Abstract

This study investigates the longitudinal bidirectional process between interparental conflict and children’s negative emotion- ality, and examines whether they predict children’s later problem behaviors. The participants were 2,150 children (1,091 boys; 1,059 girls) and their parents who participated in a large longitudinal panel study on Korean families, the Panel Survey on Korean Children of the Korea Institute of Child Care and Education. In this study, data from children aged 0–9 years were in- cluded in the analysis, and the bidirectional process between interparental conflict and children’s negative emotionality was explored from 0 to 4 years of age. Statistical analysis was conducted using a non-recursive model within a structural equation modeling framework. Both interparental conflict and children’s negative emotionality positively predicted problem behaviors at nine years of age. However, the bidirectional relationship between interparental conflict and children’s negative emotional- ity appeared in the opposite direction to the hypothesis at age one and was not significant thereafter. In the Discussion sec- tion, suggestions for future studies along with the clinical significance of parental conflict as a target to consider in children’s interventions are addressed.