Emerging Adults’ Perceptions of and Responses to Interparental Conflict

Negative and intense interparental conflict threatens emotional security, and children may respond to restore security, but emerging adults’ responses remain underexplored. We explored the relationship between perceived valence (positivity/negativity), intensity, and their interaction on 161 emerging adults’ (28% males) responses to interparental conflict. Participants listened to six audio conflict vignettes and rated their perceived negativity and intensity for each, as well as how they would respond if that conflict were between their parents. Using generalized estimating equations and linear mixed effects modeling, main effects showed that as perceived negativity or intensity increased, emerging adults were less likely to continue like normal, indicating their emotionally security was faltering, and they were more likely to attend to the conflict. Interaction effects showed that when emerging adults perceived conflict negativity and intensity as increasing across vignettes, they were even more likely to respond to the conflict with negative emotional reactivity, behavioral dysregulation, and mediation, but were less likely to respond with avoidance. Discussion addresses age-related differences in coping efficacy and emerging adults’ attempts to restore emotional security even when no longer living at home.