Spillover in the Home: The Effects of Family Conflict on Parents' Behavior

• Author: Theodore F. Robles,Jennifer L. Krull,Meredith S. Sears,Bridget M. Reynolds,Rena L. Repetti
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12265
• Date: 01 February 2016
• Published date: 01 February 2016

M S. S, R L. R, B M. R, T F. R, 

J L. K University of California Los Angeles

Spillover in the Home: The Effects of Family

Conict on Parents’ Behavior

Conict with a spouse or child may gener-

ate spillover, dened as short-term affective

changes in parents that affect their behavior

with other family members. In a diverse sample

of 86 parents, this 56-day diary study examined

daily bidirectional spillover between conict in

the marital or parent–child dyad and parents’

irritable, frictional behavior with their child or

spouse, respectively. Tests of daily associations

between conict and parent behavior revealed

robust spillover effects according to parent

as well as spouse and child reports. Parents’

daily negative mood and child externalizing

behavior contributed to several but not all of

these associations. Daily spillover ndings

were largely unaffected by parents’ neuroticism,

suggesting that parents’ day-to-day uctuations

in negative mood, not average levels of negative

affectivity, promoted spillover. Signicant direct

effects of conict on parent behavior even when

controlling for negative mood, however, impli-

cate additional cognitive or social processes as

contributors to conict spillover in families.

Friction is a normal part of everyday family

life. Parents use conictual, irritable behavior to

communicate that their spouses or children have

Department of Psychology, Universityof California, 1285

Franz Hall, Box 951563, Los Angeles, CA 90095–1563

(meredithsears@ucla.edu).

This article was edited by Robert Crosnoe.

Key Words: family processes,marital relations,parent–child

relationships,stress.

engaged in unwanted actions. Unfortunately,

turbulence in one relationship tends to spread

into other relationships, and discord seems to

be particularly contagious between the mari-

tal and parent–child dyads. The effects of dis-

cord in one dyad on the other may amplify the

long-term negative outcomes of frequent marital

and parent–child conict that are observed in all

members of the family.

Marital discord is associated with parents’

harshness, inconsistency, psychological control,

and reduced acceptance of and sensitivity with

their children (Benson, Buehler, & Gerard,

2008; Buehler, Benson, & Gerard, 2006; Klausli

& Owen, 2011; for reviews on this topic, see

Erel & Burman, 1995; Krishnakumar & Buehler,

2000). In fact, the link between marital discord

and parenting may partly explain the association

between highly conictual marriages and child

emotional outcomes (Chung, Flook, & Fuligni,

2009; Schulz, Waldinger, Hauser, & Allen,

2005). In the reverse direction, a more limited

literature indicates that difculties between

parents and children also affect marital relation-

ships and parents’ emotional distress (Almeida,

Wethington, & Chandler, 1999; Jenkins, Simp-

son, Dunn, Rasbash, & O’Connor, 2005;

VanderValk,Spruijt, de Goede, & Meeus, 2007).

Traditional correlational designs limit the

potential for new knowledge about the spread

of conict within families. Although tensions in

the marital and parent–child dyads are known

to be closely linked, the research literature has

less to say about the day-to-day mechanisms

by which difculty in one dyad is transmitted

Journal of Marriage and Family 78 (February 2016): 127–141 127

DOI:10.1111/jomf.12265