Interparental Conflict, Emotional Security, and Adolescent Adjustment: The Role of Family-wide Risk and Protective Factors

Extensive research has established a link between interparental conflict, emotional security and adolescent adjustment; however, these relationships are moderate in strength, suggesting variability among families. Moreover, although these processes are linked, not all adolescents experience the detrimental effects of conflict, suggesting the importance of additional processes that may serve to exacerbate or diminish these effects. The current study examined the role of family cohesion, conflict, and emotional expressiveness; moderated mediation was conducted to examine if the strength of the paths in the model differed depending on family functioning. Participants included 281 families who completed a series of questionnaires assessing these processes. Positive expressivity and father-report of family cohesion moderated the pathway between emotional security and adolescent adjustment. At the same time, results largely supported the notion that these processes did not differ as a result of broader family functioning, suggesting the robustness of emotional security as an explanatory mechanism.