Continuity in hostile family relationships
Today, we are examining hostile family relationships. Lee, Wickrama & O'Neal (2023) published “Continuity in Hostile Family Relationships Mediated by Family Psychopathology: An application of systems perspective” in Journal of Family Psychology. Here is the highly edited article:
Grounded in the family systems theory within the life course systems perspective, this study sought to investigate (a) long-term transmission processes of hostility from interparental relationships to parent–young adult relationships and (b) the mediational roles of parents’ and adolescents’ psychopathology in these long-term processes. Research has examined the long-term transmission of hostility from interparental relationships to young adults’ relationships with their parents. Utilizing a structural equation model and prospective, longitudinal data from couples in enduring marriages and their offspring (n = 345 families), we examined long-term associations between interparental hostility when offspring were adolescents and young adults (1990 and 2001), adolescents’ hostile relationships with their fathers and mothers (1991), and young adults’ hostile relationships with their fathers and mothers (2003) as well as the mediating roles of fathers’, mothers’, and adolescents’ psychopathology (1992 and 1994). Interparental hostility was more strongly linked to hostility between mothers (rather than fathers) and their young adult offspring. Fathers’, mothers’, and adolescents’ psychopathology uniquely mediated the transmission processes.
Interparental relationships are an important family context that influence offspring’s subsequent relationships. In particular, previous studies suggest that hostility from interparental relationships is transmitted to offspring’s relationships with their parents. Studies suggest that interparental hostility and parent–adolescent hostility (hereafter referred to together as hostile family relationships) increase both parents’ and adolescents’ psychological distress. Other studies suggest that family members’ psychological distress reinforces family relational conflicts. Thus, in the longitudinal contexts of family relationships, there may be reciprocal associations between hostile family relationships and family members’ psychological distress.
The present study was grounded in the family systems theory within the life course perspective. Family systems theory (Cox & Paley, 1997) conceptualizes the family as hierarchical (i.e., where the broader family system is comprised of dyadic subsystems) and dynamic (e.g., interdependence within and across dyadic subsystems).
Past studies provide consistent evidence of the transmission of hostility from interparental relationships to parent-offspring relationships. For example, one study suggests that hostile couple relationships are emotionally draining for parents and erode their sensitivity and attentiveness toward adolescents, which increases conflict with their adolescents.
The enduring dynamics model (Caughlin & Huston, 2006) posits that a spouse who brings negative behaviors and beliefs into the marriage is unlikely to change their behaviors and beliefs over time, resulting in relatively stable (negative) levels of marital attributes over time. These findings suggest continuity in interparental hostility over time. Further, past research suggests that interparental problems in young adulthood influence young adults’ relationship problems.
Given that multiple dyadic subsystems exist within the family: (a) couple dyad, (b) father–offspring dyad, and (c) mother–offspring dyad, long-term transmission of hostile family relationships may occur through unique dyadic processes. For example, recent studies emphasized the unique transmission processes of interparental hostility to both mothers’ and fathers’ relationships with their offspring. Relatedly, some research has noted gender differences in the degree and manner to which interparental conflict spills over to the parent-offspring relationship. In one study, compared to fathers, mothers were generally more responsive and provided more emotional reassurance to their children even during periods of heightened interparental conflict. In contrast, other research demonstrated that, in stressful marital situations, fathers were more likely to withdraw emotionally from their children. Adolescents may interpret this withdrawal as dismissal or abandonment, resulting in strained relationships between fathers and adolescents. Given that adolescence is a sensitive period for building individual relationships with each parent, the transmission processes linking interparental hostility to adolescents’ hostile relationships may be distinct for relationships with fathers and mothers. Given that enduring couples represent a stable dyadic system, it is also possible that interparental hostility occurring when their offspring is an adolescent may be stable until the offspring transitions to young adulthood, which, in turn, may create changes in the hostility present in young adults’ relationships with their parents. It is also possible that these types of sequential processes may vary across adolescents’ relationships with fathers and mothers.
In the present context, hostile family relationships (dyadic subsystem) may reciprocally influence a family member’s, affective symptoms (functioning). The focus of the present study is on the role of family members’ general psychopathology in the context of hostile family relationships. According to the common mental disorder perspective, comorbidity among various psychological symptoms reflects underlying general psychopathology (hereafter referred as to psychopathology). Consistent with this perspective, studies have reported strong associations among multiple specific affective symptoms, such as depressive symptoms and anxiety in both adolescence and middle adulthood.
Further, studies reported the positive associations between hostile family relationships and family members’ psychopathology. For example, interparental hostility has been shown to influence the psychopathology of both fathers and mothers and their adolescents. In turn, when one, or both, parents have high levels of psychopathology, interparental hostility is also often high. Similarly, hostility in the parent–adolescent relationship can result in increases in both the parent’s and adolescent’s psychopathology. In turn, parents who have high levels of psychological distress may not provide sufficient emotional support, which is critical for the formation, and continuity, of positive parent–adolescent relationships. Adolescents with high levels of psychological distress are at risk for interpersonal stressors, which can contribute to hostile relationships with parents.
Interparental hostility may negatively impact both fathers’ and mothers’ psychopathology. In turn, their psychopathology may result in more interparental hostility, which may in turn cause more hostility in parent–young adult relationships. As another example, adolescents’ hostile relationships with fathers and/or mothers (transmitted from interparental hostility) may influence fathers’, mothers’, and/or adolescents’ psychopathology, which, in turn, may result in more hostility in young adults’ relationships with their parents.
Families selected to participate in the study included a target seventh-grade child who lived with his or her two biological parents and had a sibling within 4 years of the target child’s age (target adolescents’ mean age = 12.7 years in 1989 (Wave 1), 53% female).
Consistent with family systems theory, results confirm how dyadic subsystems influence each other longitudinally by identifying long-term transmission processes of hostility from interparental relationships (i.e., the couple subsystem) to young adults’ hostile relationships with their parents (i.e., the parent–offspring subsystem). In general, consistent with previous findings, long-term associations were evident between interparental hostility and parent–young adult hostility.
Results confirmed two transmission pathways: (a) one involving interparental hostility in young adulthood and (b) the other involving adolescents’ hostile relationships with their father and mother. Importantly, those two transmission processes were found for both father–young adult and mother–young adult relationships. Consistent with previous findings, the study found evidence of continuity in hostile relationships within a family, particularly continuity in interparental hostility and parent–offspring hostility. Whereas previous studies mainly focused on the proximal transmission of interparental hostility to adolescents’ hostile relationships with their parents, the present study findings confirm that this proximal transmission pathway continues into the offspring’s adulthood. Taken together, these results suggest two types of longitudinal stabilities in dyadic subsystems within a family: (a) stability within each dyadic subsystem and (b) stability across dyadic subsystems. Also, these two longitudinal stabilities existed for the transmission process of interparental hostility to young adult’s hostile relationship with both parents. These results are consistent with the life course perspective, which emphasizes that individuals’ roles and social relationships in one life stage are, at least in part, a product of their experiences at previous life stages. Furthermore, the results contribute to the life course perspective by identifying long-term transition processes of hostile relationships both within and across two dyadic subsystems.
However, results did not support the hypothesized sequential transmission pathways of interparental hostility to young adult’s hostile relationships with parents. These nonsignificant sequential pathways may suggest directionality in transmissions of hostile family relationships. That is, interparental relationships are more likely to influence parent–offspring relationships rather than the reverse (parent–adolescent hostility to interparent hostility). This directionality was confirmed in previous research on the transmission of hostile family relationships for adolescent relationships, and the current findings suggest this directionality extends to when offspring are young adults.
Further, results indicated positive correlations between fathers’, mothers’, and adolescents’ psychopathology, which is important for identifying similarity and influences between members. Importantly, these correlations remained significant even after adjusting effects of hostile family relationships. The mood convergence hypothesis posits that one family member’s psychological distress is inextricably linked to the psychological distress of other family members. The findings of the present study supported this hypothesis. In addition, these positive associations in psychopathology among family members suggest that functioning (psychopathology) of each family member are interdependence within a family. Interestingly, adolescents averaged higher levels of psychopathology than mothers and fathers, which may suggest that adolescence is a sensitive developmental period with a heightened risk of psychological distress.
Results also confirmed the mediating roles of family members’ psychopathology in relation to long-term transmission processes of interparental hostility to parent–young adult relationships with parents. According to the family systems theory, this mediation process reflects dynamic associations (or interdependencies) between dyadic subsystems and functioning of individual family members. Further, consistent with the life course systems perspective, this mediation process occurred over time. That is, hostile family relationships (either in the couple subsystem or parent–offspring subsystem) were influential for family members’ subsequent psychopathology, yet individuals’ psychopathology was also consequential for subsequent family relationships. Further, the present study was able to examine mediation processes for both father–young adult hostility and mother–young adult hostility.
Regarding mediation processes involved in father–young adult hostility, results indicated that fathers’ psychopathology (when their offspring were adolescents) mediated the associations between interparental hostility in adolescence (1990) and father–young adult hostility (2003). Importantly, interparental hostility when offspring were young adults (2001) did not predict young adults’ hostile relationships with their fathers (2003) after adjusting for the effects of fathers’ psychopathology when the offspring was an adolescent (1992 and 1994). These results suggested that fathers’ affective symptoms when their offspring was an adolescent were highly salient in shaping fathers’ relationships with their offspring at a later developmental stage.
Given the positive associations among fathers’, mothers’, and adolescents’ psychopathology, adolescents’ and mothers’ psychopathology may be indirectly associated with father–young adult relational hostility through fathers’ psychopathology. Indeed, a previous study found that parents who experienced higher levels of depressive symptoms were more likely to have children with elevated rates of anxiety and depressive symptoms from early adolescence to young adulthood. More research is needed to examine why, and how, family members’ symptoms impact transmission processes of hostile family relationships.
Regarding mediation processes for mother–young adult relational hostility, similar mediation processes were identified as found for father–young adult hostility (i.e., interparental hostility → mothers’ psychopathology → young adults’ hostile relationships with their mothers). Two additional mediation processes involving both mothers’ and adolescents’ psychopathology were also identified. One mediation process included mothers’ psychopathology as a mediator of the continuity in interparental hostility from 1990 to 2001, which, in turn, influenced young adults’ hostile relationships with their mothers (2003). The other mediation process indicated that interparental hostility influenced adolescents’ hostile relationships with their mothers, which, in turn, influenced both mothers’ and adolescents’ psychopathology. Then, both mothers’ and adolescents’ psychopathology influenced young adults’ hostile relationships with their mothers. These two mediation processes suggest that young adults’ hostile relationships with their mothers are shaped through dynamics (interdependencies) between dyadic subsystems (i.e., interparental hostility and parent–adolescent hostility) and functioning of individual family members (i.e., mothers’ and adolescents’ psychopathology) across adolescence and young adulthood. Also, these additional mediation processes for mother–young adult hostile relationships, compared to hostile relationships with fathers, suggest that mother–offspring relationships are more sensitive (i.e., influenced by more contributing factors) compared to father–offspring relationships. This may relate to mothers generally being more involved with their offspring, particularly for this sample of fairly traditional families from a rural area in the Mid-west.
Last, results indicated that adolescents’ hostile relationships with their fathers (1991) and fathers’ psychopathology (1992 and 1994) were involved in the transmission processes of interparental hostility to mother–young adult hostility. These findings suggest dynamic transmission processes of interparental hostility to young adults’ hostile relationships with parents. In other words, fathers–offspring relationships and fathers’ psychopathology when their offspring were adolescents appear to have long-term effects on young adults’ relationships with their mothers. This may imply that young adults’ hostile relationships with their mothers are more likely to be shaped by longitudinal dynamics (interdependencies) between multiple dyadic subsystems and individual family members compared to young adults’ hostile relationships with fathers.
Lee et al. note that their sample is White and from the rural Midwest. Yet, the study is powerful in both its sample size and longitudinal nature. These complex interactions make clear why it’s important to gather information about the family system in which a client functions.