Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the mediational effects of children's perceptions of marital conflict and parental attitude on the process of marital conflict influencing children's internalizing and externalizing problems. The sample subjects were comprised of 461 4th, 5th and 6th grade elementary school children(220 boys and 241 girls), their parents and teachers participated in the study. Path analysis was conducted to verify and explore the relations among parental reports of marital conflict, childrens' perceptions of marital conflict, and negative parental attitude, and internalizing/ externalizing problems in the child. The results were as follows. For internalizing behavior problems, there was a significant path from parental reports of marital conflict to perceived marital conflict. Both the direct path from perceived marital conflict to internalizing problems and the indirect path from perceived marital conflict through perceived parental attitude to internalizing problems were significant. The results of fitting the model for externalizing problems showed that there was significant indirect path from parental reports of marital conflict to children's externalizing problems through perceived marital conflict and perceived parental attitude. In addition, that there was a significant direct path from parental reports of marital conflict to externalizing problems. The results of path analyses showed that the gender of child didn't moderate the influences of marital conflict on children's internalizing and externalizing problems. Finally, implications and limitations of this study were discussed.