Exposure to destructive interparental conflict is one of the most upsetting life stressors for children and adolescents, and its harmful effects on multiple child/adolescent development outcomes (e.g., internalizing and externalizing problems) have been well documented. However, less is known about the effects of interparental conflict on other child/adolescent outcomes, such as their self-representations (i.e., the set of attributes they use to describe themselves). Although associations between interparental conflict and children/adolescents’ self-representations have been reported, little is known about the processes that explain, and the conditions that influence, those associations.
The mediating role of emotional insecurity in associations between interparental conflict and several domains of child/adolescent functioning has been consistently supported (e.g., Rhoades, 2008). However, scarce research has examined the conditions under which that mediation occurs. Some evidence supports the moderating role of various parent-child relationship dimensions, indicating that negative dimensions of parenting can exacerbate its effects, whereas positive qualities have the potential to buffer children from its adverse effects (e.g., DeBoard-Lucas, Fosco, Raynor, & Grych, 2010; Skopp, McDonald, Jouriles, & Rosenfield, 2007). Yet, no studies have analysed the role of this kind of variables in pathways linking interparental conflict to adolescents’ self-representations.
Based on the Emotional Security Theory, we hypothesized that certain signs of adolescents’ emotional insecurity may mediate relations between interparental conflict and adolescents’ self-representation, and that these mediating effects may be moderated by the level of support and negative interactions perceived by adolescents’ in their relationship with their parents.
Participants were 229 Portuguese adolescents (60% girls; 10 to 18 years old; Mage = 13 years), fifth to ninth graders, recruited in elementary and secondary public schools. Interparental conflict, adolescents’ emotional insecurity in the interparental relationship, self-representations and perceptions of parent-child relationship were measured through self-report measures.
The results of moderated mediation analyses using PROCESS (Hayes, 2013) suggest that increased interparental conflict predicts lower levels of signs of emotional insecurity, some of which (i.e., emotional reactivity, avoidance reactions) in turn predict less favourable self-representations in several domains (e.g., instrumental, emotional, social). However, for adolescents’ who perceived lower levels of negative interactions in their relationship with their mothers, interparental conflict is associated with more favourable self-representations in the instrumental, emotional and physical appearance domains through avoidance reactions in face of interparental conflict. A positive association between interparental conflict and emotional self-representations through avoidance responses was also found for adolescents who perceived lower levels of negative interactions in their relationship with their fathers. Also worth noting, interparental conflict predicted more favourable instrumental, social and opposition self-representations was found, through adolescents’ constructive representations about interparental conflict.
These findings suggest that the relations between interparental conflict and adolescents’ self-representations are complex and that it is important to consider aspects of the parental-child relationship as conditions that can influence the valence and strength of those associations. It elucidates processes linking interparental conflict to adolescents’ self-representations and highlights how positive aspects of parenting (i.e., low negative interactions) can moderate some of these processes and defuse maladaptive developmental cascades. These findings also contribute to unravel some inconsistencies in the literature regarding the role of avoidance reactions to interparental conflict as a successful way of reducing exposure to stress vs. a dysfunctional process that increases the risk of negative child/adolescent outcomes, by suggesting that that role is conditional on aspects of the parent-child relationship. This study thus highlights the importance of reducing negative interactions in the parent-child relationship as well as enhancing adolescents’ emotional security in the interparental relationship in interventions with adolescents’ and their parents in the context of interparental conflict.
