Relationship between Parents' Marital Conflicts Witnessed by Adolescents and their Psychological Health

Abstract

　The first objective of this study was to create a marital conflict scale to allow adolescents to answer questions about a marital conflict they witnessed. The second objective was to use the scale with adolescents who witnessed a conflict between their parents and examine the mediation process in which the conflict affected their psychological health. A survey was conducted with 171 first-year undergraduates who had witnessed a conflict between their parents. They were asked about the conflict, their self-esteem, and depression. Factor analysis of the responses identified 3 parent-related factors (intensity, continuity, and resolution of a conflict) and 2 child-related factors (fear, physical responses, and “ambiguous-boundary-type involvement”) In both male and female respondents, a mediation process was found in which the higher the perceived conflict intensity, the more they became involved in the conflict, and the “involvement” heightened their depression level. For the female respondents, “involvement” in a conflict lowered their selfesteem and intensified fear and physical responses. For the male respondents, a continued conflict directly lowered their self-esteem. The study therefore suggested that, in females, “involvement” in a marital conflict strongly affected their psychological health, and in males, continuity of a marital conflict directly affected their psychological health.