Interparental Hostility Interacts with Interparental Cooperative Conflict to Predict Adolescent Social Competence Through Parent–Child Relationship Quality

Abstract

An emerging (yet still scant) body of research has linked interparental hostility to youth compromised social competence over time among adolescents. Moreover, little is known about the conditions under which and the processes through which this association might occur. Using prospective data from 878 youth (50.23% females) and their parents and teachers, this study examined how interparental hostility and cooperative conflict might work in conjunction with each other to predict youth social competence over time via parent–child relationship quality. Results demonstrated that interparental cooperative conflict at grade 5 buffered the negative association between interparental hostility at grade 5 and mother–child but not father–child relationship quality at grade 6. Mother–child relationship quality, in turn, was associated positively with youth social competence at age 15. As such, interparental hostility at grade 5 was negatively related to youth social competence at age 15 via mother–child relationship quality at grade 6 only when interparental cooperative conflict at grade 5 was low. This study represents a more nuanced and specific examination of the implications of interparental hostility for child later social development by highlighting underlying moderating and mediating mechanisms. Relevant implications for the development of more targeted and effective interventions are also discussed.