Marital discord and childhood behavior problems

Abstract

Measures of overt marital hostility, general marital adjustment, and children's behavior problems were obtained from the parents of 64 children referred to a child psychological clinic. Correlations between children's scores on measures of general marital unhappiness and overt marital hostility were compared. Overt marital hostility correlated significantly with many behavior problems of boys. However, neither general marital unhappiness nor overt marital hostility related to problem behaviors in girls. Specific findings and possible reasons for the differential results with respect to boys and girls were discussed.

Marital conflict and children's adjustment: A cognitive-contextual framework.

“…Early studies examining marital conflict and child adjustment found that conflict was more closely linked to be-havior problems in boys than in girls (Emery & O'Leary, 1982;Hetherington et al, 1982;Porter & O'Leary, 1980), a finding consistent with studies of children's adjustment to divorce and other psychosocial stressors (Emery, 1988;Zaslow, 1989;Zaslow & Hayes, 1986). One explanation offered for this difference is that girls are more likely to be shielded from conflict than boys.…”

“…Available evidence supports the latter hypothesis in that more frequent open conflict is associated with increased behavior problems (Johnston et al, 1987;Long et al, , 1988Porter & O'Leary, 1980;Wierson et al, 1988). In a study of naturally occurring episodes of interparental anger, children exposed to more frequent marital conflict reacted more intensely when exposed to a later episode of parental conflict than did children who had experienced less frequent conflict (E. M. Cummings, Zahn-Waxler, & RadkeYarrow, 1981).…”

“…For example, Emery and O'Leary (I 982) found that boys' perception of the frequency of marital conflict was related to maternal ratings of conduct disorder, immaturity, and delinquency (correlations ranged from .35 to .41) on the Behavior Problem Checklist (Quay, 1977). Porter and O'Leary (1980) found correlations of similar magnitude to those reported by Emery and O'Leary (1982) between maternal ratings of openly expressed marital conflict and a range of adjustment problems in boys, but found that mothers' ratings of marital satisfaction were not significantly associated with child problems. This suggests that the relation between conflict and child behavior was not simply an artifact of marital distress.…”

Children's Witnessing of Adult Domestic Violence

“…The most consistent findings in the literature point to different factors for boys and girls that are associated with witnessing violence. In general, studies have shown boys to exhibit more frequent problems and ones that are categorized as externalized such as hostility and aggression and with girls showing evidence of more internalized problems such as depression and somatic complaints (Carlson, 1990(Carlson, , 1991Forsstrom-Cohen & Rosenbaum, 1985;Hilberman & Munson, 1977;Hinchey & Gavelek, 1982;Holden & Ritchie, 1991;Jaffe et al, 1986;Jouriles, Murphy & O'Leary, 1989;Porter & O'Leary, 1980;Stagg et al, 1989;Westra & Martin, 1981). There are some findings that dissent from this general trend by showing that girls, especially as they get older, also exhibit more aggressive behaviors (for example, Christopoulous et al, 1987;Spaccarelli, Sandler & Roosa, 1994;Davis & Carlson, 1987).…”

Psychometric evaluation of the Hungarian version of the Children’s Perception of Interparental Conflict Scale

“…Az elõbbire példa az O'Leary-Porter Skála (O'Leary-Porter Scale, OPS; Porter & O'Leary, 1980), amely a gyermekek jelenlétében zajló konfliktusokról kérdezi a szülõket. Fontos felismerés azonban, hogy azok a vitás helyzetek is hatnak a gyermekekre, amelyekrõl a szülõk azt gondolják, hogy gyermekük nem észleli, mert például egy másik szobában tartózkodik.…”