Psychological Development and Education ›› 2013, Vol. 29 ›› Issue (5): 525-532.

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A Longitudinal Study of Relations between Parents’ Marital Quality and Children’s Behavior Problems：Moderating Effect of Children’s Effortful Control

LIANG Zong-bao1, ZHANG An-wei1, ZHANG Guang-zhen1, SONG Yuan2, DENG Hui-hua1, LU Zu-hong1   

  1. 1. Research Center for Learning Science, Southeast University, Nanjing 210096, China;
    2. Child Healthcare Department, Suzhou Municipal Hospital, Suzhou 215002, China
  • Online:2013-09-15 Published:2013-09-15

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Abstract: Marital relationship is the core of the stability of family, and parents' marital quality is significantly associated with children's externalizing and internalizing behavior problems. Apart from the environmental factors, children's temperament (e.g. effortful control) might have the direct effect on children's behavior problems. Effortful control refers to the ability to inhibit a dominant response to perform a subdominant response, and it has been suggested as a moderator of the relation between parents' marital quality and children's behavior problems. However, few researches have studied the independent prediction on children's concurrent and later behavior problems from marital quality and effortful control and their interaction, especially in Chinese culture. The present short term longitudinal study aimed to explore concurrent and longitudinal relations among mothers' marital quality, children's effortful control, and children's behavior problems. Participants were 474 children (wave 1, M=49.67 months) as well as their mothers. Mothers reported their own marital quality on the Dyadic Adjustment Scale (DAS) and their children's effortful control on the Child Behavior Questionnaire (CBQ).Children's behavior problems were also reported by mothers using the Children's Social Behavior Questionnaire (SCBE). Multiple regression analyses were conducted to examine the hypotheses.It was found that mothers' marital quality negatively predicted concurrent children's externalizing and internalizing behavior problems. Children's effortful control negatively predicted children's externalizing and internalizing behavior problems currently and one year later. At the first year, children's effortful control moderated the relation between mothers' marital quality and children's externalizing behavior problems. For children with low levels of effortful control, mothers' marital quality could negatively predict children's externalizing behavior problems. In contrast, for children with high levels of effortful control, mothers' marital quality could not predict children's externalizing behavior problems.

Key words: preschoolers, parental marital quality, effortful control, behavior problems, longitudinal study

CLC Number: 

  • B844.1

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