This study examines the association between marital quality and personal well-being using meta-analytic techniques. Effects from 93 studies were analyzed. The average weighted effect size r was .37 for cross-sectional and .25 for longitudinal effects. Results indicate that several variables moderate the association between marital quality and personal wellbeing, including gender, participants' marital duration, source of measurement, data collection year, and dependent variable. These results suggest that longitudinal effects are more likely to be uncovered when using standard measurement and that future research should use samples homogenous in marital length. The longitudinal finding that the strength of the association is stronger when personal well-being is treated as the dependent variable supports previous theorizing.

Data from the 1988 National Survey on Families and Households were analyzed to examine the associations among marital conflict, ineffective parenting, and children's and adolescents' maladjustment. Parents' use of harsh discipline and low parental involvement helped explain the connection between marital conflict and children's maladjustment in children aged 2 through 11. Parent‐child conflict was measured only in families with a target teenager and also was a significant mediator. Although ineffective parenting explained part of the association between marital conflict and children's maladjustment, independent effects of marital conflict remained in families with target children aged 2 through 11 (but not for families with a teenager). With a few exceptions, this pattern of findings was consistent for mothers' and fathers' reports, for daughters and sons, for families with various ethnic backgrounds, and for families living in and out of poverty.

Contemporaneous and longitudinal associations among marital conflict, parentchild relationship quality, and youth maladjustment were examined using data from the National Survey of Families and Households.Analyses were based on 551 married families with a child age 5 to 11 years at Wave 1. The concurrent association between marital conflict and youth externalizing problems at both waves was mediated completely at Wave 1 and partially at Wave 2 by harsh discipline and parent-youth conflict. The concurrent association between marital conflict and internalizing problems at both waves was mediated partially through parent-youth conflict. Longitudinal mediating effects were detected through stable marital conflict over 5 years and through its connection with parent-youth conflict. Findings delineate areas of specificity and stability in marital conflict processes as children transition from middle childhood through adolescence.

Although the association between interparental conflict and youth maladjustment has been established, processes underlying this relationship are less understood. In this investigation, children's conflict appraisals were examined as mediating variables. In Study 1, 1,893 6th graders reported their perceptions of conflict and appraisals of threat and self-blame. Youth and teachers reported on externalizing and internalizing problems. In Study 2, 416 married parents from the larger sample reported their conflict and youth maladjustment. Children's appraisals of coping efficacy also were examined. Perceived threat, self-blame, and coping efficacy were salient mediators of overt conflict and triangulation, particularly for internalizing problems. Findings indicate that children's beliefs about interparental conflict play an important role in their adjustment to this family stressor.

This study examined adolescents' emotional reactivity to parents' marital conflict as a mediator of the association between triangulation and adolescents' internalizing problems in a sample of 416 two-parent families. Four waves of annual, multiple-informant data were analyzed (youth aged 11 – 15). Using structural equation modeling, triangulation was associated with increases in adolescents' internalizing problems, controlling for marital hostility and adolescent externalizing problems. There also was an indirect pathway from triangulation to internalizing problems across time through youths' emotional reactivity. Moderating analyses indicated that the second half of the pathway, the association between emotional reactivity and increased internalizing problems, characterized youth with lower levels of hopefulness and attachment to parents. The findings help detail why triangulation is a risk factor for adolescents' development and which youth will profit most from interventions focused on emotional regulation.

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Foster parents’ perceptions of familial and parental factors that promote or inhibit successful fostering were examined using semi-structured interviews. Characteristics that facilitate successful fostering include faith or support from church, a deep concern for children, tolerance, a strong cooperative marriage in married foster families, and a daily life that is characterized as organized and routinized but flexible in terms of responding to children’s needs and external demands. Characteristics that inhibit successful fostering include non-child-centered fostering motivations, competing demands for parents’ time and energy, parents’ difficulties in dealing with strong attachments to children who might have to leave the family, and personal and interpersonal inflexibility. The findings from this study highlight the need for foster parents to be skilled at creating family patterns that are characterized by clear, consistent routines and expectations as well as flexibility and tolerance. This dialectic pattern of family functioning should be a primary focus during training for foster parent applicants.