Marital discord and children: Problems, strategies, methodologies, and results

Abstract

In Chapter One, Hetherington cautioned against becoming too attached tc methods of research. I think this fierce attachment is true of those of us whc use observational methodology in clinical/developmental research. I spent approximately ten years in observational work; a large portion of that was spent on methodological problems, particularly observer drift, shift, drop; reactivity in classrooms; and various types of reliability estimates that one carr make (OLeary and Johnson, 1979). Now I agree with Hetherington that wc need to guard against focusing on molecular units of behavior without placing reasonable constructs upon those units. This fault was true of observations made in the classroom by researchers like Becker, Biljou, and myself. It wa: also true of Patterson and other investigators who did observational work in the home. The example given by Hetheringon of Gottman's work which relates to marital research, has the same problem.

Physical aggression toward boys and girls in families characterized by the battering of women.

“…In keeping with other research and clinical observation (Jouriles & LeCompte, 1991;O'Leary, 1984;Trickett & Susman, 1989), the results of the present study indicate that child gender moderates the relationship between the battering of women and aggression toward children. Specifically, within families characterized by more extreme battering, both fathers and mothers are more aggressive toward sons than toward daughters.…”

Mom and dad are at it again: Adolescent perceptions of marital conflict and adolescent psychological distress.

“…Those interested in indirect effects have primarily focused on the behavior and perceptions of parents toward their children as a response to spousal hostility. They have observed that marital conflict creates a situation in which parents become increasingly involved with their own problems, depleting themselves of the emotional resources necessary to effectively monitor their children (Patterson & Southamer-Loeber, 1984), causing them to emotionally withdraw from their children (Dickstein & Parke, 1988), leading them to resent children reminiscent of a spouse (O'Leary, 1984) and leading them to treat children in an angry or hostile manner (Engfer, 1988;Jouriles, Murphy, & O'Leary, 1989;Kerig, Cowan, & Cowan, 1993).…”

Triangles in the family circle: Effects of family structure on marriage, parenting, and child adjustment.

“…Researchers in the area have argued the need for greater specificity in assessing the different dimensions of interparental conflict that might affect child development (Forehand & McCombs, 1989;Jouriles, Murphy, et al, 1991;Katz & Gottman, 1993). Dimensions of interparental conflict that have received attention include intensity, frequency, and the degree to which parents' quarrels are threatening to the child (Grych & Fincham, 1993;Grych, Seid, & Fincham, 1992), the degree to which conflicts are resolved (J. S. Cummings, Simpson, & Wilson, 1993;Grych et al, 1992), whether the content of conflicts concerns the child (Jouriles, Murphy, et al, 1991;Snyder, Klein, Gdowski, Faulstich, & LaCombe, 1988), and the degree to which arguments occur in the child's presence (J. S. Cummings, Pellegrini, Notarius, & Cummings, 1989;Emery & O'Leary, 1982;O'Leary, 1984;Porter & O'Leary, 1980). In particular, it may be the way in which problems in the marriage spill over into the parent-child relationship that accounts for the influence of marital discord on child development (Camara & Resnick, 1989;Engfer, 1988;Fauber, Forehand, Thomas, & Wierson, 1990;Westerman & Schonholtz, 1993).…”