak, Bellanti, Bierman, & Conduct Problems Prevention Research Group,
1996). Fewer studies have been conducted
to investigate the linkages between conflict in several different early family
relationships and later conflict in relationships with teachers and peers. The present study reports on longitudinal
relations among different forms of dyadic conflict in the home (interparental, sibling, and parent-child) during the
preschool years in relation to conflict in teacher-child and peer relationships
at school entry, in a sample of low-income boys.
In this study, we focus on the
effects of destructive conflict (i.e., conflict characterized by the use of
coercion and threats to achieve goals; Shantz, 1987)
in early relationships on later relationships.
Evidence that frequent, aggressive/coercive destructive conflict impedes
the development of positive relationships has come from research from
predominantly four theoretical perspectives: social learning (Patterson et al.,
1992), family systems (Brody et al., 1987; MacKinnon-Lewis et al., 1997),
attachment (Greenberg & Speltz; 1988), and
sociological (Hotaling, Straus, & Lincoln, 1989;
Straus, 1991a) models. Patterson’s and
colleagues (Patterson, Dishion, & Bank, 1984;
Patterson et al., 1992) research has focused on how parents unwittingly train
and reinforce aversive child behavior through social learning mechanisms,
ultimately leading to the child’s open defiance and use of coercion in other
relationships (Patterson, 1982). Family
systems models have posited that conflictual behavior
occurring in a subsystem of the family (e.g., the interparental
dyad) affects other subsystems in the family (e.g., sibling interactions; Brody
et al., 1987; Minuchin, 1974), primarily by affecting
the family’s emotional climate through an affective contagion mechanism (i.e.,
“spillover”; Erel & Burman,
1995). Sociological models of violence
such as Straus’ (1991a) hold that violence experienced in one area of life
tends to engender violence in other areas, based on results from large,
nationally-represented studies that have shown that the use of physical
conflict strategies between parents is correlated with physical conflict in
parent-child and child-child relationships (see Hotaling
et al., 1989, and Straus, 1991a for reviews).
Finally, attachment theorists (Greenberg & Speltz,
1988; Pianta, 1997; Sroufe,
1983) have described how for insecurely attached children, a history of
caregiver unresponsiveness would lead to the child learning to reciprocate with
negative behaviors in order to elicit attention from caregivers, which in turn
leads to negative and aversive behaviors in later close interpersonal
relationships (Cichetti, 1984).
In support of these models, recent investigations
have demonstrated that the presence of high conflict in one family relationship
is often correlated with conflict in another.
For example, high levels of marital conflict have been demonstrated to
be positively related to parents’ and children’s reports of more frequent
verbal and physical aggression toward the child (Osborne & Fincham, 1996; Strassberg, Dodge,
Bates, & Pettit, 1992), as well as to harsh, rejecting parenting styles
(see Davies & Cummings, 1994, for a review; Erel,
Margolin, & John, 1998; Holden & Ritchie,
1991). Sibling conflict has been shown
to be related to interparental conflict and
parent-child conflict (Brody, Stoneman, McCoy, &
Forehand, 1992; MacKinnon-Lewis et al., 1997).
These studies support the idea of the development of conflictual,
coercive processes across multiple relationships in early family life. Only a few studies have explored the
connections among conflict experienced in multiple family relationships and
conflict in later relationships in school, particularly in early childhood
(MacKinnon-Lewis et al., 1994).
Nonetheless, there is a modicum of studies that has examined relations
between certain types of conflict in early family life and measures of school
or peer competence that can be drawn upon to hypothesize about the continuity
of conflictual processes across home and school. These investigations will now be reviewed and
discussed in relation to the conceptual model and hypotheses that were then
tested in the present study.
Intra-Family Conflict and Child Adjustment
Exposure to destructive marital
conflict is thought to teach children that aggression is an efficient tool to
achieving interpersonal goals. Moreover,
frequent and intense early parental conflict may set an aversive, hostile
family climate, providing the “background” in which coercive strategies are
modeled, implicitly and explicitly taught, practiced, and then employed in
interactions with others. Studies of
destructive marital conflict during the preschool years have shown marital discord
to be related to a range of later child behavior problems (see Davies &
Cummings, 1994, for a review). Interparental relationships characterized by overt and
hostile conflict has been positively associated with increased use of
aggression with siblings (MacKinnon, 1989; Erel et
al., 1998) and peers (Gottman & Fainsilber-Katz, 1989), as well as classroom sociometric status (Strassberg et
al., 1992). The range of behavioral
outcomes associated with interparental conflict
suggest that it may have a diffuse, general effect on children’s conflict style
that is exhibited in many different relationships (e.g., with teachers, peers).
Yet when other family relationships
are examined in conjunction with marital effects, an indirect and/or moderating
effect is often demonstrated. For
example, Bierman and Smoot (1991) examined coercive
family processes in relation to child conduct problems measured at ages
5-6. They found that reported low
marital satisfaction was correlated with child conduct problems in the
home. In subsequent path analyses,
marital satisfaction and coercive parenting indices were demonstrated to
contribute to the prediction of child conduct problems, which in turn,
predicted problems with peers. These
findings are consistent with the idea that intra-family conflict plays a role
in the genesis of child conduct problems, particularly when occurring in
multiple relationships. However, this
study was also cross-sectional, and assessed marital satisfaction versus
marital conflict, the latter of which has been more strongly related to child
adjustment (Jouriles et al., 1991; Straus,
1991a). Few if any studies have examined
interparental conflict directly or interactively with
characteristics of other family relationships in relation to conflict
specifically in teacher-child and child-peer relationships. From the results presented here, it seems
possible that conflict in interparental and
parent-child dyads might act in a synergistic (i.e., additive or interactive)
way to affect the use of aversive conflict in relationships in other settings.
When qualities of the parent-child
relationship have been examined in relation to child adjustment in school, the
results support the idea that parent-child conflict might also have direct as
well as moderating effects on both teacher-child and child-peer
relationships. It is reasonable to
expect that children may exhibit a similar style of interaction with their
parent and teacher, as both are characterized as hierarchical relationships in
which the adult is instrumental in assisting the child in developing emotional
and behavioral regulatory strategies (Pianta,
1997). Most of this research has
explored the quality of adult-child relationships from an attachment
perspective. In both preschool (Hamilton
& Howes, 1992; Howes,
Hamilton, & Matheson, 1994; Howes, Matheson,
& Hamilton, 1994; Motti, 1986, cited in Pianta, 1997; Pianta, 1992) and
early school-age samples (Cohn, 1990; Pianta, 1994; Toth & Cichetti, 1996),
qualities indicative of insecure parent-child relationships (i.e., dependency,
nurturance) were related to teacher’s ratings of teacher-child relationships
and social competence with peers. Their
work supports a model in which mother-child relationships influence relationships
children have with teachers, which in turn, affect children’s interactions with
peers in the classroom (Pianta, 1997; Howes, Matheson et al., 1994). However, it is important to note that
"quality of relationship" was defined in terms of attachment security,
rather than conflict. Thus, although
consistent with the idea that coercive processes may spread from mother-child
to teacher-child to peer relationships, this pathway cannot be inferred from
these results. In an
another study, involving low-income kindergartners, mother-child
aggression was related to poor teacher-child relationship quality (Strassberg et al., 1992), although teacher-child
relationship was assessed with only one item from a questionnaire. We know of no other studies that have examined
teacher-child conflict specifically in relation to parent-child conflict,
either concurrently or longitudinally.
Other investigators have reported
associations between qualities of the parent-child relationship and qualities
of relationships with peers. Parental
power assertion and use of physical discipline have been shown to predict
children’s use of power assertive strategies with peers (Putallaz,
1987) and children’s sociometric status with peers,
with higher levels of parental coerciveness predicting more negative child
outcomes (Bierman & Smoot, 1991; DeKovic & Janssens, 1992;
MacKinnon-Lewis et al., 1994; Pettit, Dodge, & Brown, 1988; Strassberg et al., 1992; Strassberg,
Dodge, Pettit, & Bates, 1994). In a
recent investigation, Crockenberg and Lourie (1996) reported positive associations between
mothers’ and fathers’ use of coercion in conflict management and children’s
report of use of manipulation with peers at age 6.
Several other researchers have shown higher rates of children’s
aggression with others when their parents are rejecting and harsh (see Maccoby and Martin, 1983, for a review; Pettit et al.,
1988) and more frequently use aggressive physical discipline strategies (Strassberg et al., 1994).
The strength of relations between parent-child and child-peer conflict
range from modest to moderate, depending on the nature of the sample (e.g.,
stronger relations are found in families experiencing physical abuse, Fantuzzo et al., 1991; Strassberg
et al., 1994). Taken together, these
results suggest that parent-child conflict has an effect on children’s other
relationships outside the home.
Recent research has explored the
contributions of sibling relationships to other relationships in and out of the
home (Brody et al., 1987; Erel et al., 1998). Qualities of sibling relationships are often
hypothesized to be more strongly related to peer relationships, because both
are characterized as close-age relationships with roles that are less hierarchically-organized
than those of adult-child relationships, and these dyads tend to engage in
similar activities and functions (e.g., play; Shantz,
1987; Stocker & Dunn, 1990; Stormshak et al.,
1996). However, the few studies that
have examined the relations between sibling conflict and conflict in peer
relationships have generally shown mixed results, with modest correlations
between aggression in sibling and peer interaction emerging at times (Abramovitch, Corter, Pepler, & Stanhope, 1986; Berndt & Bulleit, 1985; Mendelsohn, Aboud, & Lanthier, 1994;
Stocker & Dunn, 1990). Observed
sibling conflict was shown to be modestly related to teacher reports of
externalizing behaviors in early school-age children (Bank & Burraston, 1997). In
general, the theoretical reasoning linking sibling and peer conflict appears
sound, but the empirical results have failed to show a consistent effect. In comparison, little is known about how
early sibling conflict relates to the quality of teacher-child dyadic
relationships. Again, we know of no
other study that has examined conflict directly in these two settings.
When sibling relations are examined
in conjunction with other family relationships, they are often less strongly
related to child aggression or peer outcomes than interparental
and/or parent-child conflict (Dunn, Slomkowski, Beardsall, & Rende, 1994;
MacKinnon-Lewis et al., 1997). There is
some evidence that qualities of sibling relationships may be affected by other
relationships in the family in a compensatory way, such that in some families
where extreme interparental conflict is common or
individual parent-child relations are problematic, positive and strong
relationships may develop between siblings as a buffer against the atmosphere
of family violence (Jenkins, 1992).
Thus, it is difficult to know whether sibling conflict adds further
“skills” in conflictual behavior with others above
and beyond the influence of parent-parent and parent-child relations in the
preschool and early school-age years. It
is possible that sibling conflict would moderate (i.e., interact) with
parent-child and/or interparental conflict as in
Jenkins’ work with older children (1992) to either promote or protect against
poor relationships, depending on the type and frequency of conflict experienced
in other family relationships.
One recent study indicates that
sibling aggression may contribute to peer relations
above that accounted for by parent-child relationship quality. In a study of 8 to 10 year old boys,
MacKinnon-Lewis and associates (1997) found that significantly more variance in
peer outcomes was explained when aggression between sibings
was added as a predictor. They described
a pathway in which boys who had rejecting mothers were more aggressive in their
sibling interactions, which in turn, increased the likelihood that they were
more aggressive and rejected by peers.
These findings are supportive of an additive effect of sibling and
parent-child conflict on children’s use of coercion with others. However, the data were cross-sectional, and
unlike the present study, parental conflict and conflict with teachers were not
assessed. It is not clear whether the
addition of interparental conflict would add or
interact with other indices of family conflict to predict children’s
relationships at school.
The studies and results reviewed
above could also be drawn upon to support another hypothesis -- that the accumulation
of dyadic conflict across multiple family relationships may best predict the
development of poor relationships with teachers and peers. That is, conflict experienced in any one
relationship may not place the child at risk for problems in school
relationships. But as the number of
family relationships in which conflict occurs
increases, the risk for conflict in relationships outside of the home may
increase. There is evidence that the
occurrence of multiple risk factors in early childhood has a linear
relationship with behavioral outcomes, especially in high-risk groups, such as
families from socioeconomically disadvantaged
backgrounds (Rutter, 1978; Shaw, Winslow, Owens,
& Hood, 1998). This cumulative risk
hypothesis is not inconsistent with the models (i.e., social learning, family
systems, attachment, and sociological) presented earlier. Conflict in individual dyadic relationships
could be conceptualized as one of many risk factors. For this model to be supported, one would
expect to see significant additive and/or interactive effects of conflict in
relationships on outcomes, and some of the proceeding results are consistent
with this interpretation (e.g., MacKinnon-Lewis et al, 1997; Erel et al., 1998).
However, the effects of these particular dyadic relationships (interparental, sibling, and parent-child) have not yet been
examined together to test this hypothesis.
The present study investigates how
relations among interparental conflict, parent-child
conflict, and sibling conflict across the preschool years predict teacher-child
and child-peer conflict at school entry.
We examine the question: Do patterns of intra-family conflict in the
home increase the probability of children displaying conflictual
relationships with teachers and peers at school? From social-learning, family systems,
attachment, and sociological theories, it is hypothesized that conflictual behavior experienced in dyadic family
relationships (including parent-parent, parent-child, and sibling) would be at
least modestly related to conflict in other settings. Based on prior research that suggests more modest
direct effects for sibling conflict (Erel et al.,
1998), we hypothesize that direct relations involving interparental
and parent-child conflict will be stronger than sibling effects. We also expect that experiencing conflict in
multiple family relationships will place children at greater risk for
displaying conflict with teachers and peers at school than children who
experience or observe conflict in only one family relationship. Therefore, we are particularly interested in
examining two- and three-way interactions with respect to children’s
relationships with peers and teachers at school, given that it may require
experiencing conflictual relationships in multiple
relationships at home for such a behavior to generalize to the school
setting. We hypothesize that interparental and mother-child conflict uniquely contribute
to the prediction of conflict in school relationships, but based on the work of
Brody and colleagues (1987; 1992), MacKinnon (1989), and Jenkins (1992),
sibling effects are anticipated only when entered as interaction terms with
indices of parent-parent and parent-child conflict, especially for child-peer
conflict (MacKinnon-Lewis et al., 1997).
Hypothesized relations will be tested
with a sample of 117 boys from low-income families from ages 3-1/2 to 6. Levels of conflict in five dyadic
relationships were examined: parent-parent, parent-child, sibling,
teacher-child, and child-peer. This
study seeks to improve upon previous research by using a multi-method,
multi-informant approach to assess dyadic conflict across contexts and time in
a sample of young children, and by examining direct, additive, and interactive
relations among these variables using hierarchical regression analyses.
Method
Study children and their families
participated in data collection procedures when the boys were ages 3-1/2, 5,
and 6. Parents reported on conflict in
their marital relationship1 at age 3-1/2 and parent-child
relationships at age 5, and destructive conflict between siblings was observed
in a one-hour play session. Teacher
reports of teacher-child and child-peer conflict were obtained when the child
was age 6.
Subjects
Subjects were recruited from Women, Infant,
and Children Nutritional Supplement Program (WIC) clinics in the metropolitan Pittsburgh
area (Shaw et al., 1998). The WIC
program provides financial and nutritional resources to low-income
families. Mothers with boys between 6
and 17 months of age and another sibling living at home were asked to
participate in a longitudinal study examining the development of young
children. Three hundred and ten families
composed the original sample. In order
to allow for more consistent representation of all measurements under
examination, a subset of the original sample were selected for the present
study using the following criteria. All
subjects for which there was a close-age sibling (i.e., between one year
younger and four years older who were available for the age 5 sibling
observation) and had available teacher data at age 6 comprised the subsample, resulting in 117 families meeting selection
criteria. This sibling age criteria was
chosen so that siblings would more likely be a playmate of the target child and
be at a similar developmental level, and less likely to be engaged in caretaking
of the target child (as may happen with much older siblings). Of these 117 sibling pairs, 17 involved
siblings who were 1 year younger, 6 were the same age, 28 were 1 year older, 28
were 2 years older, 27 were three years older, and 11 were 4 years older. Because of this decision, 63 sibling pairs
for whom we collected data were not included in analyses (most were excluded
because their sibling was too old or too young, n=36, or teacher data was not
available, n=27). The decision to use
the selection criteria was supported theoretically by others’ research showing
that more extreme age differences between siblings results in different
behaviors and roles than those closer in age (Dunn, 1983). It was also supported empirically by testing
age differences in the frequency of destructive sibling interaction among
siblings one year younger to four years older with an ANOVA, F (5, 175)
= 1.80, ns. There were no
significant differences in the frequency of sibling conflict across the six
sibling ages included in the subsample. Additionally, there was no significant
difference in the frequency of sibling conflict when the selected and
unselected groups were examined, t = -.83, ns. Taken together, these results suggest that
the close-in-age criteria between sibling pairs was
appropriate.
The subsample
primarily consisted of Caucasian and African-American families (58% and 35%,
respectively, 7% other). Mothers’ and
fathers’ average educational level was 12.9 years, and the mean per capita
income at recruitment for the entire sample was $2,892 (approximately $11,616
per year for a family of four).
Mean scores on all variables were
compared for the subsample and those subjects who did
not meet selection criteria. Interparental conflict at age 3.5 was significantly higher
for the selected group (X’s = 25.33 and 19.04, p < .05). All other means were comparable across the
selected and unselected groups.
Procedures
Families participated in three waves
of data collection when the boys were 3.5, 5, and 6 years of age. The age 3.5 assessment
consisted of one laboratory visit, in which mothers completed questionnaires
and participated in several structured tasks with their child. At the age 5 visit,
each mother was interviewed in the home about her child’s behavior and her
relationship with the child. The target
child and his sibling were videotaped playing with sets of toys, while the
examiner and mother completed questionnaires in the same room. The siblings were videotaped together for one
hour and played with up to three sets of toys brought by the examiner. Sibling conflict was coded from
videotapes. At age 6, data on the
quality of the teacher-child relationship and the child’s relationship with
peers were collected by mail. Teacher
reports were solicited after school had been in session for at least two
months, so that teachers would be familiar with the child’s typical
behavior. Due to differing registration
criteria in the various school districts, approximately half of the subsample were in kindergarten
(51%), and the rest were in first grade (46%) or second grade (3%) when teacher
data were collected. Mean scores for
outcome variables were compared for children in kindergarten versus first
grade. No significant differences were
detected.
Of the 117 families who met the
selection criteria, data were available for 109 subjects at the age 3.5 visit
and 116 subjects at the age 5 visit. Data for teacher-reported outcomes at age 6
were available for 117 children.
However, due to the varying availability of data for all subjects across
the two-and-a-half years, sample sizes range from 98 to 117.
Measures
Self-Report
Hollingshead Four Factor Index of Social Status (Hollingshead,
1975). Mothers provided information about their own
and their partner’s educational level and employment at each assessment. The Hollingshead
index is widely used, and allows for calculation of socioeconomic status scores
for both one- and two-parent families.
The index has been shown to be highly correlated with an occupation
index designed by the National Opinion Research Center (r = .927).
Conflict Tactics Scales (CTS-Form N) (Straus, 1979). The CTS assesses the use of verbal
reasoning, verbal aggression, and violence in the family. This questionnaire was administered at the
age 3.5 visit.
The CTS consists of 26 items which measure the frequency of conflict
resolution tactics used by partners over the past year. For each item, the subject also reports how
often the child witnessed the behavior.
Although the CTS yields several factors, we chose to composite four
factor scores (Frequency and Exposure to Verbal Aggression and Physical
Aggression) by summing them, as both constructs are thought to be important to
the development of coercive processes in families (Patterson et al., 1992; Fantuzzo et al., 1991).
The CTS is widely used, has been demonstrated to have adequate
reliability and validity, and has been shown to be associated with both child
behavior problems (Fantuzzo et al., 1991) and child
responses to conflict (J.S. Cummings, Pellegrini, Notarius, & E.M. Cummings, 1989). In large nationally represented samples, the
alpha coefficients for the Verbal Aggression and Physical Aggression subscales
were high (ranges from .77 - .88; Straus, 1979; Straus, 1991b).
Student-Teacher Relationship Scale (STRS; Pianta
& Steinberg, 1991) and Adult-Child Relationship Scale.
This 30-item questionnaire was originally designed to assess teacher’s
perceptions of their relationship with children. Attachment-related issues are ascertained, as
well as their feelings about the child and his behavior. We adapted it for use with mothers by
slightly changing the wording of items to reflect the parent-child relationship,
and used it at the age 5 home visit. In addition, teachers completed the STRS as
the children approached age 6. For the
present study, because of our interest in conflictual
dyadic relationships, the “conflicted relationship” factor was utilized,
comprised of eight items assessing the frequency of conflict on a 5-point Likert scale (e.g., This child and
I seem to always struggling with one another, This child feels I am unfair to
him). Coefficient alpha for this measure
in a sample of preschool children was .90 (Pianta
& Steinberg, 1991). In our sample, Cronbach’s alpha equaled .89 for teacher-reported data, and
.81 for mother-reported data.
Teacher’s Checklist of Peer
Relationships
(Dodge, 1986). This questionnaire
consists of nine items which assess children’s sociometric
status within the classroom, as well as the frequency of specific coercive
child behaviors. For the present study,
the hostile-aggressive factor was used, comprised of six items that assess the
child’s use of aversive and aggressive conflict management strategies with
peers (e.g., “this child gets other kids to gang up on a peer he does not
like”). Responses to these items were
shown to be internally consistent (coefficient alphas = .50 and .93,
respectively) and reliable across teacher raters in a sample of school-age
children (Dodge & Somberg, 1987). For our sample, Cronbach’s
alpha for this measure is .93.
Behavioral Observation
Sibling Conflict Coding System (SCCS, Garcia, 1998).
Sibling conflict constructs were coded from videotapes using the SCCS,
an observational coding system for sibling and parent/child interaction based
on a live coding system developed by Volling and Belsky (1992). The
system was designed to capture the amount and quality of sibling conflict
during a one-hour sibling interaction.
Both molecular and global ratings were coded. At the molecular level, episodes of conflict
were recorded and then given an intensity rating of 1-5 depending on the length
of the conflict, level of affect, and whether or not physical aggression was
involved. Global ratings were assessed
on various dimensions (e.g., destructive conflict, negative reactivity of each
sibling). Because low levels of certain
types of conflict (e.g., constructive conflict, negotiation) between siblings
have been shown to be normative and perhaps adaptive (Dunn, 1983), but
destructive and hostile aggression between siblings has been linked to
maladaptive outcomes (Dunn & Brown, 1994), we used a measure of destructive
sibling conflict in the present analyses.
In order to qualitatively capture destructive conflict between siblings
and to strengthen the generalizability of the
construct, codes were collapsed into one “destructive sibling conflict” score
using the following method (Garcia, 1998).
From the molecular codes, scores for frequency (number of conflict
sequences), intensity (average of all ratings), and number of seconds spent in
the most intense/aggressive conflict (levels 4 and 5) were derived. These three scores, plus the global rating
for destructive conflict, were standardized and then summed to create a
composite score, which was used in further analyses. The correlations among these variables ranged
from .71-.88 (p < .001), and the alpha coefficient for the composite
was .89. This composite reflects how
many times the siblings engaged in high-intensity aggression and conflict, how
prolonged the conflict was, and the level of negative affect of the conflict
throughout the play interaction (Garcia, Shaw, Owens, & Yaggi,
in press). Again, because we wanted to
focus on effects of destructive conflict in close-age
sibling relationships, only those children with siblings between one year
younger and four years older were used in analyses. This measure of destructive sibling conflict
has been shown to be correlated with maternal reports of children’s aggression
and delinquency at ages 5 and 6 in the present sample (Garcia et al., in
press).
Eighteen (or 10%) of the sibling
interaction videotapes were coded by all coders in order to determine
reliability. Cohen’s kappa coefficient
for the molecular codes across raters was .81.
Global ratings were assessed using 4-point scales. For these ratings, percent agreement averaged
.72. Because these levels of agreement
for the global ratings on reliability tapes were deemed unacceptable, a
consensus procedure was utilized for the entire data set. Approximately twenty minutes of each
videotape were viewed by the coding team.
The original coder was required to justify the global ratings, which
were then verified by consensus.
Consensus ratings were also used when raters had questions regarding
unclear conflict sequences. All four
coders watched the questionable conflict and decided on the appropriate
code. This was done for approximately 1/4
of all codes for each tape (Garcia et el., in press).
Results
Results are presented in four
stages. Initially, descriptive
statistics are presented for the independent and dependent measures. Second, direct correlations among indices of
family conflict and school-based conflict are examined. Third, additive and interactive effects of
intra-family conflict were explored in relation to children’s conflictual relationships with teacher and peers by
computing two, seven-step hierarchical regressions.
Descriptive Statistics for Study Measures
Descriptive statistics for all
independent and dependent variables are presented in Table 1. Subjects’ scores differed from the normative
samples on a few measures that have been used in prior research. The average scores for the frequency of Verbal
Aggression and Physical Aggression factors on the CTS at age 3.5 were at the 80th
and 90th percentiles, respectively.
Mean socioeconomic status was low, representative of semi-skilled
workers (Hollingshead, 1975). Normative data on other measures of conflict
were unavailable, so it is uncertain whether subjects’ scores on other measures
fell within normative ranges, although examination of the mean scores displayed
normal distribution.
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Insert Table 1 about here
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Relations Among Measures of
Intra-Family and Child Problems
Pearson Correlation Coefficients were
used to test the hypothesis that interparental
conflict, parent-child conflict, and sibling conflict were positively
associated with teacher-child and child-peer conflict. Table 2 summarizes these results. Correlations presented were computed using
all subjects who met the selection criteria and for whom data were
available. Relations between outcome
variables and SES also are presented in Table 2 to test for “third variable”
effects. SES was not significantly
correlated with teacher-child or child-peer conflict scores. Thus, SES was not used in further
analyses.
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Insert Table 2 about here
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In general, correlations across
intra-family conflict factors and among informants were positive, but modest in
size. Mothers’ ratings of mother-child
conflict exhibited the strongest correlations with other predictors, ranging
from .13 (with age 5 sibling conflict) to .26 (with age 3.5 interparental
conflict).
Sibling conflict was not directly related to interparental
conflict. The correlation between teacher-child
conflict and child-peer conflict was high (r=.73). Although the high correlation between these
two teacher-rated measures may reflect an informant bias, due to the
theoretical difference designated in the literature between these two
constructs and the potentially different effects of intra-family conflict on
these two relationships, these scores were treated as independent outcomes and
remained separate in further analyses.
Longitudinal correlations between
predictor and outcome variables were generally positive, and in 5 of 6 cases,
statistically significant at at least a trend
level. As hypothesized, earlier interparental conflict and mother-child conflict exhibited
the highest and most consistent relations with teacher-child and child-peer conflict
(ranging from .13 to .31). Sibling
conflict was not significantly related to teacher-child conflict, and only
approached significance with child-peer conflict. Overall, the data suggest that interparental conflict and mother-child conflict demonstrate
modest, but consistent, links to teacher problems rated 1 to 4 years later.
Additive and Interactive Effects of Intra-Family Conflict on
Teacher-Rated Outcomes at Age 6
In order to test the effects of
intra-family conflict on relationships at school, additive and interactive
effects were assessed for teacher-reported outcomes. We computed two identical, seven-step
hierarchical regression equations. As
some of these subjects were missing family conflict data, the final sample
sizes for the two regressions were 98 and 106 subjects.
Predictor variables for regressions
included interparental conflict, mother-child
conflict, and sibling conflict.
Dependent measures were the two teacher-rated outcome measures: teacher-child
conflict and child-peer problems. All
predictors were initially centered to reduce multicollinearity
that may occur with product terms.
Predictors were entered in the following order. Main effects were entered in chronological
order: age 3.5 interparental
conflict, age 5 mother-child conflict, and age 5
sibling conflict. Next, the two-way
interaction terms were entered in chronological order (interparental
conflict X mother-child conflict, interparental
conflict X sibling conflict, and mother-child conflict X sibling
conflict). Lastly, the three-way
interaction term (interparental X mother-child X
sibling conflict) was entered. Results
are displayed in Table 3. As predicted,
for teacher-child conflict, mother-child conflict entered individually at step
two accounted for a moderate portion of the variance (R2
change = .04, p < .05), although the predicted main effect for interparental conflict was not attained. The two-way interaction of verbal/physical
aggression at age 3.5 and sibling conflict also predicted additional
significant variance (R2 change = .03, p <
.05). Furthermore, the three-way
interaction of interparental, mother-child, and
sibling conflict accounted for unique variance (R2 change =
.03, p < .05).
____________________________________
Insert Table 3 about here
____________________________________
To examine the pattern of
interactions, follow-up analyses of simple slopes were conducted using the
method outlined by Aiken and West (1991).
To examine the two-way interaction between interparental
conflict and sibling conflict, controlling for other predictors listed in Table
3, teacher-child conflict was regressed on interparental
conflict at age 3.5, at 1/2 standard deviation above and below the mean of
sibling conflict at age 5. These simple
slopes were then plotted at 1/2 standard deviation above and 1/2 standard
deviation below the mean for interparental conflict
at age 3.5 (See Figure 2). The 1/2
standard deviation cut-point was chosen in order to represent patterns of
interaction comparable to a reasonable number of subjects in each “group”
(e.g., at least 10) if one were to compute a group-based ANOVA test of
interaction effects. A test of the
simple slopes demonstrated that there was a trend for teacher-child conflict
scores to be low for those children who experienced low sibling conflict at age
5, t=1.76, p < .10. At
high levels of sibling conflict, changes in teacher-child conflict scores were nonsignificant, t=.53, ns. The size of the difference in teacher-child
conflict scores between low and high parental and sibling conflict was about
1/3 of a standard deviation.
_____________________________________
Insert Figure 1 about here
_____________________________________
We then examined the significant
three-way interaction using simple slope analyses. Again, 1/2 standard deviation above and below
mean cut-points on predictor variables were used in order to insure that the
patterns depicted would be representative of enough subjects for appropriate
interpretation of effects. Although the
use of 106 and 98 subjects in the respective regressions is above the
recommended guidelines (a minimum of 10-subjects to each step; Kleinbaum, Kupper, & Muller,
1988), caution is still warranted in interpreting these effects, as three-way
interactions in a relatively small sample can be somewhat unstable.
The patterns of the simple slopes
analyses are displayed in Figure 2. Only
one of the simple slopes was significant, although others were generally in the
expected direction. For children
experiencing high mother-child conflict and low sibling conflict, as interparental conflict at age 3.5 increased, teacher-child
conflict scores increased (t = 2.47, p < .01). For this configuration of conflict factors,
differences in teacher-conflict scores across varying levels of interparental conflict equaled approximately 1/2 standard
deviations. Other slopes were not
significantly different from zero. While
the interaction effects are not large, the results generally support our
hypotheses. The three-way interaction
primarily shows an amplification effect of what was demonstrated by the main
effect for mother-child conflict and the two-way effect for interparental
and sibling conflict; that is, that experiencing mother-child conflict was the
strongest risk factor for poor teacher-child conflict (3 out of 4
configurations in the regression equations involving high mother-child conflict
were elevated), and sibling and interparental
conflict interacted such that low levels of both generally predicted low
teacher-child conflict. The patterns
support the cumulative risk hypothesis as well.
If high levels of conflict were experienced in more than one
relationship (e.g., mother-child and sibling), risk was greater for having a conflictual relationship with the teacher at age 6. It is significant that the lowest
teacher-child conflict score is associated with the pattern of low conflict
experienced across all three intra-family dyadic relationships, and the highest
teacher-child conflict is associated with experiencing high conflict in all
three relationships.
___________________________________
Insert Figure 2 about here
____________________________________
The most robust findings were in
predicting teacher-rated peer problems at age 6. Using the same method of analysis, two of the
main effects provided significant variance to this outcome: parental conflict
at age 3.5 ( R2 change = .09, p
< .01), and mother-child conflict at age 5 (R2 change =
.07, p < .05). As with
teacher-child conflict, the three-way interaction also contributed additional
variance (R2 change = .05, p < .05). Moreover, when examined with simple slopes
analyses (not presented here), the pattern of the three-way interaction was
similar to that of teacher-child conflict.
That is, for children experiencing high levels of mother-child conflict
and lower levels of sibling conflict, child-peer conflict scores significantly
increased as interparental conflict increased (t
= 3.70, p < .01). Other slopes
were not significantly different from zero.
As with teacher-child conflict, overall, when conflict was experienced
in more than one family relationship, child-peer conflict scores were higher
than for those subjects who experienced conflict in one or no other
relationships. Of note is that the
combination of high mother-child and high parental conflict appears to leave
boys especially vulnerable to having trouble with peers, with sibling conflict
demonstrating significant, but more muted effects.
Discussion
This study examined the continuity of
conflictual processes in relationships across family
and school environments in a sample of low-income boys. Several researchers had previously documented
relations between conflict in dyadic relationships within
families. The development and potential
“spread” of family conflict to school relationships has been posited by several
models, but rarely tested longitudinally in early childhood. In the present study, we were interested in
whether patterns of intra-family conflict affected the quality of relationships
children have with teachers and peers at school. Based on previous work, we had hypothesized
that mother-child and interparental conflict would
show strong direct and interactive effects on teacher-child and child-peer
relationships, but predicted that sibling conflict would have mixed effects
(i.e., sibling relationships might contribute more to child-peer than
teacher-child conflict, and might show a protective effect when conflict was
high in other relationships). We also
thought that intra-family conflict might exhibit multiplicative effects, such
that experiencing conflict in more than one relationship would increase
vulnerability to poor relationships in school.
This study both affirms and extends
previous research by demonstrating that patterns of intra-family conflict have
implications for children’s relationships at school. Overall, the findings were consistent with
our hypotheses that early conflictual relationships
within the family during infancy and preschool years are modestly related to
later conflictual relationships in school, mirroring
the results of other investigations (MacKinnon et al., 1994; Parke & Ladd,
1992; Parke et al., 1989). The results
are consistent with the tenets of social learning, family systems, attachment,
and sociological theorists regarding the development of conflict within early
family relationships (Brody et al., 1987; Greenberg & Speltz,
1988; Greenberg, Speltz, & DeKlyen,
1993; Hotaling et al., 1989; Patterson et al.,
1992). However, experiencing conflict in
any one particular relationship does not appear to greatly enhance risk for
conflict in later relationships (i.e., direct correlations were low). Time of measurement may be a factor in the
relatively weak correlations; there was a two-and-a-half year lapse between our
assessments of interparental conflict and
teacher-rated outcomes, and a one-and-a-half lapse between interparental
conflict and other within-family dyadic conflict measurements, while sibling
and mother-child conflict were measured concurrently.
Our analyses indicated complex and
different patterns of additive and interactive effects for teacher-child and
child-peer conflict. Although the
interactive findings must be interpreted cautiously, the patterns were
especially consistent with a cumulative risk model; that is, the experience of
conflict in multiple dyadic family relationships appeared to put
children at greater risk for poor teacher-child and child-peer
relationships. When conflict was
experienced in more than one family relationship, risk for poor teacher-child
and child-peer relationships was generally increased by about 1/3 to 1/2
standard deviations. Results from these
analyses advance the notion that intra-family conflict has negative effects on
children’s relationships with teachers. Conflictual relationships with teachers at school entry may
have important consequences for children’s later adjustment, as children with
problematic relationships with teachers have been shown to be at higher risk
for academic problems, school failure, and peer
rejection (see Pianta, 1992, for a review; Pianta, Steinberg, & Rollins, 1995).
As reflected by both the direct
correlations and the two significant three-way interactions, mother-child
conflict exerted more of a direct effect on child outcomes than other forms of
intra-family conflict. Main effects
accounting for a moderate portion of the variance were exhibited in predicting
both teacher-child and child-peer conflict.
This is supported by previous literature on parent-child relations, in
which the quality of the mother-child relationship has been found to play a
significant role in children’s socialization (Maccoby,
1992, 1996; MacKinnon-Lewis et al., 1994).
Although the interactive findings
demonstrate that high levels of sibling conflict in the presence of other conflictual relationships can amplify risk for poor school
relationships, sibling conflict was not directly related to other forms of
conflict (except weakly to mother-child conflict). This is not necessarily surprising, as
earlier studies have shown mixed results.
The lack of findings may be due to one or more of several factors2. It may be that sibling conflict is quite common
among children around school entry age, and so the presence of conflict in the
sibling relationship may not strongly differentiate effects on children’s
behavior with others, even when conflict is highly aggressive. Alternatively, in homes in which family
relationships are characterized by coercion and conflict, perhaps siblings
restricted or controlled their behavior, because they have learned that they
need to “behave” in front of others when they are home (i.e., they may be hypervigilant and over-controlled due to the increased risk
for parental anger and violence). Thus,
the observation would not necessarily capture the “true” sibling
interaction. The significant three-way
interaction effects suggesting that it is at lower levels of sibling
conflict and high levels of mother-child conflict that the increase in interparental conflict predicts greater peer- and
teacher-child conflict is consistent with this conclusion -- that is, when
children are out of their home environment, perhaps they no longer feel the
need to keep tight control over their conflict strategies and will thus exhibit
their “true” coercive and/or aggressive tendencies in the school environment.
Relatedly, perhaps the measurement strategy (i.e.,
by observation) was not effective in capturing the enduring quality of the
sibling relationship. For example, Brody
and colleagues (Brody et al., 1987, 1992; Brody, Stoneman,
& McCoy, 1994) found direct relations between sibling- and parent-reported
sibling conflict and interparental conflict, but when
observed sibling conflict was considered, relations were weak or nonsignificant. They
point to two potential reasons. First,
reported data may allow for a better measurement of the subtle, more affective
quality of relationships between siblings.
Second, reported data may better reflect the long-term history of the
quality of the relationship than behaviors observed in a one-hour observation. Our other measures of intrafamily
conflict were self-reported data. Had we
also obtained self-report data on sibling conflict, we may have found direct
associations with sibling relationship quality to be stronger. Nonetheless, even though the results need to
be interpreted cautiously, significant interactive effects with sibling
conflict were found. This leads us to
believe that our observational measure of sibling conflict provides informative
data about conflict in family relationships.
These results and MacKinnon-Lewis’ et al. findings (1997) highlight the
importance of the sibling relationship as a context for learning and practicing
conflict strategies. Furthermore, the
results support Patterson’s hypothesis that sibling conflict contributes to
coercive behavior in the school setting (Parke et al., 1989; Patterson, 1986;
Patterson et al., 1992).
The Development of Conflictual
Processes: Links Across Family and School
Our data are supportive of a
developmental pathway in which interparental conflict
provides a backdrop of emotionally charged negative interactions, which have
lasting effects on children’s beliefs and learning about power and control in
interpersonal relationships. One of the
most important tasks in the preschool years is to learn how to regulate
emotions and to control behavior, and dyadic relationships within the family
are thought to play an important role in facilitating and teaching these skills
(Thompson & Calkins, 1996). For
children in maritally-stressed and/or violent homes,
this early interparental conflict may have an impact
on the development of parent-child relationships, perhaps by disrupting
parenting practices, as suggested by Fauber,
Forehand, Thomas, and Wierson (1990), or by affording
less exposure to positive conflict resolution strategies (Davies & Cummings,
1994). Both aversive interparental
conflict and parent-child coerciveness affect the quality of sibling
relationships, as children may practice the coercive strategies witnessed
and/or experienced in other family relationships (Patterson, 1984). By age 5, children who have a lot of
experience with aversive conflict may have poorly developed affective/emotional
and behavioral control, or may have learned that coercive conflict strategies
are effective with others (Patterson et al., 1992). Both of these mechanisms could result in the
early school-age child developing a “style” of interacting with others that is
characterized by hostile, aversive/aggressive behavior. In turn, as the child then calls upon these
negative strategies with peers or teachers in the classroom, the likelihood of
being rejected or disliked increases.
Over time, academic problems and poor peer relationships place these
children at high risk for a variety of maladaptive outcomes. Finally, although not examined in the present
study, problems with teachers and peers in school may then lead to increased
risk for continuing problems in relationships in the home during middle
childhood and adolescence.
While the present data are consistent
with the proposed pathway, there are some issues which limit our interpretation
of the effects. First, although
associations were evident over time and the results support the idea of
conflict synergystically “accumulating” over
relationships, the analyses were correlational in nature. We did not measure each construct at every
time point (i.e., a cross-lag design), and thus, cannot determine the temporal
relations and the order of the emergence of conflict in these dyads. There may be alternate directions of effects
(e.g., parent-child conflict leading to interparental
conflict) than those explored in the present design. Second, father-child relationships have also
been found to be important to the development of children’s social behavior,
and to be affected by intra-family conflict (DeKlyen,
Speltz, & Greenberg, 1998; Coiro
& Emery, 1998; MacKinnon-Lewis et al., 1994). Unfortunately, due to the relatively small
number of fathers living in the home in our selected sample, we were unable to
examine the potential effects of father-child conflict on the development of
conflict processes.
Moreover, we did not directly measure
intra-family coercive processes at the microsocial
level described by Patterson and others (1992), although our results are
generally consistent with his early starter model. Fourth, we chose to focus on the effects of
dyadic conflict in these relationships for theoretical reasons, but there may
be effects of other constructs (e.g., temperament, maternal depression) on these
predictors and outcomes that were not considered. For example, several studies suggest that
sibling relationship quality is affected by the age, gender, and temperamental
style of the siblings (Dunn, 1983; Brody et al., 1987; Brody et al., 1994; Brody,
Stoneman, & Gauger,
1996; Stoneman, Brody, & Burke, 1989). Although we chose to examine close-in-age
sibling pairs for comparability to previous studies and to limit the effects of
sibling age differences on our outcomes, examining the quality of relationships
among multiple sibling relationships within the family would likely yield
important information relevant to the spread of conflict to school. Fifth, due to sample characteristics (i.e.,
low-income boys), the results may be of limited generalizability
to other populations. While relations
were comparable with other findings for young boys (MacKinnon-Lewis et al.,
1994; Patterson et al., 1992; Strassberg et al.,
1994), there is some evidence that pathways to antisocial behavior may be
different for girls (Crockenberg & Lourie, 1996; Osborne & Fincham,
1996; Patterson et al., 1992). Lastly,
because many of our measures were self-report questionnaire data, there is the
possibility that the correlations between these constructs are inflated due to
shared-method variance. However, the
possibility of shared method effects is tempered by the longitudinal design and
by the use of different reporters and scales.
Despite these limitations, this study
represents an important first step in exploring the longitudinal associations
among these five types of dyadic conflict.
Several questions remain regarding the development and conflictual and coercive processes in young children. For example, it is likely that while some
characteristics of and experiences in specific relationships may facilitate
risk, others may protect against poor outcomes.
Children may compensate for poor relationships by seeking out and
creating positive relationships with others (e.g., grandparents, daycare
workers; Jenkins, 1992; Rutter, 1990; Stolba & Amato, 1993).
The present data did not allow for a clear interpretation of potential
protective effects across all of the relationships children experience in early
childhood. Future research will
hopefully shed light on the effects of “good” relationships in the context of
multiple negative relationships. Lastly,
although the present study supported the hypothesis that as conflict
experiences accumulated across relationships, risk for problematic school
relationship increased, we did not examine how these experiences
contribute to the outcomes. We would
encourage other researchers to engage in more detailed analyses of the precise
mechanisms by which these processes develop and spread into other contexts.
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Footnotes
1 Although the term interparental typically refers to mother-father dyads, the term
as used in the present study reflects conflict between the mother and the
caregiver whom she identified as most involved in caretaking of the target
child. Many of the families in this
sample show diverse family structure and caretaking arrangements. Within the subsample
examined here, at the age 2 assessment, caregivers
were represented by husbands (56%), boyfriends (33%), grandmothers (8%),
aunts/uncles (1%), parents’ friends (1%), and others (1%).
2 The authors are grateful to the
anonymous reviewers for their ideas regarding possible interpretations of
sibling effects.
Table 1
Mean Scores of Independent and Dependent Variables
Age
of Child
Variable Age
3.5 Age 5 Age
6
____________________________________________________________________________________
M (SD) n M (SD) n M (SD) n
Socioeconomic Statusa 3.87 (.93) 116
Interparental Conflictb 24.58 (21.47)
109
Parent-Child Relationshipc
Mother-rated
Conflict 20.90 (6.85) 114
Sibling Conflictd -.006 (.94)
117
Teacher-Child Relationshipc
Teacher-rated
Conflict 13.32 (6.14) 117
Child-Peer Relationshipe
Teacher-rated
Hostile- 11.76 (5.29) 108
Aggressiveness Scale Score
____________________________________________________________________________________
a Hollingshead Four Factor
Index (scores range from 1-5, higher scores indicate lower SES)
b Conflict Tactics Scale - Sum of Frequency and
Exposure to Verbal Aggression and Physical Aggression score (scores range from
0-160)
c Adult-Child and Teacher-Child Relationship Scale -
Conflicted factor score (scores range from 8-40)
d Sibling Conflict Coding System Destructiveness
Standardized Score
e Teacher’s Checklist of Children’s Peer Relationships
- Hostile-Aggressive scale score (scores range from 6-30)
Table 2
Relations Among Dependent and
Independent Variables
Age 6 School Outcomes
Teacher-Child Conflict Child-Peer
Conflict
SES - Age 2 .11+ .14+
(1) (107)
Interparental Conflict
Age 3.5 Verb. & Phys. .13+ .31***
Aggression Comp. (109) (101)
Parent-Child Relationship - Age 5
Mother-rated Conflict .21*** .31**
(2) (108)
Sibling Conflict - Age 5
Destructiveness Standardized Score .07 .15+
(3) (108)
+p< .10, *p< .05, **p< .01, ***p< .001
NOTE:
n’s are in parentheses.
Table 3
The Interactive Effects of Conflict in Different
Dyadic Relationships --
Interparental, Mother-Child, and Sibling Conflict -- on Predicting
Teacher-Rated Problems from Age 3.5 to Age 6
Teacher-Child Conflict
Child-Peer
Conflict
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Independent Variables Mult.R. R2 R2cha. Fchange. Mult.R. R2 R2cha. Fchange
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Step 1: Verbal + Phys. Aggr.
at Age 3.5 .14 .02 .02 2.15 31 .09 .09 10.54**
Step 2: Mother-Child
Conflict .25 .06 .04 4.89* .41 .17 .07 8.24**
at Age 5
Step 3: Sibling
Conflict at Age 5 .26 .06 .00 .43 .42 .18 .01 1.30
Step 4: Verbal +
Phys. Aggr. .28 .08 .01 1.46 .44 .19 .01 1.73
X Mother-Child Conflict
Step 5: Verbal + Phys. Aggr. .34 .11 .03 4.00* .45 .21 .01 1.79
X Sibling Conflict
Step 6: Mother-Child
Conflict .34 .11 .00 .11 .45 .21 .00 .02
X Sibling Conflict
Step 7: Verbal +
Phys. Aggr. .39 .15 .03 3.94* .49 .24 .03 4.10*
X Mother-Child Conflict
X Sibling Conflict
Overall F = 2.51, p < .01 Overall F = 4.21, p <
.001
df
= (7, 99) df = (7, 91)
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
+p < .10, *p < .05, **p
< .01, ***p < .001
Figure Captions
Figure 1. The interactive effects of interparental conflict at age 3.5 and sibling conflict at
age 5 in predicting teacher-child conflict at age 6.
Figure 2. The interactive effects of interparental conflict at age 3.5, mother-child conflict at
age 5, and sibling conflict at age 5 in predicting teacher-child peer conflict
at age 6.