Marital Conflict and Early Adolescents’ Self-Evaluation: The Role of Parenting Quality and Early Adolescents’ Appraisals

Cognitive appraisals and family dynamics have been identified as mediators of the relationship between marital conflict and
children’s adjustment. Surprisingly little research has investigated both meditational processes in the same study. Guided
by the cognitive-contextual framework and the spillover hypothesis, the present study integrated factors from both theories
early adolescents’ appraisals of threat and self-blame, as well as perceived parenting quality as mediators of the link between
early adolescents’ perception of marital conflict and their self-evaluations (self-esteem and scholastic competence). Analyses
were based on the first two waves of an ongoing longitudinal study. Participants were 176 two-parent families, and their early
adolescents (50.5% girls) whose mean age was 10.61 years at Time 1 (SD = 0.40) and 11.63 years at Time 2 (SD = 0.39). Structural
equation modeling analyses indicated that parenting quality and early adolescents’ perceived threat provided indirect pathways
between marital conflict and early adolescents’ self-esteem 1 year later when controlling for their initial level of self-esteem.
With respect to scholastic competence, only fathers’ parenting was an indirect link. Self-blame did not play a role. Implications
for understanding the mechanisms by which exposure to marital conflict predicts early adolescents’ maladjustment are discussed.