Conflict Dynamics in Mother-Child and Sibling Dyads: The Interplay Between Observed Behavior and Emotional Expression and Links with Children’s Socioemotional Development
Bibliographic record
Abstract
In a series of two observational studies, the present dissertation examined the interplay between emotional expressions and behavior during conflict between children and their family members. Conflict discussions were observed at two developmental periods (preadolescence and adolescence) and in two types of relationships (mother-child and sibling), to assess how family members respond to their own and their partners’ emotional expressions. Within-family similarities in responses to negative emotions as well as links with youths’ socioemotional development were also examined. \nThe participants in the two present studies were drawn from an ongoing forty-year longitudinal study of families in Montréal, Québec. In Study 1, preadolescents (aged 9 to 13 years) were observed during conflict discussions with their mothers, and questionnaire measures of their temperament and socioemotional functioning were collected at one time point prior (aged 6 to 10 years) and one time point subsequent (aged 11 to 16 years) to the observational measurements. In Study 2, early adolescents (aged 12 to 15 years) were observed during conflict discussions with their siblings and with their mothers. In both studies, participants’ verbal conflict behaviors and emotional expressions were coded continuously. Time-window sequential analysis was used to identify how participants responded to their own and their interaction partners’ emotional expressions. In Study 1, across-dyad differences in responses to negative emotions were associated with youths’ socioemotional functioning over time, and in Study 2, within-family similarities in responses to negative emotions were examined. \nResults from both studies indicated that overall, family members escalated conflict more (i.e., disagreed and confronted) and made more assertive (i.e., analytic) remarks when they appeared angry (i.e., displayed frowning/upset affect), and were more conciliatory and avoidant when they appeared sad. Neutral affect predicted the most conflict de-escalating behavior (i.e., analytic and conciliatory remarks), while positive affect promoted both de-escalating behavior and avoidance. Links between individuals’ behavior and their interaction partners’ emotional expressions were generally similar, yet weaker than responses to their own emotions. Differences between mother- child versus sibling conflict patterns, as well as between mother-child conflict before and after the transition to adolescence, suggested that family conflict dynamics are influenced by relationship type as well as developmental timing. Results from Study 1 also indicated that mothers’ tendency to escalate conflict when angry was associated with difficult child characteristics in earlier childhood and socioemotional difficulties in adolescence. Further, maternal and child de-escalation following sadness predicted socioemotional adjustment in adolescence. Furthermore, Study 2 identified many within-family similarities in responses to negative emotions, yet relatively few similarities in how youth responded across the two conflict contexts (i.e., with their mothers and with their siblings). \nFindings are discussed in relation to goal-based theories of emotion, as well as dynamic systems, transactional, and family systems perspectives on child development. The present dissertation makes a substantive contribution to our understanding of family conflict dynamics across the transition to adolescence, by illustrating how constructive and destructive conflict is linked to several contextual variables, including emotion, child characteristics, and relationship type. In addition, they show how individual differences in the management of negative emotions are tied to youths’ socioemotional development and to family functioning. Taken together, the present findings have a number of clinical implications that can help inform interventions aimed at promoting adaptive family conflict communication and psychological well-being.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.004 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".