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MARITAL CONFLICT RESOLUTION TACTICS AND
PRESCHOOLERS’ SOCIAL COMPETENCE: AN
ECOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE

presented by

KRISTA SUROWIEC

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MARITAL CONFLICT RESOLUTION TACTICS AND PRESCHOOLERS' SOCIAL
COMPETENCE: AN ECOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE

By

Krista Surowiec

A THESIS
Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial ﬁJlﬁllment of the requirements
for the degree of
MASTER OF ARTS
DEPARTMENT OF FAMILY AND CHILD ECOLOGY

2002

ABSTRACT

MARITAL CONFLICT RESOLUTION TACTICS AND PRESCHOOLERS' SOCIAL
COMPETENCE: AN ECOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE

By

Krista Surowiec

This descriptive study investigated the relationship of marital conﬂict resolution
tactics to preschoolers’ social competence. The variables in this study were mothers’
self-reported use of negotiation, psychological aggression, and violence as marital
conﬂict resolution tactics and preschoolers’ social competence scores. Thirty-ﬁve three-,
four- and ﬁve— year old children and their parents’ marital subsystem were units of
analysis drawn from a larger study of preschoolers’ social competence. Analysis of
secondary data collected in the larger study and new data collected by the author were
used for this investigation. Relationships between the variables in this study were
determined using correlational techniques. There were no signiﬁcant correlations
between the conﬂict resolution tactics and preschoolers’ social competence scores. There
was, however, a signiﬁcant correlation between preschoolers’ negative social competence
behavior scores and mothers’ self-reported use of psychological aggression, particularly
minor psychological aggression. In addition, mothers’ reports of fathers’ psychological
aggression was signiﬁcantly related to boys’ negative social competence behavior scores

but was not signiﬁcantly related to girls’ negative social competence behavior scores.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

With much respect and gratitude, it is a pleasure for me to acknowledge those
persons who made an instrumental contribution to the development of my thesis and
studies in family and child ecology. Dr. Holly Brophy-Herb, your mentorship, guidance
and encouragement is greatly appreciated. Thank you for helping me ﬁnd my own vision
and purpose for studying children and families. You are a wonderful role model! Dr.
Lillian Phenice, thank you for sharing your excitement of human ecology with me. From
you, I have gained a foundation of and strong belief in human ecology theory. Dr. Robert
Griffore, thank you for your leadership in helping me to acquire the knowledge I needed
to apply methods of research. Thank you to Dr. Brophy-Herb, Dr. Lee, and Dr. Stollak
for allowing me to draw upon your larger study of children’s social competence for my
own studies. The individuals in this study are also much appreciated, as their
participation was central to help formulate and give purpose to my thesis. Thank you for
your contributions and sharing aspects of your unique family life.

My own amazing and dynamic family grounds my interest and passion for family
studies. To my family, thank you for your unconditional love, dedication, and continuous
belief in me. Carmela and Stanley Surowiec, my beautiful parents, have served as
wonderﬁil models for marriage, parenting and family life. Thank you for the generous
gift of my education and for encouraging me to continue with my formal studies. To my
siblings and my sisters-in law, thank you for your friendship, all of your support and for

the blessed gift of my nieces and nephew.

iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF TABLES ............................................................................ vi

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION ............................................................................ 1
Statement of the Problem ................................................................ 3
Signiﬁcance of the Study ................................................................ 3
Family Ecological Model ................................................................ 4
Conceptual and Operational Deﬁnitions ............................................... 6

Social competence ................................................................... 6
Marital conﬂict resolution tactics .................................................. 6

CHAPTER 2

LITERATURE REVIEW .................................................................... 8
Inﬂuences of Marital Conﬂict on Children’s Social Competence .................. 8
Inﬂuences of Marital Conﬂict Resolution Tactics on Children’s
Social Competence ........................................................................ 11

Destructive marital conﬂict resolution tactics .................................... 11
Constructive marital conﬂict resolution tactics .................................. 13
Processes of Marital Conﬂict on Children ............................................. 14
Modeling .............................................................................. 16
Summary ................................................................................... 18

CHAPTER 3

METHODS .................................................................................... 20
Research Design ........................................................................... 20
Research Subjects ........................................................................ 20
Sampling Procedures and Data Collection ............................................ 23
Research Instrumentation ................................................................ 24

Preschoolers’ social competence ................................................... 24
Marital conﬂict tactics ............................................................... 24
Research Questions and Hypotheses ................................................... 27
Limitations ................................................................................ 28
Data Analyses ............................................................................ 29
Exploratory analyses ................................................................ 31

CHAPTER 4 ‘

RESULTS ...................................................................................... 33
Results of Research Questions and Hypotheses ...................................... 35
Results of Exploratory Analyses ........................................................ 36
Summary of Results ...................................................................... 40

CHAPTER 5

DISCUSSION ................................................................................. 41
Limitations and Implications for Future Research .................................... 46

Conclusion ................................................................................. 48

APPENDIX
Consent Form .............................................................................. 51
BIBLIOGRPAHY ............................................................................. 52

LIST OF TABLES

Table]

Subject Demographics ........................................................................ 21
Table 2

Reliability Analyses for the CTSZ Scales .................................................. 26
Table 3

Means and Standard Deviations for P-CRS Scale and Subscales ....................... 34
Table 4

Means, Prevalence, and Standard Deviations for CTSZ Scales and Subscales ....... 34
Table 5

Correlations among the Conﬂict Resolution Tactic Scales .............................. 39
Table 6

Correlations among the Conﬂict Resolution Tactic Subscales .......................... 39

vi

CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION

Social competence is important for being healthy, happy, and prosperous, from
childhood to early adulthood GBoyum & Ross, 1995) and for succeeding in life challenges
(Garbarino & Gaboury, 1992). Socially competent individuals manage their social
surroundings and engage in meaningful social action within interactional contexts
(Hutchby & Moran-Ellis, 1998). They do this by being responsible, independent, self-
controlled, friendly, self-reliant, explorative, self-assertive, realistic, and content
(Baumrind, 1969, 1995). The study of social competence, however, is not a simple
investigation of the individual. Rather, the study of social competence is conceptualized,
analyzed, and promoted within environmental contexts.

Children's home environments have powerful inﬂuences on children's
development. The marital relationship is an important component in the home
environment that has major inﬂuences on family life. Researchers (Glick & Kessler,
I974; Steger & Kotler, 1979) have referred to the marital subsystem as the core of family
solidarity and the key component in determining the quality of family life. Components
of the marital relationship, including the types of conﬂict resolution tactics used by
marital couples contribute to the disorganization or stability within the home
environment. The way in which conﬂicts are managed is important for the psychological
health and well being of all members of the family, particularly children (Beach &
Nelson, 1990; Bradbury, 1998; Cummings, 1998; Emery, 1982; Grych & Fincham, 1990;

Whisman, 2001).

Marital conﬂict has many signiﬁcant implications for children’s social
development. Several investigations have reported that children’s social competence is
related to marital conﬂict (Emery & O’Leary, 1984; Long, Forehand, F auber, & Brody,
1987). Marital couples typically experience most conﬂict during the child-rearing years
of their marriage (Glenn, 1990), especially during infancy and early childhood (Belsky &
Rovine, 1990). To some extent, minor marital conﬂict is a normative part of the marital
relationship and family environment. An occurrence of about two instances of conﬂict a
week (Lloyd, 1987) is typical. Anger is also a natural part of life, and children can
handle anger at normal levels even if it is a bit stressful at the time (Cummings & Davies,
1994). However, more intense levels of marital conﬂict negatively impact children’s
social development (Cummings & Davies, 1994, Fincham & Osborne, 1993). When
exposed to non-normative levels of marital conﬂict, children display higher levels of
distress, aggression (Cummings, Iannotti & Zahn-Waxler, 1985), insecurity, anger
(Cummings, Zahn-Waxler & Radke-Yarrow, 1981), and increased behavior problems
(Long, Forehand, Fauber & Brody, 1987; Wierson, Forehand & McCombs, 1988).
Interestingly, the frequency of marital conﬂict plays a smaller role in impacting
children’s social outcomes as compared to how parents handle marital conﬂict. That is,
the types of conﬂict resolution tactics used by the couple are related to children’s social
development. The destructive conﬂict resolution tactics that marital couples use
negatively inﬂuence the development of children’s social competence. On the other
hand, the constructive conﬂict resolution tactics that marital couples use may positively

inﬂuence the development of children’s social competence and is worth exploring.

Children understand more than just whether their parents have a conﬂict, but how
their parents have a conﬂict. Cummings and Davies (1994) suggest that it is how parents
have conﬂicts and whether they are able to resolve their differences that may be the
solution to understanding the impact of marital conﬂict on children. In order to test
hypothesis that exposure to constructive conﬂict resolution tactics may be beneﬁcial for
children, Grych (2001) suggested, “it is necessary to examine theoretically relevant
outcomes such as their social competence or conﬂict resolution skill, rather than to
simply document lower level of pathology” (p. 176).

Statement of the Problem

This study investigated the relationship of mothers’ self-reports of their marital
conﬂict resolution tactics to preschoolers’ social competence scores. Speciﬁcally, this
study investigated the relationship of mothers’ self-reported use of their marital conﬂict
resolution tactics using the Conﬂict Tactics Scales (CTSZ) (Straus, Hamby, Boney-
McCoy, & Sugarman, 1996) to preschooler's social competence scores as measured by
parent ratings of the Parent-Child Rating Scale (P-CRS) (Cowen, Hightower, Pedro-
Carroll, Work, Wyman, Haffey, 1996).

Significance of the Study

As stated above, there is a great expressed need to ﬁrrther study marital conﬂict
resolution tactics when analyzing the inﬂuence of marital conﬂict on children and to
examine relevant children outcomes such as social competence. This study is signiﬁcant
to the family ecological approach that views the family as an energy transformation
system (Andrews, Bubolz, & Paolucci, 1980). The dynamic ﬂow of energy within the

home environment inﬂuences the socialization ﬁrnction of the family. Speciﬁcally, the

tactics that marital couples use during conﬂict is energy that is transformed which then
serves a ﬁrnction in their children’s development of social competence. This study
analyzes those relationship variables. The study of marital conﬂict resolution tactics as a
signiﬁcant inﬂuence on family systems may help direct interventions and contribute to
improving the quality of marriages, parent-child relationships, and children’s social
development including social competence. Speciﬁcally, this investigation supports the
use of constructive conﬂict resolution tactics (i.e. negotiation) instead of destructive
resolution tactics (i.e. psychological aggression, violence) because of its implications on
children’s positive developmental outcomes. Most previous research has focused on the
destructive conﬂict resolution tactics as it inﬂuences children’s developmental outcomes
(Straus, 1990). However, more will be learned about violence if studied in the context of
other tactics for resolving conﬂicts. The signiﬁcance of this investigation may be
beneﬁcial to professionals designing marriage family therapy, family life education, and
parent education using an ecological perspective.
Family Ecological Model

“The family ecosystem can be viewed as an environment that supports the
development of individual subsystems or family members” (Andrews et al., 1980, p.33).
The family ecological model was chosen as an appropriate framework for
conceptualizing and analyzing the inﬂuences of marital conﬂict resolution tactics used by
marital couples as they interact with the child to inﬂuence social competence. Other
researchers have also considered the interdependent systems of the home environment as
a best-ﬁt model for studying the inﬂuences of marital conﬂict on other family systems.

When studying marital conﬂict, Cummings and Davies (1994) assumed that the

“emotional climate in the home is contagious, moving across relatively permeably
boundaries between the various subsystems” (p. 107). The ecological model, a set of
four interdependent organizational systems, includes the microsystem, mesosystem,
exosystem, and macrosystem. The microsystem was chosen as the focus for this analysis
as it consists of a pattern of activities, roles, and interpersonal relations (i.e. marital
conﬂict resolutions tactics) that the developing person (i.e. the child) actively experiences
within a physical, social, and symbolic context (i.e. the home environment), which may
limit or promote development (i.e. social competence) (Bronfenbrenner, 1993).

The home environment is where children ﬁrst begin to develop social
competence. Children's development differs according to the quality of the home
environment. The quality of the home environment functions to inﬂuence the
competence (development of knowledge and skills) versus dysfunction (difﬁculties of
maintaining control) of its members (Bronfenbrenner, 1979). Andrews et al., (1980)
presented an ecological approach for examining the ﬁrnction of the family as building
individual competencies. They explained, “the family can be considered a primary
educator and the home a basic center for developing competencies- or incompetencies”
(p. 41).

Transactions within the home environment inﬂuence the developing child and
may either promote or thwart development (Thomas, 2000). Conﬂict resolution tactics
that married couples use in the home environment are measures of quality that may
contribute to the development of children’s social competence. This investigation asks
whether there are relationships between different styles of conﬂict resolution tactics and

children’s social competence.

The way that social competence is conceptualized in this investigation is a general
reﬂection of our cultural and societal values of social competence. These values, for
example, are that of autonomy, responsibility, attainment of goals, self-worth, self-
control, sensitivity to one's own needs as well as the needs of others, empathy, ability to
cope with stress, ability to manage emotions, and cooperation. These cultural values
inﬂuence our expectations of children. The macrosystemic culture also inﬂuences the
way that children interrelate with others as they develop social competencies within
different contexts.

Conceptual and Operational Deﬁnitions

Social competence. Socially competent children are characterized as having a
balanced mood, having friends, participating in discussions, being able to cope with
failure, being able to express ideas willingly, being able to tolerate frustration, possessing
positive conﬂict resolutions skills, and trying to help other children (Cowen et al., 1996).

Social competence is operationally deﬁned as parent ratings of children's social
competence behaviors as scored on the Parent-Child Rating Scale (P-CRS) (Cowen et al.,
1996)

Marital conﬂict resolution tactics. In this investigation, marital conﬂict
resolution tactics are conceptually deﬁned as the overt actions used by marital couples in
response to conﬂict (Coser, 1956 & Straus 1990).

Marital conﬂict resolution tactics are operationally deﬁned as mothers' self-
reported use of their and their spouses’ marital conﬂict resolution tactic behaviors as
measured on the Conﬂict Tactics Scales (CTS2) (Straus et al., 1996). The CTS2 includes

the scales of Negotiation (including emotional negotiation and cognitive negotiation

subscales), Psychological Aggression (including minor psychological aggression and
severe psychological aggression subscales), and Violence (including only minor physical

aggression subscale). Descriptions of the three scales are listed below:

Negotiation We deﬁne negotiation as actions taken to settle a disagreement
through discussion. The items in the cognitive subscale are examples of such
discussions. Research on marital conﬂict and communication has shown that the
emotional tone of discussion (e.g., whether positive or negative) is strongly linked
to marital stability (Gottman & Krokoﬂ‘, 1989; Noller & Fitzpatrick, 1990). The
emotion subscale is meant to measure the extent to which positive affect is
communicated by asking about expression of feelings and care and respect for the
partner (Straus, Hamby, Boney-McCoy, & Sugarman 1996, p. 289).

Psychological Aggression The use of verbal and nonverbal acts which
symbolically hurt the other, or the use of threats to hurt the other (Straus, 1990,

p.30).

Violence The use of physical force against another person as a means of

resolving the conﬂict, which is called the “Physical Aggression” or “Violence”

scale (Straus, 1990, p.30).

The Psychological Aggression and Violence scales include classiﬁed items of
minor and severe that has been supported by factor analysis and from the
acknowledgement that occasional minor violence may be distinguished from repeated
severe assaults (Gelles, 1991; Holtzworth-Munroe & Stuart, 1994; MP. Johnson, 1995;

Straus, 1990). The CTS is one of the most popular and frequently used instruments for

measuring verbal and physical family violence (Schumm & Bagorozzi, 1989).

CHAPTER 2
LITERATURE REVIEW

The frequency, intensity, styles of resolution and meanings of marital conﬂict are
at the heart of understanding the important inﬂuences of marital conﬂict on children’s
social development. The literature review outlines the inﬂuences of marital conﬂict on
children’s social development. More speciﬁcally, the literature review discusses the
relationship between types of conﬂict resolution tactics and children’s social
development outcomes, and the reasons why conﬂict tactics may impact social
development.
Influences of Marital Conflict on Children’s Social Competence

Marital conﬂict is negatively associated with marital quality (Bradbury, Rogge, &
Lawrence, 2001; Cummings, Goeke-Morey, & Papp, 2001; Johnson, 2001). The
"spillover hypotheses" (Engfer, 1988) suggests that negative marital quality is associated
with negative parent-child relationship quality. Home environments that have more
marital conﬂict carryover to yield more negative parent-child relationships than home
environments that have less conﬂict (Erel & Burman, 1995). The more negative parent-
child relationships are associated with poorer social awareness and social withdrawal in
children (Belsky, Youngblade, Rovine, & Volling, 1991; Cummings & Davies, 1994;
Fincham, Grych, Osborne, 1994; Harrist & Ainslie, 1998; Kline, Johnston, & Tschann,
1991). Socially competent children are not withdrawn; rather they participate in
discussions, express their ideas willingly and make ﬁiends easily.

Marital conﬂict, rather than general marital distress (Johnson & O’Leary, 1987;

Jouriles, Murphy, & O’Leary, 1989) is a key predictor of child adjustment and

 

psychological problems (Jouriles, Bourg, & Farris, 1991). Marital conﬂict is related to
children's adjustment problems of adaptiveness and appropriateness of children's
behaviors (Grych & F incham, 1990), externalizing disorders (i.e. aggression and
noncompliance; Holden & Ritchie, 1991; Jenkins & Smith, 1991), and internalizing
disorders (depression and withdrawal; Holden & Ritchie, 1991; Johnston, Gonzalez, &
Campbell, 1987). Children’s adjustment problems and externalizing and internalizing
disorders, as a result of marital conﬂict, are counterproductive to the development of
social competence. In fact, Olson and Rosenblum (1998) found that preschoolers with
high internalizing problem behavior rates manifested lower social competence than
others. Cummings et al., (2001) stated “children from high-conﬂict homes are also more
likely to display lower social competence with peers . . .” (p. 120). Marks, Glaser, Glass,
& Home (2001) found that children, who witnessed marital violence, had a lower social
competence, more behavior problems and exhibited more internalizing and externalizing
behaviors than the control group.

When children are exposed to repetitive and severe conﬂict, difficulties in
emotional regulation increase, resulting in anger and physical aggression when the child
becomes emotionally stimulated (Cummings & Davies, 1994; DeBellis, 1997). It is
important for children to regulate their emotions. Socially competent children are
characterized, for example, as having a mood that is balanced and stable, being able to
ignore teasing, being friendly toward peers, being able to ﬁrnction well with distractions,
and being able to tolerate frustration (Cowen et al., 1996). The inability to regulate

emotions impedes the development of social competence.

Some studies focus on the inﬂuences of marital conﬂict on children when the
conﬂict is resolved and when it is not resolved (Cummings, Ballard, El-Sheikh, & Lake,
1991; Cummings, Simpson, Pennington, & Wilson, 1993). Research indicates a decrease
of children’s negative responses to marital conﬂict when it is resolved (Cummings, 1987;
Cummings et al., 1985; Cummings, Vogel, Cummings, & El-Sheikh, 1989; Cummings et
al., 1991; Cummings et al., 1993). Resolution of conﬂict reduces children's negative
reactions to marital conﬂict. Cummings, Iannottti & Zahn-Waxler (1985) found that
aggression and distress experienced by 2-year-old children were reduced to baseline
levels after they were exposed to conﬂict resolution. In other studies, children’s increased
distress as a reaction to adult conﬂict signiﬁcantly decreased when the conﬂict was
subsequently resolved (Cummings & Smith, 1993; El-Sheikh, Cummings, & Goetsch,
1989)

Davies and Cummings (1994) considered the positive implications of conﬂict
resolution from the child's perspective. For example, as the emotional unpleasantness
associated with marital conﬂict decreases, the possibility of conﬂict turning into family
violence also decreases. When conﬂict is resolved, the child does not need to become
involved, the parents are emotionally available and the conﬂict most likely does not
imply divorce or family break up. Conﬂict resolution, therefore, encourages parental
warmth, which in turn encourages the emotional security and well-being of the child.
When conﬂict is resolved, children perceive family conﬂict to pose no signiﬁcant threat.
Emotional security is important for the socially competent child because it affects the

child's regulation of emotions, guides children to cope with signiﬁcant events and affects

10

the child's cognitive appraisals and internal representations of relationships (Davies &
Cummings, 1994).
Influences of Marital C onflict Resolution Tactics on Children ’5 Social Competence

The resolution tactics that parents use during conﬂict differ in styles (Straus,
1996). Parents in conﬂict may discuss the problem calmly and show each other that they
care even though they disagree by constructively “negotiating” on their disagreeing
interests. Parents in conﬂict may destructively threaten, insult, or spite each other by
using “psychological aggression” tactics. In other cases, parents in conﬂict may
destructively use “violence” to hurt their partner. The constructive and destructive styles
of conﬂict resolution are explored here as they relate to children’s development of social
competence.

Destructive marital conﬂict resolution tactics. Overt hostility, (i.e. verbal and
physical aggression) between married couples is a stronger predictor of child behavior
problems than marital conﬂict itself (Fantuzzo et al., 1991; Jouriles, Norwood,
McDonald, Vincent, & Mahoney, 1996; McNeal & Amato, 1998), or marital apathy and
covert tension (Jenkins & Smith, 1991). Johnson and O'Leary (1987) found that the
behaviors parents displayed during conﬂict have a greater inﬂuence on children than
parental distress. Therefore, marital conﬂict resolution behaviors are a predictor of child
outcomes.

The impact of negative marital conﬂict resolution tactics, speciﬁcally using
violence, on child outcomes (Jaffe, Wolfe, Wilson, & Zak, 1986; Jaﬂ’e, Wolfe, & Wilson,
1990; Marks et al., 2001; Rosenberg, 1987; Rosenberg & Rossman, 1990; Wolfe, Zak,

Wilson, & Jaffe, 1986) and adolescent outcomes (N iemi, 1988) is greatly studied.

11

Marital psychological and physical aggression during conﬂicts is correlated with
children’s adjustment problems even when controlling for frequency (Jouriles et al.,
1996). Other researchers have contradicting beliefs on what exact aspects of
psychological and physical aggression are related to children’s dysfunction. For
example, Cummings and Davies (1994) hypothesize that “how much people overtly
disagree is not critical; it is the negative emotionality and meaning associated with
conﬂict that has the destructive impact” (p. 135).

Prolonged marital conﬂict as well as the use of negative conﬂict resolution tactics
(i.e. psychological aggression or violence) sets a certain negative ambiance in the home
environment with several risks to children. Some of these risks include children's
feelings of distress, children's modeling of aggression, parental hostility, and lack of
warmth with potential for violence in the home. A 12-year longitudinal study on marital
violence was related in youth to low life satisfaction, poor self-esteem, less closeness to
their mother, more psychological distress, and 189% increased chance of more violence
in their own relationships (McNeal & Amato, 1998). Parents may inﬂuence their child’s
level of social competence by reducing the child’s exposure to violence (Rutter, 1981).

The sensitization hypothesis offers an explanation for how past histories of
exposure to marital conﬂict affect children’s reactions. Children become more reactive
to marital conﬂict as a function of greater histories of marital conﬂict (Cummings et al.,
2001). Children who were more reactive displayed more distress and anger, which are
counterproductive to social competence. Speciﬁcally, histories of exposure to negative
conﬂict behaviors (i.e. using psychological aggression as a conﬂict resolution tactic, lack

of resolution) sensitize children to conﬂict. However, histories of exposure to positive

behaviors (i.e. using negotiation as a conﬂict resolution tactic) do not result in
sensitization (Davies, Myers, Cummings, & Heindel, 1999; ElSheikh & Cummings,
1995; El-Sheikh, Cummings, & Reiter, 1996).

Constructive marital conflict resolution tactics. Cummings et al., (1991) found
that the degree to which children are distressed and aroused by adults’ ﬁghts was a direct
function of the degree to which conﬂicts were resolved. Children responded in a
nonnegative way to conﬂicts that were resolved with negotiation, in a moderately
negative way to conﬂicts that were partially resolved and responded in a highly negative
way to unresolved conﬂicts (those with continued open ﬁghting). In addition, when
parents use more negotiation rather than psychological aggression or violence, children’s
fear, distress, and other symptoms lessen (Cummings & Davies, 1994). Even if children
do not observe their parents’ conﬂict resolution tactics, they use contextual cues to infer
the emotional climate in the home environment (Cummings, Simpson, & Wilson, 1993).
The reduction of children’s negative responses when parents resolved conﬂict was
independent of observing and not observing the resolution.

The conﬂict tactics that parents’ use do not simply inﬂuence the marital
relationship, but inﬂuence the parent-child relationship and children’s developmental
outcomes. When children observe adults using constructive ways of handling conﬂict
(i.e. through negotiation) they may learn valuable lessons concerning how to handle their
own conﬂict (Beach, 1995). Children learn many of their social behavioral patterns in
their family of origin (Maccoby & Martin, 1983). This suggests that early family
experiences, including how conﬂicts are resolved in families, play a major role in the

development of children’s social competence. In addition, maternal behavior was found

13

to predict children’s social problem solving skills, which predicted their social
competence and future social behavior (Putallaz, 1987). Conﬂict resolution and problem
solving skills are characteristic of socially competent children (Cummings & Davies,
1994; Cummings et al., 2001).

The signiﬁcance of using constructive conﬂict resolution tactics is evident in that
it teaches children valuable lessons on how to handle conﬂicts that are inevitable
throughout life. Cummings and Davies (1994) challenge researchers to investigate the
dimensions of constructive and destructive conﬂict. For example, they ask, “what are the
messages and processes through which children learn to cope with and express conﬂict
from observing their parents’ conﬂicts” (p. 135). The next sections attempt to answer this
question by discussing the common processes found in literature that explain the
inﬂuences of marital conﬂict on children, with an emphasis on modeling. As noted
earlier, the research literature tends to focus more on the processes that lead to childhood
disorders, maladjustment, and incompetencies as opposed to the development of social
competencies. However, the strengths of constructive conﬂict resolution tactics on
children’s social competence was also found and is shared.

Processes of Marital C onﬂict on Children

Emery (1982) suggested four processes by which marital conﬂict inﬂuences
children and yields childhood disorders. First, marital conﬂict is a stressor in the home
environment and poses risks to children by threatening children's sense of security.

Stress in the marital relationship spills over to the parent-child relationship and inﬂuences
the child’s experience of stress while interfering with the healthy development of social

competence. Research demonstrates that children experience stress when exposed to

14

angry interactions between adults including when adults use psychological aggression
and violence and marital conﬂict resolution tactics. Children as young as one and two
years old show distress when observing parental conﬂict (Crockenberg, 1985; Cummings
et al., 1981; Dunn & Munn, 1985). These responses to anger at age one and two are
consistent even ﬁve years later in their response to stressors (Cummings, Zahn—Waxler, &
Radke-Yarrow, 1984). Children coping with much marital conﬂict may become
hypersensitive and overwhelmed by conﬂict.

Second, during marital conﬂict, parents use more inconsistent and harsher
disciplining strategies leading to more child behavior problems. Marital conﬂict can
result in a deterioration of parenting discipline practices and can abate the emotional
availability, responsiveness or sensitivity of parents (Cummings & Davies, 1994;
Easterbrooks & Emde, 1988), thereby disrupting parent-child relations and leaving
children emotionally insecure, counteracting the healthy development of social
competence. On the other hand, parents who have satisfying and supportive marital
relationships will be more responsive and sensitive to their child's needs, and such
interactions contribute to socially competent behaviors.

Third, marital conﬂict interrupts the parent-child attachment bonds. Attachment
is a signiﬁcant predictor of children’s early socioemotional development contributing to
social competence (Bretherton, 1985). Several studies show the relationship between
marital conﬂict and insecure parent-child attachment (Howes & Markman, 1989; Isabella
& Belsky, 1985; Cox & Owen, 1993). Many other studies show strong relationships
between marital conﬂict and the poor emotional relationship between parents and

children (Camara & Resnick, 1989; Forehand et al., 1991; Kline et al., 1991; Peterson &

15

Zill, 1986). Children with emotional security are able to regulate their emotions and have
less anxiety and less stress than emotionally insecure children.

Fourth, children may model their parents in conﬂict along with their ineffective
conﬂict resolution styles like psychological aggression or violence. The role of adult
models provides important information as to how use of particular conﬂict tactics may be
related to children’s social development.

Modeling. Children observe and imitate their parents, a concept known as
modeling (Bandura, 1977). Parents are powerﬁrl models to their children because of their
signiﬁcance to children. Children observe their parents even during marital conﬂict and
model their parents including their marital resolution tactics (Amato, Spencer, & Booth,
1995; Camara & Resnick, 1988; Fainsilber-Katz & Gottman, 1993; Long et al., 1987).

Children are constantly learning about interpersonal relationships by observing
their parents (Belsky, 1981). Children learn a great deal about interpersonal relationships
and problem solving by modeling their parents in interaction with each other. Through
modeling, behavior problems increase when children are exposed to their parents’ marital
conﬂict (Emery, 1982; Grych & Fincham, 1990). Children’s modeling of parental
behaviors, failure to learn positive social interaction skills, and physiological effects are
all direct negative effects of high marital conﬂict (Cummings & Davies, 1994).
Witnessing parental violence can affect children’s attitudes and abilities toward dealing
with conﬂict resolution and violence (Jaffe et al., 1990). In fact, children exposed to
family violence have poorer social competence than those not exposed (Fantuzzo et al.,
1991; Jaffe et al., 1986; Rosenberg, 1987; Wolfe et al., 1986). Children exposed to

family violence were also less interpersonally sensitive and more inclined to use either

16

passive or aggressive tactics, rather than constructive tactics of negotiation to resolve
interpersonal problems (Rosenberg, 1987; Rosenberg & Rossman, 1990).

Children learn “scripts,” or general strategies for aggressive behavior from
observing their parents (Bandura, 1986). Because parental modeling of negotiation is
generally missing in high-conﬂict marriages, these children do not learn the social skills
and control of aggression necessary for successﬁrl peer relationships. Children exposed
to violence or repetitive severe parental conﬂicts do not affectively regulate their own
emotions (DeBellis, 1997; Lieberman & Van Horn, 1998) and may form maladaptive
models of problem solving or conﬂict resolution (Grych & F incham, 1990) leading to
lower social competence. To be socially competent, children must have positive problem
solving skills, and should interact with friendliness toward others rather than with
hostility.

Positive problem solving and resolution skills, for example, using negotiation as a
conﬂict resolution tactic, beneﬁcially help create adaptive models for children leading to
social competence (Cummings & Davies, 1994; Grych & Fincham, 1990). Children's
observations of parents' positive, effective conﬂict resolution may teach valuable skills
for resolving their own differences with peers or siblings (Cummings & Davies, 1994).
Resolving conﬂicts positively, teaches children that conﬂict is not necessarily destructive,
rather conﬂict is necessary in order to problem solve and come to agreements within the
family, thus promoting family functioning. Grych & F incham (1990) suggested that
parents, who resolve conﬂicts successfully, serve as positive models of problem solving
for their children, thus leading to children's increased social competence and coping

skills.

l7

Crockenberg, Jackson and Langrock (1996) suggested that parents promote
competence by several means. When children observe their parents resolve conﬂicts
effectively, they learn positive ways of attaining goals. Also, when parents work with
children in resolving conﬂicts, children learn that their own goal attainment is linked with
others' goal attainment. The ability to achieve personal goals while maintaining positive
relationships with social partners is an important component of social competence (Cirino
& Beck, 1991; Dodge, Pettit, McClaskey, & Brown, 1986; Musun-Miller, 1993; Rubin &
Krasnor, 1986). Finally, parents promote the internalized motivation to engage in
behavior even when adults are not present.

The process of modeling occurs not simply by children imitating their parents, but
by accumulating information about behavior. When observing aggression and hostility
during conﬂict, children may learn that behaving in this way is acceptable during
disputes. Children who associate aggression during conﬂict may act aggressively not
necessarily toward their parents, but during interaction with peers or younger children. In
a study of children's aggression, children exposed to adults' angry verbal interchanges,
displayed more physical and age-appropriate aggression toward a playmate (Cummings
et al., 1985). Exposing children to aggression may give children permission to be
aggressive. Children may not inhibit their aggressive impulses. Therefore, children with
a greater tendency to be aggressive are more likely to become hostile, aﬂer observing acts
of aggression and may engage in long-lasting and more frequent aggression.

Summary
Marital conﬂict in the home environment "spills over" from the marital subsystem

to the parent-child subsystem and from the parent-child subsystem to the child's social

18

development. It is not conﬂict per se that negatively impacts children’s social
development; rather it is how parents deal with conﬂict and their tactics of resolution that
have a greater inﬂuence on children. Both marital conﬂict and marital conﬂict resolution
tactics are related to children's social development and social competence. Marital
conﬂict may result in a stressful home environment for all members and all ages if not
subsequently resolved. Positive resolution of conﬂict, on the other hand, has been shown
to reduce stress. Marital conﬂict can result in a deterioration of parenting discipline
practices and can abate the emotional availability, responsiveness or sensitivity of
parents, thereby disrupting parent-child relations and leaving children emotionally
insecure, counteracting the healthy development of social competence. Constructive
conﬂict resolution, however, offers children positive problem solving models and
examples of how to positively achieve goals. This investigation proposes that children
whose parents use a greater frequency of constructive conﬂict resolution tactic behaviors
(negotiation) are more socially competent than children whose parents use a greater
frequency of destructive conﬂict resolution tactic behaviors (psychological aggression

and/or violence).

19

CHAPTER THREE
METHODS

Research Design

This is a descriptive study involving the analysis of relationships between
children’s social competence and marital conﬂict resolution tactics. Thirty-ﬁve three-,
four- and ﬁve- year old children and their parents’ marital subsystem were units of
analysis drawn from a larger study of preschoolers’ social competence (Brophy-Herb,
Lee, & Stollak, 2000). Participants in the larger study were recruited from a local
university-based laboratory preschool and from two Head Start classrooms in a suburban
Midwestern community. Analysis of secondary data collected in the larger study and
new data collected by the author were used for this investigation. The collected data
included a single l9-item survey completed by participants from the larger study.
Research Subjects

The ﬁnal sample consisted of 35 mothers and their children, ages three to ﬁve
years (19 boys, 16 girls; M = 3.9 years old, SD = .60). Mothers were primarily
Caucasian, highly educated, and all married. Demographic information on the

participants is provided in Table 1.

Table 1

 

 

Subject Demographics
Variable Frequency Percent
Sibling Relationships
Has a sibling(s) 31 89
Does not have a sibling(s) 4 11
Mother’s Age
18-24 2 6
25-30 3 8
31-35 14 40
36-40 9 26
over 40 7 20
Mother’s Ethnicity
Caucasian/Non-Hispanic 3O 86
Hispanic/Latino 1 3
Asian American 3 8
Other 1 3
Family’s Hometown
Lansing 14
East Lansing 34
Okemos/Haslett 32
Williamston, Mason, 6
Grand Ledge, Dewitt, Holt
Other 5 14
Family Income
$10,000-$29,000 2 6
$3 0,000-$59,000 1 l 31
$60,000-$99,000 9 26
$100,000 and above 13 37

Table 1 (continued)

 

 

Variable Frequency Percent
Mother’s Occupation
Corporate manager, executive, 7 20
high skilled technician,
government, college professor
Middle manager, other 9 26
Professional/technical work,
independent business
Public School, junior college 3 8
Teacher, skilled labor/trade,
real estate
Homemaker 16 46
Father’s Occupation
Corporate manager, executive, 20 57
high skilled technician,
government, college professor
Middle manager, other 13 37
Professional/technical work,
independent business
Public School, junior college 2 6
Teacher, skilled labor/trade,
real estate
Mother’s Education
Some college or technical school 1 2
College or technical school graduate 17 49
Professional graduate degree 17 49
Father’s Education
High school graduate 1 3
Some college or technical school 4 11
College or technical school graduate 8 23
Professional graduate degree 22 63

 

(n = 35)

22

Sampling Procedures and Data Collection

The University Committee on Research Involving Human Subjects (UCRIHS)
approved the thesis proposal. Following approval by UCRIHS, letters of invitation to
participate in this study, as well as consent forms, were mailed to the mothers who
participated in the above stated study (N= 73). A response rate of 48% was received.
Mothers who signed and returned consent forms were enrolled in this project, and a
subsequent questionnaire on conﬂict resolution tactics was mailed to them.

Mothers were asked to report on the conﬂict tactic behaviors that they use toward
their husband and that their husbands’ use toward them by completing the Conﬂict
Tactics Scale (CTSZ) (Straus, 1996). Each item on the CTS2 asks for the frequency of
the mothers’ behavior (i.e. I shouted or yelled at my partner) and then asks about the
same behavior of the partner (i.e. My partner shouted or yelled at me) in the past year.
Mothers in the sample completed all the Parent-Child Rating Scales. Therefore, mothers
were chosen as the sole reporters on the CTS2 Straus et a1. (1996) stated that although
use of both partners for couple data is preferred, use of data from one partner is still valid.
A number of studies have shown correlations between data provided by husbands and
data provided by wives when reporting on conﬂict (Arias & Beach, 1987; Straus, Gelles,
& Steinmetz, 1980; Szinovacz, 1983). In addition, when the CTSZ is used for basic
research where the issue is the relationship between variables, and when used to analyze
the total amount of conﬂict resolution behaviors, regardless of who the actor is, it is less
crucial to obtain data from both partners.

Mothers were asked to complete the scale and return it to the researcher in a pre-

stamped envelope. Data from the Teacher-Child Rating Scale that were used in the larger

study were not used in this investigation because the data were not available at the time
of analyses and not included in the proposal. Conﬁdentiality of the participants was
protected.
Research Instrumentation

Preschoolers ’ social competence. Preschoolers’ social competence scores were
assessed using parent ratings of each child with the Parent-Child Rating Scale (P-CRS)
(Cowen et al., 1996). This measurement consists of 38 items; 18 referring to problematic
behaviors (i.e., "disturbs others, stubborn") and 20 referring to behaviors indicating social

competence (i.e., "defends own views"). Parents score each item on a ﬁve point Likert

scale. Each behavior is rated as being "not at all true, a little true, somewhat true,"
"quite true," and "very true" of the child. Internal reliability coefﬁcients range from .85
to .95 (Cowen et al., 1996) for the P-CRS. Reliability analyses in this study indicated an
alpha coefﬁcient of .91 for the P-CRS.

Marital conﬂict tactics. Mothers’ self-reported use of their marital conﬂict tactics
were assessed using the Conﬂict Tactics Scales (CTS2) (Straus et al., 1996), one of the
most popular and frequently used instruments for measuring verbal and physical family
violence (Schumm & Bagorozzi, 1989). The scale consists of three main scales,
Negotiation, Psychological Aggression and Violence, all of which have been validated by
factor analysis (Schumm & Bagorozzi, 1989). Within the Negotiation scale, “emotional
negotiation” (3 items) and “cognitive negotiation” (3 items) are assessed. Within the
Psychological Aggression scale, “minor psychological aggression” (4 items) and “severe

psychological aggression” (4 items) are assessed. Within the Violence scale, “minor

physical assault” (5 items) is assessed. The “severe physical assault items” were not

24

included. Respondents are asked to respond to a list of 19 behaviors that could be used
as conﬂict resolution tactics by indicating the frequency with which they used each tactic
in the past year. The following seven frequency categories are provided: 0, l, 2, 3-5, 6-
10, 11-20, and more than 20 instances of the behavior. The behavioral items include
actions low in severity (i.e. “I showed my partner I cared even though I disagreed”) and
actions with more severity and aggressiveness (i.e. “I pushed or shoved my partner”).
The CTS has moderate to high reliabilities with alpha coefficients ranging from .77 to .88
for the psychological aggression and physical aggression scales, and from .50 to .76 for
the negotiation scale. There is little evidence of social desirability response on the CTS
(Saunders, 1986). In addition, there is evidence of concurrent and construct validity
(Straus et al., 1996). See Table 2 for the reliability analyses of the CTS2 scales in the

current study.

Table 2

Reliability Analyses for the C T S2 Scales

 

 

Scale (1
Negotiation .87
emotional negotiation .90
cognitive negotiation .70
Psychological Aggression .72
minor psychological aggression .77
severe psychological aggression -.05
Violence .40
minor physical assault .40
Constructive conﬂict resolution tactics .87
Destructive conﬂict resolution tactics .70

 

Note. The Constructive Conﬂict Resolution Tactics are those of the Negotiation
scale. The Destructive Conﬂict Resolution Tactics are those of the Psychological
Aggression and Violence scales combined.

26

Research Questions and Hypotheses

1.

H01

HA1

H02

HA2

Is there a relationship between preschoolers’ social competence scores and
mothers’ self-reported use of negotiation as a marital conﬂict resolution tactic?
There is no relationship between preschoolers’ social competence scores and
mothers’ self-reported use of negotiation as a marital conﬂict resolution tactic.
There is a positive relationship between preschoolers’ social competence scores
and mothers’ self-reported use of negotiation as a marital conﬂict resolution
tactic. Speciﬁcally, preschoolers who have higher social competence scores as
measured by the Parent-Child Rating Scale (Cowen et al., 1996) have parents with
a higher frequency of negotiation resolution tactic behaviors as measured by the
Conﬂict Tactics Scales (Straus et al., 1996).

Is there a relationship between preschoolers’ social competence scores and
mothers’ self-reported use of psychological aggression and mothers’ self-reported
use of violence as a marital conﬂict resolution tactic?

There is no relationship between preschoolers’ social competence scores and
mothers’ self-reported use of psychological aggression and mothers’ self-reported
use of violence as a marital conﬂict resolution tactic.

There is an inverse relationship between preschoolers’ social competence scores
and mothers’ self-reported use of psychological aggression and mothers’ self-
reported use of violence as marital conﬂict resolution tactics. Speciﬁcally,
preschoolers who have lower social competence behaviors as measured by the

Parent-Child Rating Scale (Cowen et al., 1996) have parents that use a greater

27

frequency of psychological aggression and/or violence marital conﬂict resolution

tactic behaviors as measured by Conﬂict Tactics Scales (Straus et al., 1996).

Decision Rule: A decision rule with a chance probability of p < .05 was used.
Limitations

1. Mothers were solely used to report on their child’s social competence behaviors,
which could result in bias behavioral ratings and may not be the most valid
measure. The additional use of teacher reports could extend the study by
providing a more precise understanding of children’s social competence within
multiple contexts.

2. Mothers were solely used to report on the conﬂict resolution tactics that both they
and their partners use. Although this method has proven validity, the use of father
reports on their own conﬂict resolution tactics could have provided a more
congruent view of conﬂict resolution.

3. Restricting analysis to correlations only explores relationships between variables.

4. Family systems are dynamic and in a constant state of change and adaptation,
collecting data over time would have been more sensitive to this assumption of
family ecology.

5. The inﬂuence of marital conﬂict resolution tactics on children’s social
competence was explored. However the inﬂuences of children on the marital
subsystem were absent. Therefore, the mutual interdependent transactions with

the subsystems and the environment were not analyzed.

28

Data Analyses

Relationships between the variables in this study were determined using
correlational techniques. The variables used include preschoolers’ social competence
scores from the Parent-Child Rating Scale (P-CRS), and mothers’ self-reported use of
marital conﬂict resolution tactics from the Conﬂict Tactic Scale (CTSZ), which was used
to assess the frequency of Negotiation, Psychological Aggression and Violence conﬂict
tactic styles.

Social competence scores were calculated for each child by ﬁrst reverse coding
the 18 scored problematic behaviors, and creating a mean social competence score based
on the 38 items. Averaged social competence scores had a possible range of 0 to 4 with
a score toward 0 representing a lower social competence and a score toward 4
representing a higher social competence score.

Three totals were calculated on the CTSZ for the three scales of Negotiation,
Psychological Aggression, and Violence. Straus et al. (1996) recommends a scoring
strategy, which was used for this study. First, the 7-point scale was replaced by a
weighted scale, 0, 1, 2, 4, 8, 15, and 25 which were the midpoints of the ranges that
mothers used to indicated the frequency of their conﬂict resolution tactic behaviors.
According to Straus (1990), when the items are recoded to the midpoints of the
approximate frequency designated by each response category, the resulting scale is a
measure of the number of tactic behaviors that took place within the year. Totals were
then calculated for each scale by summing the midpoints of the wife-to-husband items
and the husband-to-wife items associated with the three scales: Negotiation (CTS2

summed items 1-4, 11-12, 21-22, 29-30, 37-38); Psychological Aggression (CTS2

29

summed items 5-6, 15-20, 25-26, 31-36); and Violence (CTSZ summed items 7-10, 13-
14, 23-24, 27-28). Therefore, the CTSZ scale scores reﬂect the combined, total frequency
with which each tactic was used in the marital relationship during conﬂict.

For research question 1, a Pearson correlation (one-tailed) was computed to ﬁnd
the extent and direction to which preschoolers’ social competence scores and mothers’
self-reports on their use of negotiation as a marital conﬂict resolution tactic were related.
For research question 2, two different Pearson correlations (one-tailed) were used. A
Pearson correlation (one-tailed) was computed to ﬁnd the extent and direction to which
preschoolers’ social competence scores and mothers’ self-reports on their use of
psychological aggression as a marital conﬂict resolution tactic were related. One-tailed
tests were used since the literature provided enough evidence to support a directional
hypothesis. Only 4 participants (11%) indicated few instances of violence. For that
reason, the psychological aggression and violence totals were combined to represent a
general destructive style of conﬂict resolution tactics for some analyses. Nixon and
Watson (2001) also combined the scales of Psychological Aggression and Violence to
form a global measure of interparental aggression because of their strong relationship (r =
.56, p < .001). A Pearson correlation (one-tailed) was computed between social
competence and the destructive style of conﬂict resolution tactics (CTSZ summed items
5-10, 13-20, 23-28, 31-36). To decide whether or not to reject the null hypothesis for
research questions 1 and 2, the correlations that were computed were tested for statistical
signiﬁcance using an alpha of .05. Other appropriate analyses were additionally

computed for exploratory relationships.

30

Exploratory analyses. Several other relationships were explored by creating
subscales from the P-CRS and CTS2 First on the CTSZ, the Negotiation scale (sum of 6
item scores) was divided into two other subscales including emotional negotiation (sum
of 3 item scores) and cognitive negotiation (sum of 3 item scores). The Psychological
Aggression scale (sum of 8 item scores) was divided into two other subscales including
minor psychological aggression (sum of 4 item scores) and severe psychological
aggression (sum of 4 item scores). The Violence scale only included the minor physical
assault subscale; therefore this scale was not ﬁrrther broken down. Pearson correlations
(one-tailed) were calculated between the emotional negotiation, cognitive negotiation,
minor and severe psychological subscales, and the social competence scores to ﬁnd the
extent and direction to which they relate. A Spearman correlation was calculated to
explore relationships between the Violence scale and social competence scores because
of the skewed nature of the violence data (see Results section for further explanation).

Second, the two main scales of the P-CRS, the positive social competence
behaviors (the 20 positive social competence behaviors) and negative social competence
behaviors (the 18 problematic behaviors) were used. Pearson correlations (one-tailed)
were calculated between the positive social competence behavior variable and the major
CTS2 variables of Negotiation and Psychological Aggression and between the negative
social competence behavior variable and the major CTS2 variables to ﬁnd the extent and
direction to which they relate. Again, a Spearman correlation was used in analyses
involving the Violence scale.

Third, Pearson correlations (one-tailed) between each of the subscales on the

CTSZ (emotional negotiation, cognitive negotiation, minor psychological aggression, and

31

severe psychological aggression) and the two variables on the P-CRS (positive social
competence behaviors and negative social competence behaviors) were performed to ﬁnd
the extent and direction to which they relate. The Spearman correlation was computed
for the violence scale. Finally, Pearson correlations (one-tailed) between the ﬁve

subscales on the CTS2 were performed to ﬁnd the extent of their relationships.

b)
to

CHAPTER 4
RESULTS

In preparation for the planned analyses, a t-test was calculated to test for any
differences in social competence scores by gender, and was not signiﬁcant, t(-1.6), p =
.06. Social competence scores tended to increase with child age, although this
relationship was not signiﬁcant (r =. 28, p = .06). Also, boys’ and girls’ ages were not
signiﬁcantly different, t(-.76), p = .13.

The means and standard deviations for the P-CRS scales are reported in Table 2.
Social competence scores tended to be high. Chronicity means, prevalence rates and
standard deviations for the CTSZ scales are reported in Table 3. The chronicty means
indicate how often the set conﬂict tactic acts measured by each scale occurred, among
those marital couples who engaged in one or more instances of these acts. The
prevalence rate is the percentage of the sample that reported one or more instances of the
acts in each scale. An examination of the Chronicity means and prevalence rates on the
CTSZ scores indicated that the most frequently used conﬂict resolution tactic was
Negotiation, followed by Psychological Aggression and Violence, respectively. For the
subscales, emotional negotiation was most frequently used, followed by cognitive
negotiation, minor psychological aggression, and only few instances of minor physical
assault, and severe psychological aggression.

Data in violence and marital conﬂict research are often skewed since reports of
violence are typically low (Hamby, Poindexter, & Gray-Little, 1996). With this in mind,
skewness and kurtosis scores were examined. The frequency reported on the Violence

scale was signiﬁcantly, positively skewed. That is, scores tended to cluster toward 0 (no

33

violence). The skewness of these measures probably reﬂects the skewed distributions of

violence in the population. However, because of the skewness of the violence data,

Spearman correlations were used for this scale.

Table 3

Means and Standard Deviations for P-CRS Scale and S ubscales

 

 

M SD

Social Competence 3 .01 .3 8
Positive Social Competence Behaviors 2.61 .58
Negative Social Competence Behaviors .68 .39

Table 4

Means, Prevalence, and Standard Deviations for C T S2 Scales and Subscales

 

 

M Prevalence (P) SD
Negotiation 103.06 100 63.93
emotional negotiation 56. 17 100 40. 18
cognitive negotiation 46.89 100 29.66
Psychological Aggression 25.91 89 25.78
minor psychological aggression 25.60 89 25.70
severe psychological aggression .31 9 1.39
Violence .05 1 1 2.55
minor physical assault .05 1 1 2.55
Constructive Conﬂict Resolution Tactics 103.06 100 63.93
Destructive Conﬂict Resolution Tactics 26.46 89 25.73

 

Note. The Constructive Conﬂict Resolution Tactics are those of the Negotiation
scale. The Destructive Conﬂict Resolution Tactics are those of the Psychological

Aggression and Violence scales combined.

34

Results of Research Questions and Hypotheses

1.

H01

HA1

Is there a relationship between preschoolers’ social competence scores and
mothers’ self-reports of negotiation as a marital conﬂict resolution tactic?

There is no relationship between preschoolers’ social competence scores and
mothers’ self-reports of negotiation as a marital conﬂict resolution tactic (r = 0)
There is a positive relationship between preschoolers’ social competence scores
and mothers’ self-reports of negotiation as a marital conﬂict resolution tactic.
Speciﬁcally, preschoolers who have higher social competence scores as measured
by the Parent-Child Rating Scale (Cowen et al., 1996) have parents with a higher
frequency of negotiation resolution tactic behaviors as measured by Conﬂict

Tactics Scales (Straus et al., 1996).

There was failure to reject the null hypothesis, as the Pearson correlation

indicated no signiﬁcant relationship between preschoolers’ social competence scores and

mothers’ self-reports of a negotiation marital conﬂict resolution tactic (r = .03, p = .44).

H02

Is there a relationship between preschoolers’ social competence scores and
mothers’ self-reports of psychological aggression and mothers’ self-reports of
violence as a marital conﬂict resolution tactic?

There is a no relationship between preschoolers’ social competence scores and
mothers’ self-reports of psychological aggression and mothers’ self-reports of

violence as a marital conﬂict resolution tactic (r = 0)

35

HA2 There is an inverse relationship between preschoolers’ social competence scores
and mothers’ self-reports of psychological aggression and mothers’ self-reports of
violence as marital conﬂict resolution tactics. Speciﬁcally, preschoolers who
have lower social competence behaviors as measured by the Parent-Child Rating
Scale (Cowen et al., 1996) have parents with a higher frequency of psychological
aggression and/or violence marital conﬂict resolution tactic behaviors as

measured by Conﬂict Tactics Sales (Straus et al. 1996)

There was failure to reject the null hypothesis, as Pearson correlations did not
indicate a signiﬁcant relationship between preschoolers’ social competence scores and
mothers’ self-reports of psychological aggression as a marital conﬂict resolution tactic (r
= -. I 7, p = .16) or between preschoolers’ social competence scores and the destructive
marital conﬂict resolution tactic scores (psychological aggression and violence
combined) (r = -.16, p = .18). There was a failure to reject the null hypothesis, as a
Spearman correlation did not indicate a signiﬁcant relationship between preschoolers’
social competence scores and mothers’ self-reports of violence (rs = .20, p = .12). A
Spearman correlation was used for the violence scale because these scores were not
normally distributed; rather, scores were positively skewed.

Results of Exploratory Analyses

This investigation used the marital conﬂict resolution behaviors of mothers and
fathers combined to reﬂect the frequency of the tactics among the couple. However, for
exploratory purposes the scales were separated to reﬂect use of mother negotiation, father

negotiation, mother psychological aggression, father psychological aggression, mother

36

violence and father violence. Pearson correlations were computed to ﬁnd the extent to
which the wife-to-husband and husband-to-wife marital conﬂict resolution tactics relate.
Mother’s tactics were highly correlated with fathers’ tactics for Negotiation (r = .82, p =
.000), and Psychological Aggression (r = .56, p = .000), but were not signiﬁcantly related
within the Violence tactic (r = .04, p = .84). The means were signiﬁcantly different
between mothers and fathers for the violence scales (t = 1.06, p = .04). Three mothers
reported use of violence (M = .49, SD = 2.5) toward their husbands and there was one
mothers’ report of her husband’s violence toward her (M = .03, SD = .17).

Pearson correlations were computed to ﬁnd relationships between preschoolers’
social competence scores and the subscales of conﬂict tactics, with the exception of the
minor physical assault (Violence) subscale for which a Spearman correlation was used.
There were no signiﬁcant relationships (p < .05) or trends toward signiﬁcance (p < .10)
found between preschoolers’ social competence scores and mothers’ self reported use of
emotional negotiation (Negotiation), cognitive negotiation (Negotiation), minor
psychological aggression (Psychological Aggression), severe psychological aggression
(Psychological Aggression), and minor physical assault (Violence).

Pearson correlations were computed to identify relationships between
preschoolers’ positive social competence behavior scores (P-CRS items 19-3 8) and
mothers’ self-reported use of Negotiation and Psychological Aggression. There were no
signiﬁcant relationships (p < .05) or trends toward signiﬁcance (p < .10) found between
preschoolers’ positive social competence behavior scores and mothers’ self-reported use
of Negotiation and Psychological Aggression. In addition, there was no signiﬁcant

relationship (p < .05) or trend toward signiﬁcance (p < .10) between the positive social

37

competence behavior scores and emotional negotiation, cognitive negotiation, severe
psychological aggression, and minor physical assault.

Pearson correlations were computed to ﬁnd relationships between preschoolers’
negative social competence behavior scores (P-CRS items 1-18) and mothers’ self-
reported use of Negotiation and Psychological Aggression (main scales of the CTS).
There was no signiﬁcant relationship (p < .05) or trend toward signiﬁcance (p < .10)
between negative social competence behaviors and Negotiation. There was a signiﬁcant
relationship between negative social competence behavior scores and mothers’ self-
reported use of Psychological Aggression (r = .3 l , p = .04). Moreover, it was father’s
use of psychological aggression (r = .32, p = .03), more than mothers’ psychological
aggression (r = .23, p = .09) that was signiﬁcantly related to children’s negative social
competence behaviors. Boys’ negative social competence behaviors (M = 14.8, SD =
8.07) were signiﬁcantly greater than girls’ negative social competence behaviors (M =
8.94, SD = 4.11), t (2.6), p = .01. Boys’ negative social competence behaviors were
signiﬁcantly relate to fathers’ psychological aggression (r = .41, p = .04), but girls’
negative social competence behaviors were not signiﬁcantly related to fathers’
psychological aggression (r = .13, p = .32). Boys’ (M = 50.79, SD = 12.19), and girls’ (M
= 53.19, SD = 1 1.28) positive social competence behaviors were not signiﬁcantly
different from each other, t (-.60), p = .55.

There was no signiﬁcant relationship (p < .05) or trend toward signiﬁcance (p<
.10) between the negative social competence behavior scores and emotional negotiation,
cognitive negotiation, severe psychological aggression, and minor physical assault.

There was a signiﬁcant relationship between preschoolers’ negative social competence

38

behavior scores and mothers’ self-reported use of marital minor psychological aggression
(r = .32,p = .03, CTS subscale).

Pearson correlations were computed to ﬁnd the extent to which the different
marital conﬂict resolution tactic scales and subscales were related to one another. These
correlations are reported in Table 5 and 6 respectively.

Table 5

Correlations among the Conﬂict Resolution Tactic Scales

 

Scale I 2 3

 

Mothers (n = 35)
l. Negotiation .26 -.01
2. Psychological Aggression -.07

3. Violence

Table 6

Correlations among the Conﬂict Resolution Tactic Subscales

 

Subscale 1 2 3 4 5

 

Mothers (n = 35)

1. emotional negotiation __ .67" .14 .13 .13

2. cognitive negotiation _ .38* -.1 1 -.20
3. minor psychological aggression _ .03 -. 12
4. severe psychological aggression _ .95**

5. minor physical assault

 

*p <05, **p < .01

39

Summary of Results

Overall, preschoolers’ social competence scores on the P-CRS were relatively
high and had internal reliability. The sample of preschoolers was fairly balanced in terms
of ages of boys and girls. Negotiation was the conﬂict resolution style that was used
most frequently among marital couples followed by Psychological Aggression and only a
few instances of Violence.

There were no signiﬁcant correlations between mothers’ self-reported conﬂict
resolution tactics and preschoolers’ social competence scores. There was a signiﬁcant
relationship between preschoolers’ negative social competence behaviors and mothers’
self-reported use of Psychological Aggression. In particular, mothers’ self-reports of
fathers’ psychological aggression was correlated with children’s negative social
competence behaviors. Fathers’ psychological aggression was also signiﬁcantly related
to boys’ negative social competence behaviors, but not to girls’ negative social
competence behaviors. There was also a signiﬁcant relationship between preschoolers’
negative social competence behavior scores and mothers’ self-reported use of minor
psychological aggression (sub scale).

Mothers’ and fathers’ use of Negotiation and Psychological Aggression were
highly correlated as reported by the mothers. However, mothers reported that they used
more Violence toward their partners than they reported fathers’ violence toward them.
There were only four instances of violence. Styles of subscale conﬂict tactics were
signiﬁcantly correlated with one another. Signiﬁcant relationships were found between
emotional and cognitive negotiation; cognitive negotiation and minor psychological

aggression; and severe psychological aggression and minor physical assault.

40

CHAPTER 5
DISCUSSION

An ecological perspective was used to investigate the marital conﬂict resolution
tactics that the developing child actively experiences within the home environment as it
relates to the child’s social competence. The reported social competence of children did
not differ by gender but did increase with age. In general, older children have had more
opportunities to engage in social experiences, develop skills, and, as a result, be viewed
as having higher social competence.

There was not much variability in preschoolers’ social competence scores. This
sample was comprised of highly social competent children and their primarily Caucasian,
highly educated married mothers who reported most frequently using negotiation as a
marital conﬂict resolution tactic. There were only four instances of violence. The low
violence responses were skewed data which either is a result of people’s resistance to
report such behaviors or the unequal distribution of violence in the population. There are
ﬁndings of a negative correlation between socioeconomic status (Straus et al., 1989), age,
income, education (Mirowsky, & Ross, 1989; Stets, 1991), and unemployment to
intimate partner violence in past research (Ellison & Anderson, 2001; Stets, 1991).
Although marital violence occurs across the socioeconomic spectrum, low income and
poverty are among the strongest and most consistent correlates of male-to-female
violence (Cunradi, Caetano, & Schafer, 2002; Fox, Benson, DeMaris, & Van Wyk, 2002;
Greenﬁeld, et al., 1998; Rennison & Welchans, 2000; Tjaden & Thoennes, 1998). The

fact that the individuals in this study were of a higher socioeconomic status, well

41

educated, and all the husbands were employed may explain in part why there was a lower
prevalence of reported violence.

This investigation tested two main hypotheses that were not supported
statistically. The results suggested that preschoolers’ social competence scores in this
small sample were not necessarily related to their mothers’ self-reported use of
Negotiation, Psychological Aggression and Violence as conﬂict resolution tactics. There
are several possible explanations for the lack of signiﬁcant ﬁndings.

Straus (1990), the author of the CTS, stated that the Negotiation and
Psychological Aggression scales on the CTS, have not been used enough to sufﬁciently
be able to reach conclusions about validity. This investigation focused on the two CTS
scales that are least utilized by researchers of marital conﬂict. The CTS is the most
widely used tool for studying marital conﬂict and overall has strong validity. However,
most investigations focus solely on the Violence scale. Much feedback, improvements
and enhancement has been made with the Violence scale, thus strengthening its validity
and not the others. This investigation used all three scales respecting the dynamic and
individualistic conﬂict resolution styles that married couples use including the strengths
of constructive resolution. The absence of any signiﬁcant relationships between mothers’
self-reported use of Negotiation and preschoolers’ social competence scores may have
been the result of how it was measured and not that these two variables are not associated
for the sample that participated. Another explanation may be that the effects of couples’
positive conﬂict tactic styles are more subtle and more difficult to identify and detect.
Future research is encouraged to use a strengths-based approach of constructive marital

conﬂict resolution tactics and children’s positive social development.

Exploratory analysis tested other relationships for signiﬁcance and found that
children who were rated with a greater degree of negative social competence behaviors
had parents who used more psychological aggressive behaviors, speciﬁcally behaviors
that included minor psychological aggression. The minor psychological aggression
subscale is composed of the behaviors: insulting or swearing; shouting or yelling;
stomping out of the room, house or yard during a disagreement; and doing something to
spite the other person. In general, these results mirror those of other studies, providing
evidence of the relationship between negative conﬂict resolution tactics and children’s
behavior problems. The review of literature explored many studies concluding that the
use of destructive marital conﬂict tactics is associated with children’s negative social
behaviors and has the greatest impact on children’s more externalizing (i.e. aggression)
and internalizing (i.e. anxiety) symptoms. The combined behaviors of minor
psychological aggression as measured by the CTSZ were related to the combined
negative social competence behavior which include children’s more externalizing (i.e. P-
CRS item 1 “disruptive at home,” P-CRS item 7 “disturbs others,” P-CRS item 13
“aggressive with peers) and more internalizing (i.e. P-CRS item 2 “withdrawn,” P-CRS
item 5 “shy,” P-CRS item “unhappy, sad”) behaviors.

Fathers’ psychological aggression was signiﬁcantly related to boys’ negative
social competence behaviors. Each parents’ use of the conﬂict resolution tactics may
inﬂuence children in a different way. Modeling may also occur in gender-speciﬁc ways.
Because children model their parents' same sex behavior, daughters and mothers along
with sons and fathers have shown to respond to conﬂict in similar ways. Generally,

mothers react to conﬂict with more anxiety and withdrawal, and fathers react to conﬂict

43

 

with more aggression. Parallel to this is the tendency for girls to respond to conﬂict with
more internalizing behaviors and boys to respond with more externalizing behaviors
(Cummings & Davies, 1994). This does not suggest, however, that girls are less upset by
parents’ ﬁghting than boys.

The review of literature included possible processes by which psychological
aggression between parents inﬂuences children’s social development. Children in homes
with much unresolved conﬂict (not resolved through negotiation, rather continuous
ﬁghting) might have fewer opportunities to observe and learn the beneﬁts of constructive
conﬂict tactics and develop effective coping styles of their own. Children may also rely
on less effective and less mature coping skills when exposed to a high level of stress
(Spielberger, 1979). For example, children who have used aggression or withdrawal at a
young age may also rely on these responses older as a child. Children from divorced
families have shown to rely on a single coping style with little consideration for the
context or effectiveness (Derensky & Tarabulsy, 1991). Frequent marital conﬂict with
destructive conﬂict resolution behaviors, like psychological aggression, inﬂuence
children of all ages as they respond with great distress and cope less effectively
themselves in stressful situations. Using effective coping skills is a characteristic of
socially competent children.

When parents are psychologically aggressive toward one another the environment
becomes stressful, parents are less emotionally available, and children observe and learn
ways of handling conﬂict with aggression. Exposure to interparental anger might
increase children’s aggression through modeling. Children may learn that handling

conﬂict with psychological aggression is acceptable and in turn, may act aggressively in

44

their own conﬂicts. Children actively experience the psychological aggression that their
parents use in the home environment. Therefore, children may display negative
behaviors much like that of their parents. A study by Strassberg, Dodge, Bates, & Pettit
(1992) found relationships between marital aggression and child aggression, and between
child aggression and characteristics of children’s social competence. Moreover, children
who came from homes in which there were high levels of aggression were considered to
be socially less desirable than other children. Further research is needed to explore
children’s problem solving and conﬂict resolution skills as they relate to parents’ conﬂict
resolution tactics to better answer research questions addressing children’s modeling of
parental behaviors.

Signiﬁcant correlations were found between the conﬂict resolution tactic
subscales. It makes sense that the emotional negotiation and cognitive negotiation
subscales were signiﬁcantly related, as they collectively measure the Negotiation scale.
In addition, there was a signiﬁcant relationship found between cognitive negotiation and
minor psychological aggression. Although these subscales do not collectively measure
the same scale, they both use approaches that do not entail any physical actions, instead
mostly rely on discussion. The cognitive negotiation items reﬂect constructive actions
taken to settle a disagreement through discussion. Minor psychological aggression
reﬂects destructive actions taken to settle conﬂict also through discussion, rather than
using physical violence. The signiﬁcant relationship between severe psychological
aggression and violence was also found and may be expected, as they are both considered

destructive uses of marital conﬂict resolution tactics.

45

Limitations and Implications for Future Research

There were several limitations to this investigation. The use of the CTSZ
instrument as a self-report on marital conﬂict tactics could have resulted in bias reporting.
In addition, mothers reported on the conﬂict resolution tactic behaviors of themselves and
their partners. Mothers were chosen as the primary responders in this investigation
because, in the larger study, mothers were also the primary responders of their child’s
social competence behavior. Future investigations may use data from both partners in the
relationship to offset the general self-report biases that is common in much social science
research, particularly when focusing on sensitive behaviors of marital conﬂict and
violence. Szinovacz (1983) found that when either or both spouses reported on the CTS2
Violence scale, the rate was about 50% higher than rates based on the report on only one
spouse. Having both partners complete the CTSZ may have increased the reporting of the
“violence” items (there were only 4 mothers’ that reported violence). In this
investigation, mothers’ violence behaviors were signiﬁcantly greater than fathers, which
is not typical. No real conclusions can be drawn, however, because of the low prevalence
of violent behaviors. Although some women may act violently toward their husbands,
“the overall pattern of intimate violence is dominated by men as the abusers and women
as the abused’ (Dobash R.E., Dobash, R. P., Cavanaugh, & Lewis, 2000, p.3). It may
also be interesting to gather information on parent aggression or violence toward their
children and children’s reports of their parents’ marital conﬂict behaviors.

Another limitation with using the CTSZ instrument is that there could be
differences in the mothers who completed the survey and mothers who declined. The

sample size of 35 children and their mothers was a small sample with which to work,

46

especially when exploring the subscales of the instruments. The lack of variability within
the social competence scores and within the styles of conﬂict resolution tactics limited
the ability to calculate any signiﬁcant relationships. This may have been due to the
underreporting on more of the destructive conﬂict resolution tactics and the demographic
similarities of the sample being primarily Caucasian, highly educated married mothers as
the sole reporters for both measurements. Respecting diversity by more thoroughly
exploring the similarities and differences among demographic variables and the
individual and cultural differences of conﬂict resolution is also important to investigate.
The developing child in this investigation has been placed within the context of
the home environment. However, it is important to note the signiﬁcance in which the
larger society and culture inﬂuences these contexts. The family is established within the
larger cultural and societal complex of norms and expectations (Nucci, Killen &
Smetana, 1996). Conﬂict resolution styles vary by culture. Gabrielidis, Stephan, Ybarra,
Dos, Pearson, & Villareal (1997) explained how people from individualistic versus
collectivistic and masculine versus feminine cultures use different conﬂict resolution
styles. Individualistic cultures, like the United States, hold values that encourage the
individual's needs and separate the individual from the group. Whereas, collectivistic
cultures, like Mexico, hold values that encourage the concern for other people and
relationships. Masculine cultures, like Mexico, emphasize confrontational strategies of
conﬂict resolution. In contrast, feminine cultures, like Canada and the Netherlands,
emphasize harmony-enhancing strategies of conﬂict resolution. Therefore, the larger
culture inﬂuences the conﬂict resolution styles that individuals use. Because of the

individualistic values of the American culture, marital conﬂict is frequent as couples

47

promote their own individual needs and separate themselves from others. Positive
conﬂict resolution requires that individuals have some concern for others and that
differences of interest have subsided.

Much previous research focused on the negative inﬂuences of marital conﬂict on
children (Cummings et al., 1985; Cummings et al., 1981; Emery, 1982; Grych &
F incham, 1990; Holden & Ritchie, 1991; Jenkins & Smith, 1991; Johnson & O’Leary,
1987; Johnston, Gonzalez et al., 1987; Jouriles et al., 1991; Jouriles et al., 1989; Long et
al., 1987; Wierson et. al., 1988). There is limited research on the positive inﬂuences that
constructive conﬂict resolution tactics (i.e. negotiation) have on children’s positive
outcomes including social competence. More systematic research needs to focus on
whether children learn positive lessons from experiencing constructive resolution of
conﬂicts, for example their own conﬂict resolution and problem solving skills that are
characteristic of socially competent children (Cummings & Davies, 1994; Cummings et
al,2001)
( ’onclusion

There is much to be gained from the knowledge that the use of psychological
aggression by married couples in conﬂict not only inﬂuences the marital relationship but
is also related to young children’s negative social behaviors. Moreover, it may not be the
mere presence of psychological aggression that may inﬂuence marital partners and their
children, but the underlying message most associated with aggression that also needs
further investigation. Psychological aggression between parents is very powerful as it
inﬂuences children’s perceptions of the emotional environment of the home, has an

impact on their capacity for regulating their emotions and on their development of social

48

competence. Some components in the home environment serve as buffers to marital
conﬂict. Parental warmth and control positively relate to children's social competence
(Bryant & Crockenberg, 1980; Putallaz & Heﬂin, 1990; Radke-Yarrow, Zahn-Waxler, &
Chapman, 1983; Maccoby & Martin, 1983). Even with marital conﬂict, if there is
parental warmth, family members’ development still reaches optimal levels. Marital
conﬂict in the context of familial warmth and communication is associated with optimal
adolescent development, whereas conﬂict in a setting of general familial negativity is
linked with psychological problems (Niemi, 1988).

Parents teach their children valuable lessons of healthy communication, adaptive
ways of handling conﬂict, and succeeding in life’s challenges through modeling
constructive conﬂict resolution tactics. The use of negotiation during conﬂict should be
encouraged and promoted. Suggesting changes in the resolution of conﬂicts from
destructive to more constructive behaviors, may aide in providing feedback to families so
that family members may have the resources to make the appropriate changes that serve
their interests. Spouses who deal with conﬂict through negotiation and compromise are
more satisﬁed with their marriages than other couples (Christensen & Shenk, 1991;
Whiffen & Gotlib, 1989). This research encourages programs to educate parents about
conﬂict management not only for a healthier and happier marriage, but also for the
children’s healthy social development. Frosch, Mangelsdorf, & McHale (2000)
suggested that providing direct and indirect services (i.e. marital counseling, parent
education) designed at increasing positive engagement and decreasing marital conﬂict
may contribute to more positive parent-child relationships as well as for the

socioemotional development of children.

49

This research should also encourage a continued focus on studying the inﬂuences
of constructive marital conﬂict resolution tactics on children’s social development using
an ecological perspective. Resolving conﬂict in constructive ways is a skill of socially
competent individuals. Therefore, the social competence of marital couples is related to
the social competence of their children and the skills that they carry with them across
time and contexts. The ecological perspective is an excellent guide for examining the
human experience and promotion of quality of life. Ecology theory views the social
environment as a grand human experiment, therefore, requesting our efforts and support

for improvement (Garbarino & Gaboury, 1992).

50

APPENDIX

CONSENT FORM

TO WHOM: The married mother living at this residence
WHAT:

You are being invited to participate in my thesis study. I am a graduate student in
the Department of Family and Child Ecology at Michigan State University. Within the
past year you have participated in a research project about children’s social development.
I am interested in learning more about families and children’s development. I am inviting
you to complete this additional information by ﬁlling out one questionnaire that will help
me better understand some aspects of how marital couples interact. This new information
that you provide will be combined with previous information gathered about your child. If
you choose not to participate, there is absolutely no penalty.

In this packet you will ﬁnd two consent forms, a questionnaire and two stamped
return envelopes. Please sign both consent forms and ﬁll out the attached questionnaire.
Please send one of the signed consent forms in one stamped return envelope and the
completed questionnaire in the other stamped return envelope. Your consent form will
remain separate from your questionnaire to maintain conﬁdentiality. The other consent
form is for you to keep for yourself as a statement of your participation in this study.

The questionnaire that you will be ﬁlling out asks questions about how you and
your husband deal with marital conﬂict. There are more speciﬁc directions on the
questionnaire that will guide you. It will take approximately 10 minutes to complete the
questionnaire.

The only minimal risk to you is that you may feel uncomfortable disclosing some
information regarding marital conﬂict. Remember, participation in this study is voluntary
and held conﬁdential. Your participation is completely voluntary and you may choose not
to participate without any penalty. Your identity as a participant in this study will be kept
conﬁdential. The material collected and the results of this study will be handled in strict
conﬁdence, and your name will remain anonymous in any report of its ﬁndings. Any
information collected ﬁ'om you will be kept in a locked ﬁle and only the researcher will
have access to the ﬁle. Your privacy will be protected to the maximum extent allowable
by law.

Beneﬁts in this study include an increased awareness of your own family
relationships. You will also be provided with the study’s results which may enhance your
understanding of family relationships and children. You will be provided with a thorough
debrieﬁng following the data collection.

If you have questions or concerns about this study, you may call me, Krista
Surowiec (734-522-8971) or my graduate advisor, Dr. Brophy-Herb (353-1664). Dr.
David E. Wright (355-2180) may also be contacted for questions about your participation
rights as human subjects of research.

I voluntarily agree to participate in this study (sign and date below):
PARENT/GUARDIAN (signature) (date)

PARENT/GUARDIAN (Printed Name):

 

ARE YOU YOUR CHILD’S MOTHER? yes no
51

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