title: Role of parent-child relationships in mediating the effects of marital disruption.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  This study sought to explore the long-term effects of and relationships between parental divorce, interparental conflict, and parent-child relationships on interpersonal and generalized trust, empathy, dependency, and depressive affect among late adolescents.
  
  
  METHODS
  Self-administered questionnaire data were collected from a sample of 288 college students (including 60 children of divorce). Participants were asked to rate current and past levels of interparental conflict, the current affective quality of their parent-child relationships, and present adjustment.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Path analyses revealed that the effects of interparental conflict on psychological well-being were mediated by parent-child relationships. For women, however, parental divorce also was found to affect adjustment indirectly (via disrupted father-daughter relationships), although no such path emerged for men.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The findings are part of a growing literature documenting the role of parent-child relationships in mediating the effects of marital disruption. In addition to efforts to resolve marital conflict, clinicians may want to focus on enhancing mother-child, father-child relationships as a way to modify the damaging effects of conflictual marital relations on children and adolescents.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Rochester, NY 14627.
authors.forename: A E
authors.initials: AE
authors.lastname: Black
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Pedro-Carroll
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D003220:Conflict, Psychological; D003863:Depression / Q000523:psychology; D004243:Divorce / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male; D010287:Parent-Child Relations; D010553:Personality Development