THE ROLE OF FAMILY CONFLICT AND MARITAL CONFLICT IN ADOLESCENT FUNCTIONING

Recent research has suggested that general family conflict is more dis ruptive to child functioning than is marital conflict. We hypothesized , in contrast to earlier work, that marital conflict will contribute u nique variance to our understanding of child functioning but only when it occurs in front of children. One hundred and forty-six mother/adol escent pairs served as participants. Mothers completed measures of mar ital and general family conflict. Both mothers and teachers completed measures on child functioning at two points in time separated by 1 yea r Consistent with the earlier findings, general family conflict was mo re predictive of child adjustment problems than marital satisfaction. However marital conflict occurring in front of the child was equally p redictive of child problem behaviors as was general family conflict.