Academic literature on the topic 'Marital Spillover Hypothesis'

The mechanisms through which conflicting parental relationship and parenting practices influence adolescent antisocial behavior have not been adequately understood. To bring more understanding to the mechanisms, this study investigates how marital discord interrelates with interparental inconsistency in parenting practices, and how these family conditions influence juvenile delinquency through their spillover effects on mental health problems, parental attachment and delinquent peer association among Chinese adolescents. Findings obtained from a structural equation modeling analysis of survey data collected from a probability sample of 2,496 adolescents (mean age = 15.16 years) are generally consistent with the spillover effect hypothesis. The results demonstrate that mental health problems, parental attachment, and delinquent peer association operate as critical mediators linking marital discord and interparental inconsistency to juvenile delinquency.

Research about parental marital satisfaction and parent–child relationships is well established, but the effects of marital satisfaction on parental satisfaction require more explanation in a Korean sample. In total, 2,070 participants (51.0% mothers, 49.0% fathers) from a nationally representative sample of Korean people were selected from the 2015 Fact-Finding Survey in Families, and structural equation modeling was performed to examine the relationships between marital satisfaction, parent–child relational quality, and parental satisfaction. In support of the spillover hypothesis, marital satisfaction was significantly correlated with parental satisfaction and affected it directly and indirectly via positive and negative parent–child relationship quality. In addition, mediational pathways differed according to sex. The implications of the findings and directions for future research were discussed.

Consistent with the spillover hypothesis, previous research has found support for the benefits of a healthy marital relationship on the parent–child relationship. However, there is a paucity of research on whether and how marital functioning may be associated with parent–child relationship quality among ethnically diverse populations. In an attempt to address this research gap, the current study tested the effectiveness of a community-based program to improve couple relationship skills and the impact of this program on the parent–child relationship. The study used an extant data set of assessment data from this community-based relationship skills–building program targeting Latino individuals in low-income communities and focused on participants who endorsed being in a marital relationship and having at least one child ( N = 655). Results demonstrated that marital quality increased after participating in the program provided. More importantly, an increase in marital quality was associated with change in parenting quality for both Latino mothers and fathers, supporting the spillover hypothesis. Findings supported the overall effectiveness of the relationship skills–building program to improve marital relationship quality for participating Latino individuals but also suggested the potential benefits of improved parent–child relationship quality.

The current study examined the applicability of the spillover effect and the compensatory hypothesis in a sample of 80 Israeli Arab mothers living in polygamous families. It was posited that the marital dissatisfaction reflected in mothers’ romantic jealousy and their desire for revenge against their husbands would be transformed into feelings of rejection toward their own eldest sons and would involve the parental practice of triangulation. The results indicated that mothers’ desire for revenge mediated the association between romantic jealousy and mother–child rejection. Furthermore, mothers’ desire for revenge also mediated the association between romantic jealousy and mother-child triangulation. These findings point to the complexity of mother-child relationships in polygamous families.

Whereas childcare responsibilities are temporary, relationships with children are lifelong. This study examines how parents’ satisfaction with their partners’ relationships with offspring (i.e., “partner–child relationship satisfaction”) influences marital satisfaction, how this compares to the influence of satisfaction with the division of childcare, and how these processes work differently by gender. The author theorizes that partner–child relationship satisfaction shapes marital satisfaction through “impression spillover,” whereby one’s feelings about a relationship between other individuals transfer into feelings about one’s own relationship with one of those individuals. Hypotheses are tested with fixed effects regression using matched-partner data from four waves of the HILDA Survey ( N=3804 person-years). Findings suggest that partner–child relationship satisfaction is associated with marital satisfaction, especially among women. Women’s marital satisfaction is influenced more by partner–child relationship satisfaction than by division of childcare satisfaction; conversely, for men, there is little distinction between the two associations. Findings offer support for impression spillover.

The present exploratory study examines family conflict style as a correlate of commitment to the family of origin in a one-stage random cluster sample of 200 university students between the ages of 18 and 25. The hypothesis rests on the theoretical assumption that family climate factors, such as conflict, influences commitment to the family of origin. I argue that family conflict style (adaptive or maladaptive) is associated with the level of commitment to the family of origin. Surveys are utilised to collect data in the present study which includes two scales, namely the Family Conflict Style Scale (FCS) and the Family Commitment Scale (FC). The Family Commitment Scale (FC) is an adaptation of Rusbult’s (1998) Investment Model Commitment scale and the Family Conflict Scale (FCS) is a new scale that was constructed for the purpose of the present study, derived from Gottman’s (1993) definitions of couple conflict styles, in order to examine conflict styles within a family and to examine the correlations to see whether family conflict style can be associated with commitment. The Family Resilience Framework (Walsh, 2003) and the Marital Spillover Hypothesis (Gerard, Krishnakumar & Buehler, 2009) guides the present study in better understanding how the constructs marital conflict style and commitment can also be viewed as systemic variables influencing the entire family. Results revealed that all correlations between conflict styles and commitment to the family of origin were found to be significant at the -.01 level. Findings support the value in exploring family conflict style in relation to commitment to the family of origin and, for the current sample, suggest that a more adaptive conflict style positively relates to the level of commitment whereas a maladaptive conflict style negatively relates to the level of commitment to the family of origin.
Dissertation (MEd)--University of Pretoria, 2014.
lk2014
Educational Psychology
MEd
Unrestricted