Ouderlijk Conflict rondom Scheiding en de Kwaliteit van Sociale Relaties in de Vroege Adolescentie

Abstract

This study will examine the link between parental conflict in divorced families and social relationship quality of young adolescents. Social relationships have been divided in sibling relationships and friendships. Thereby the role of gender in this link was examined. Although several studies showed that parental conflict and quality of social relationships were negatively related after divorce, these studies were focused on other age groups or qualitative data. For this study, data were collected in 2006 as a part of the Scholieren en Gezinnen questionnaire set up by Dr. E. Spruijt. For this study a sample of 223 young adolescents with divorced parents were selected from the dataset. These adolescents were aged 12-16 (M = 13.64) and gender was equally distributed (boys 48.9% and girls 51.1%). A multiple hierarchical regression was used to examine the link between parental conflict and quality of social relationship. No link was found in this study between parental conflict and quality of social relationships, neither in sibling relationships nor in friendships. Furthermore no gender differences were found for these links. However, differences were found in the quality of friendship itself, where girls experienced a higher quality than boys.