Guided by a family stress perspective, we examined the hypothesis that discussing money would be associated with the handling of marital conflict in the home. Analyses were based on dyadic hierarchical linear modeling of 100 husbands’ and 100 wives’ diary reports of 748 conflict instances. Contrary to findings from previous laboratory-based surveys, spouses did not rate money as the most frequent source of marital conflict in the home. However, compared to non-money issues, marital conflicts about money were more pervasive, problematic, and recurrent, and remained unresolved, despite including more attempts at problem solving. Implications for professionals who assist couples in managing their relationships and family finances are discussed.

Mothers' and fathers' reports of marital conflicts in the home were obtained (n = 1,638 and 1,281 conflicts, respectively), including conflicts in front of the children (n = 580 and 377, respectively). Participants were 116 families with children 8 to 16 years old (M = 10.82 years, SD = 2.17; 58 boys, 58 girls). Children's emotional responses indicated distinctions between distressing conflict tactics (i.e., threat, personal insult, verbal hostility, defensiveness, nonverbal hostility, marital withdrawal, physical distress) and those that increased their emotional security (i.e., calm discussion, support, affection). Analyses based on cross-reporter informants of parental conflict and child responses strengthened confidence in the findings. Conflict tactics were related to marital functioning, and children's emotional reactions during marital conflicts were associated with their adjustment.

Using a daily diary method, this study examined concurrent and time-lagged relations between marital and parent-child relationship qualities, providing a test of the spillover and compensatory hypotheses. Additionally, this study tested both mothers’ and fathers’ depressive symptoms as moderators of these daily linkages. Participants were 203 families, in which mothers and fathers completed daily diaries for 15 days. At the end of each reporting day, parents independently rated the emotional quality of their relationship with their spouse and with their child that day. Controlling for global levels of marital satisfaction, marital conflict, and parenting, a positive association was found between mothers’ and fathers’ daily ratings of marital quality and their ratings of parent-child relationship quality, supporting the spillover hypothesis. When considering time-lagged relations, support was found for the compensatory hypothesis for mothers: lower levels of marital quality were related to increases in mother-child relationship quality from one day to the next. Further, both maternal and paternal depressive symptoms moderated the link between marital quality and the other parent’s relationship quality with their child. Whereas maternal depressive symptoms strengthened spillover relations for fathers on the next day, paternal depression was related to less spillover for mothers on the same day. Alternative models did not find evidence for parent-child relationship quality as a predictor of changes in marital quality on the next day. The findings underscore the importance of the quality of the marital relationship for predicting the quality of other family relationships.

In this study, the authors examined parent-adolescent cortisol associations in 45 families with adolescent children (24 girls; M age = 15.78 years, SD = 1.44 years). Family members' salivary cortisol levels were measured 7 times a day on 2 typical weekdays. Family members provided reports of demographic and health variables, and adolescents rated parent-child relationship characteristics. After accounting for the effects of time of day and relevant demographic and health control variables on cortisol levels, hierarchical linear models indicated the presence of significant covariation over time in mother-adolescent cortisol (i.e., physiological synchrony). Furthermore, moderating tests revealed that mother-adolescent cortisol synchrony was strengthened among dyads characterized by mothers and adolescents spending more time together, and in families rated higher on levels of parentyouth shared activities and parental monitoring/supervision. Analysis of momentary characteristics indicated that maternal presence at the time of cortisol sampling lowered adolescent cortisol levels but did not account for mother-adolescent cortisol synchrony. Within-family physiological synchrony was amplified in momentary contexts of elevated maternal negative affect and elevated adolescent negative affect. Publisher's Disclaimer:The following manuscript is the final accepted manuscript. It has not been subjected to the final copyediting, fact-checking, and proofreading required for formal publication. It is not the definitive, publisher-authenticated version. The American Psychological Association and its Council of Editors disclaim any responsibility or liabilities for errors or omissions of this manuscript version, any version derived from this manuscript by NIH, or other third parties. The published version is available at www.apa.org/pubs/journals/fam. NIH Public Access Mother-Adolescent Physiological Synchrony in Naturalistic Settings: WithinFamily Cortisol Associations and ModeratorsGiven the emergent recognition of biosocial perspectives by family theorists (Booth, Carver, & Granger, 2000;Cicchetti, 2002;Repetti, Taylor, & Seeman, 2002), studies of family functioning have increasingly incorporated physiological data (e.g., Davies, Sturge-Apple, Cicchetti, & Cummings, 2007;El-Sheikh, 2005;Liew et al., 2003;Pendry & Adam, 2007). Moreover, the joint examination of emotional, physiological, and social systems aligns with a developmental psychopathology framework, thereby facilitating examination of typical and problematic developmental processes of family members (Cummings, Davies, & Campbell, 2000). These biosocial models further postulate ongoing interactions among multiple contexts of family members' development, such that examining the interplay between characteristics of individual functioning (e.g., gender, physical maturity), social environments (e.g., parentchild relations), and physiological functioning is encouraged (Belsky, Bakermans-Kranenburg, & van Ijzendoorn, 2007;Granger & Kivlighan, 2003). Despite this i...

Individual coping strategies and dyadic coping independently predict partner well-being and relationship functioning; however, it is unclear whether the coping processes are inter-related and whether they uniquely contribute to romantic relationship functioning. One hundred heterosexual dating couples rated the individual coping strategy of negative mood regulation as well as positive and negative dyadic coping. Relationship functioning was assessed via partners’ reports of relationship satisfaction and observers’ ratings of negative interaction in conflict. Actor-Partner Interdependence Models (APIMs; Cook & Kenny, 2005; Kashy & Kenny, 2000) revealed associations between individual coping and dyadic coping in the predicted directions. APIMs also indicated the unique contributions of positive and negative dyadic coping to relationship functioning, above and beyond contributions of individual coping strategies. Implications of dyadic coping as a target of efforts to prevent or treat partner and/or relational distress are discussed.