Children’s Appraisals and Involvement in Interparental Conflict: Do They Contribute Independently to Child Adjustment?

This study examines concurrent and prospective relations between children’s threat and self-blame appraisals of interparental conflict, their involvement in interparental conflict, and their internalizing and externalizing problems. 539 children aged 7–10 years old and their mothers participated in the study. They completed 3 assessments spaced 6 months apart. At each assessment, children reported on their threat and self-blame appraisals of interparental conflict, their conflict involvement, and their internalizing and externalizing problems. Mothers also reported on children’s internalizing and externalizing problems. In concurrent analyses, threat and self-blame appraisals and conflict involvement were each positively and independently associated with children’s adjustment problems. Threat related more strongly to internalizing problems than to externalizing problems; self-blame related more strongly to externalizing problems than to internalizing problems. Threat appraisals were associated with children’s adjustment problems prospectively, but self-blame appraisals and conflict involvement were not. Although threat and self-blame appraisals and conflict involvement may each contribute to children’s concurrent adjustment problems, threat appraisals appear most salient to their future adjustment problems.