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Family Science
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Interparental conflict impairs children’s short-termed
attention performance
Martina Zemp
a
, Guy Bodenmann
a
& Steven R.H. Beach
b
a
Department of Psychology, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
b
Department of Psychology, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA
Published online: 27 Jun 2014.
To cite this article: Martina Zemp, Guy Bodenmann & Steven R.H. Beach (2014) Interparental conflict impairs children’s
short-termed attention performance, Family Science, 5:1, 43-51
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19424620.2014.933742
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Interparental conflict impairs children’s short-termed attention performance
Martina Zemp
a
*, Guy Bodenmann
a
and Steven R.H. Beach
b
a
Department of Psychology, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland;
b
Department of Psychology, University of Georgia,
Athens, GA, USA
(Received 29 April 2013; accepted 3 June 2014)
A growing body of research suggests an association between exposure to interparental conflict and attention problems in
children. This study examined whether a videotaped couple conflict decreases child’s short-term attention performance,
comparing the effect to the known disruptive impact of watching action fi lms. Participants were 60 children, aged 11–
13 years. Children’s performance in an attention task was measured prior to and immediately after video exposure and their
skin conductance level (SCL) was assessed throughout stimulus presentation in two experimental conditions: (i) couple
conflict condition and (ii) action film condition. Results indicate that the simulated couple conflict more harmfully disrupted
children’s accuracy performance (i.e. error ratio) although being less physiologically arousing than the action film. No
significant group differences were present concerning concentration performance as a behavioral outcome. The present
study adds to the evidence that interparental con flict might be crucial in understanding more profoundly attention difficulties
in children.
Keywords: marital conflict; attention problems; skin conductance; action movies
Introduction
Over many years, interparental conflict has emerged as a
primary powerful predictor of child maladjustment (e.g.
Barletta & O’Mara, 2006; Cummings & Davies, 2010).
Considerable evidence exists that exposure to high levels
of destructive interparental conflict increases children’s
risk for a wide array of adjustment problems, including
impairments in school performance (Ghazarian & Buehler,
2010; Harold, Aitken, & Shelton, 2007). Attention pro-
blems are being increasingly discussed as one of the major
mechanisms that may account for the detrimental impact
of marital discord on children’s school adjustment
(Davies, Woitach, Winter, & Cummings, 2008). This is
the first study, to our knowledge, to examine a couple
conflict as a cause for attention problems in children by
measuring children’s attention performance prior to and
after conflict exposure in an experimental approach.
Children’s reactivity to marital conflict is, according to
the emotional security theory (EST; Davies & Cummings,
1994), an expression of perceived threat to their felt
security and safety, a central goal for children in the family
setting. EST holds that children from high-conflict homes
are likely to develop insecure representations of the inter-
parental relationship, for instance, loss in confidence in
parents’ abilities to manage difficulties for the purpose of
preserving family stability (Davies & Cummings, 1998).
Recently, it was assumed that concerns about emotional
security may interfere with cognitive functioning outside
the home too, for example in school (Davies, Winter, &
Cicchetti, 2006). In line with this hypothesis, children’s
insecure representations of the parental relations hip were
identified as a primary intervening mechanism in the link
between observational ratings of marital discord and child
as well as teacher reports on children’s school adjustment
over a 2-year period (Sturge-Apple, Davies, Winter,
Cummings, & Schermerhorn, 2008). Strikingly, Davies
et al. (2008) revealed that attention difficulties accounted
for 34% of the association between children’s insecurity
and their academic performance. Children’s insecure
representations of the parental relationship predicted sub-
sequent children’s attention problems, measured by atten -
tion tasks and parent report 1 year later, which in turn
were associated with teacher reports of children’s school
problems longitudinally over a further year. Parental
discord therefore appears to have a substantial impact on
children’s functioning in school, with attention difficulties
as a powerful explanatory mechanism.
Attention dif
ficulties in relation to child exposure to
parental conflict are explicable in light of resourc e alloca-
tion models of cognitive neuroscience which indicate that
human cognitive processing is limited by a central
resource pool (Kahneman, 1973). If too many distracting
stimuli or tasks require resources, performance diminishes
(Schneider & Fisk, 1982). Affective experiences particu-
larly redirect humans’ attention away from task perfor-
mance toward the arousing stimulus (Beal, Weiss,
Barros, & Macdermid, 2005). Translated to an EST frame-
work, one interpretation is that prolonged insecurity and
*Corresponding author. Email: martina.zemp@psychologie.uzh.ch
Family Science, 2014
Vol. 5, No. 1, 43–51, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19424620.2014.933742
© 2014 Taylor & Francis
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vigilance due to parental conflict may deplete the common
reservoir of a child’s psychological resources. That is,
heightened reactivity associated with emotional insecurity
requires considerable expenditure of effort to regul ate
attention, affect, and action (Davies & Sturge-Apple,
2007). As a result, the energy required to regai n security
may absorb the resources children need to successfully
pursue other significant tasks in development.
Correspondingly, Davies, Manning, and Cicchetti (2013)
recently reported that toddlers’ insecurity in the inte r-
parental relationship predicted subsequent behavior pro-
blems, pa rtly mediated by their difficulties in mastering
stage-salient developmental tasks (i.e. emotion regulation,
autonomy, and problem-solving). In a similar vein, expo-
sure to parental arguments may disrupt children’s short-
term attention capacity by undermining their ability to
focus and sustain attention (Davies et al., 2006). To the
best of our knowledge, this is the first study to experimen-
tally examine this hypothesis measuring children’s atten-
tion performance prior to and immediately after exposure
to an analog couple conflict.
Analog designs employing simulations of couple dis-
putes emerged as a powerful experimental tool for the
investigation of causal effects of marital conflict on child
adjustment considering the potential of direct stimulus
manipulation (Cummings, 1995). A large number of
studies in this field have established the validity of the
experimental exposure to simulated conflict (e.g. Davies,
Myers, Cummings, & Heindel, 1999; Goeke-Morey,
Cummings, Harold, & Shelton, 2003). To date, we know
from two studies that examined the immediate effect of
parental conflict on children’s cognitive functioning using
this approach. First, O’Brien and Chin ( 1998) demon-
strated that 10- to 12-year-old children’s internal conflict
representations, after being experimentally activated by
audiotaped vignettes of angry couple interactions, biased
their recognition memory for conflict-related words
assessed by a word recognition task. Children were
instructed to listen to constructive and aggressive conflict
words and to report whether they had heard them pre-
viously in the vignettes. It was shown that children from
high- compared to low-conflict homes showed a greater
tendency to false-posi tive memory errors concerning the
aggressive words (i.e. mislabeling aggressive words not
already presented as having been heard) but made fewer
errors in recognizing valid (presented) aggressive words.
Second, Medina, Margolin, and Wilcox (2000) exam-
ined the impact of children’s history of family hostility
(i.e. maternal child-abus e potential and marital conflict) on
their performance on a verbal attention task, measured
prior to and after exposure to audiotaped simulations of
couple disagreements. They found that children from
high-exposure family backgrounds improved their audi-
tory verbal attention following the conflict exposure in
comparison with performance prior to the stimulus. The
authors suggested that heightened reactivity to the conflict
stimulus mig ht be one underlying pathway through which
these children achieved enhanced scores on the post-sti-
mulus assessment. These findings revealed that children’s
history of parental conflict does affect thei r reactivity to
simulated parental conflict in terms of memory and atten-
tion performance but, limiting their implications, no com-
parisons were made to a control group exposed to stimuli
unrelated to marital conflict.
Taken together, there is emerging evidence to assume
considerable effects of interparental conflict on a child’s
attention performance. Children’s felt threat about safety
when faced with parental strife may disrupt their executive
functioning by depleting the common reservoir of cogni-
tive resources (Davies et al., 2006). Since focusing and
sustaining attention requi re high levels of neuropsycholo-
gical resources, emotional insecurity may be particularly
likely to undermine this dimension of functioning. Despite
initial findings supporting this hypothesis prospectively
and not based on an experimental approach (Davies
et al., 2008), we think the most appropriate way to
examine allocation of attention resources in the context
of interparental conflict might be within an experimental
study which assesses children’s attention performance
prior to and immediately after exposure to analog conflict,
and to compare the impact of the conflict stimulus to a
conflict-unrelated stimulus.
The current study
This experimental study examines the short-term effects of
a videotaped couple conflict on children’s attention per-
formance compared to a control group in a community
sample. Children’s attention performance was assessed
prior to and immediately after the video exposure by an
attention task and their skin conductance level (SCL) was
measured continuously throughout stimulus presentation.
The conflict situation represented a verbal couple dispute
with no conflict resolution but an escalation outcome. This
type of unresolved conflict is especially prone to elicit
child’s reactivity (Cummings, Simpson, & Wilson,
1993). Children of the control condition were exposed to
a physiologically arousing, but conflict-unrelated stimulus;
that is, a sequence of an action film for children showing
two kids fleeing from policemen in a racing car. This film
scene excludes any interadult interaction in content. This
control condition was explicitly chosen because (i) only a
conflict-unrelated stimulus can avoid potential confound
due to classical conditioning. Based on the model of
classical conditioning, it is likely that even nonconflict
adult interaction can trigger negative reactions in children
autonomously if previous aversive experiences with
parental interactions were made. In a similar context,
conditioning and generalization of fear has been experi-
mentally demonstrated in healthy children (Glenn et al.,
44 M. Zemp et al.
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2012) and seems to be manifested in skin conductance
particularly (Neumann, Waters, Westbury, & Henry,
2008). (ii) We chose a particularly rigorous control condi-
tion since previous research showed that action films
characterized by fast pace and high level of physical
movement and visual change are highly physiologically
arousing and attention-grabbing for children (Huston
et al., 1981), and known to disrupt children’s attention
on tasks following exposure to the film (Lillard &
Peterson, 2011). These findings are in line with the limited
capacity model of television viewing stating that the
rapidly changing scenery and attention-grabbing editing
of action films underm ine child’s attention capacity with
regard to less exciting tasks (Lang, Bolls, Potter, &
Kawahara, 1999). Comparing the couple conflict to an
action film might therefore yield further-reaching implica-
tions than comparison with an alternative couple
interaction.
Children aged 11–13 were recruited since there is
considerable evidence that their internal representations
of the interparental relationship at this developmental
stage have become fairly elaborate and play an increas-
ingly important role in information processing (Demorest,
1992). Consequently, 10- to 12-year-olds showed schema-
consistent processing of conflict words after being
exposed to a simulated conflict not evident in children of
7–9 years (O’Brien & Chin, 1998). Accordingly, it has
been found that early adolescents more accurately used
affective cues to evaluate conflict endings (Davies, Myers,
& Cummings, 1996 ) and made sharper discriminations
between resolved and unresolved interadult anger than
younger children (Cummings et al., 1993).
Hypotheses
In a preliminary analysis, we first examine if manipulation
of the arousing control stimulus was successful. Both film
sequences were supposed to elicit physiological arousal,
but significantly higher levels should result in the action
film group compared to the couple conflict group (H1)
(Huston et al., 1981). As main hypothesis, the conflict
exposure was expected to have more detrimental impact
on children’s short-termed attention performance, i.e. their
performance in accuracy (H2) and concentration (H3) in
the attention task. We controlled for children’s perception
of interparental conflict (CPIC) and child’s gender in all
analyses given that previous findings reported a signi
ficant
impact of these variables on the impact of parental conflict
(e.g. Cummings & Davies, 2010). However, we did not
propose specific hypotheses concerning gender differences
because reviews in this regard summarize that prior
research has been inconsistent (Davies & Lindsay, 2001;
Snyder, 1998), with studies showing higher reactivity in
girls (Shelton, Harold, Goeke-Morey, & Cummings,
2006), in boys (David & Murphy, 2004), or no gender
effects (Goeke-Morey, Cummings, & Papp, 2007). A con-
servative analytic stance was adopted; two-tailed tests of
significance were used throughout.
Method
Participants
Participants were mother–child dyads recruited by means
of advertisements in local newspapers or magazines and a
letter to parents in local schools. Inclusion criteria for
participation were the child being between 11 and
13 years of age, that both mother and child were fluent
in German, and that they were living together with the
child’s father or stepfather in the same household. N =60
children (30 boys and 30 girls) participated in this study.
Three outliers (>3 SD above the mean) with regard to
attention performance had been removed from the initial
sample because these data points were not compatible
with the remaining data. According to the test manual of
the attention task used in this study cases for which there
is a large gap in the value of performance from the
remainder cannot be meaningfully interpreted due to
potential simulation or comprehension problems
(Brickenkamp, Schmidt-Atzert, & Liepmann, 2010). The
average age of children was 11.67 years (SD = .71).
Seventy percent of the children attended elementary
school, 23% secondary school, and 7% another type of
regular school. Most (95%) were living together with both
biological parents, only three children were living with
their biological mother and a stepfather since toddler age.
The average level of interparental conflict reported by the
children was M = 1.98 (SD = .72, range = 1.00–3.38),
assessed on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (never)
to 5 (very often) (Gödde & Walper, 2001). Ninety-seven
percent of parents were married, 3% cohabitated. Mean
parental relationship duration was M = 18.58 years
(SD = 4.25, range = 10–28 years). Mothers were primarily
Swiss (82%), 7% were Germans, and 11% were from
other countries, but all were fluent in German. Five per-
cent completed secondary school, 45% graduated voca-
tional school, and 50% attained higher educational
qualification, respectively. The majority of the mothers
(83%) reported to have a pretax annual family income of
about CHF 80,000 (approximately 89,740$), which is at
the level of the national mean income of Switzerland
couple households (CHF 81,000; Swiss Federal
Statistical Office, 2011).
Procedure
Interested mothers were screened by telephone and
received an informed consent for participation in the
study. Eligible children and their mothers were then
invited to our laboratory. After the introduction by the
Family Science 45
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investigator, mot hers were asked to sign the declaration of
consent and were instruct ed to wait in the next room.
Electrodes were then attached to the child’s nondominant
hand. Children’s SCL was first measured for a 3-min
baseline period (SCL-B). Pictures neutral in valence of
the International Affective Picture System (IAPS; Lang,
Bradley, & Cuthbert, 2008) which have been validated
concerning self-report and SCL (Lang, Greenwald,
Bradley, & Hamm, 1993 ) were shown during this period.
Next, SCL was recorded while children were viewing a
1-min video sequence (SCL-R) to which they were ran-
domly assigned (couple conflict vs. action film). Block
randomization was used to implement the random assign-
ment to condition in order to ensure an equal allocation to
both conditions. The person responsible for the random
assignment to condition was not involved in the assess-
ment of outcomes.
Group 1 (i.e. the couple conflict group; n = 29) was
exposed to a 1-min videot aped couple dispute characteri-
zed by intense verbal anger of the woman, complaining
about her husband’s lack of understanding of her daily
exhaustion and the husband’s highly defensive reaction.
The argument ended in escalation with shouting by the
wife and a display of contempt by the husband. Children
of group 2 (i.e. the action film group; n = 31) watched a 1-
min sequence of an action film appropriate to children’s
age. The sequence showed two kids fleeing from police-
men in a racing car. In this sequence no interpersonal
aspects were present, but there were perceptually salient
visual change, hectic sound, high speed, and physical
movement. Prior to and after video exposure, all children
completed the d2-R test of attention (Brickenkamp et al.,
2010).
At the end, all children were thoroughly debriefed.
They were told that conflicts were common in normal
families but that constructive conflict resolutions were
important. The debriefing happened first alone, then with
the mother present. Participants were not rewarded finan-
cially. However, each mother was given a DVD of the
Couples Coping Enhancement Training (CCET;
Bodenmann, Schaer, & Gmelch, 2008), a self-directed
marital distress prevention tool, and they were able to
obtain a study report. The children received a bag of
sweets and a certificate for study participation.
Measures
Children’s perception of interparental conflict
The subscale Persisting conflict of the German short ver-
sion of the CPIC Scale (Gödde & Walper, 2001; originally
developed by Grych, Seid, & Fincham, 1992) was used to
assess the children’s perceptions of the frequency and
conflict resolution of parental conflicts. A largely consis-
tent factor structure to the original of the CPIC and good
psychometric properties have been shown for the German
version (Gödde & Walper, 2001). Children completed the
eight items (e.g. ‘My parents are mean to each other’;
‘When my parents disagree about something, they usually
come up with a solution’) on a 5-point Likert scale ran-
ging from 1 (never) to 5 (very often). Internal consistency
for the Persisting conflict subscale was α = .86 in the
current study.
Attention performance
The d2-R test of attention (Brickenkamp et al., 2010) was
used to assess children’s attention performance. This
paper–pencil test consists of 14 rows each of 57 characters
(‘p’ and ‘d’ with one to four dashes above and/or below
each letter), whereby the first and the last row are not
included in the final scoring of outcome measures. All ‘d’
with two dashes are target symbols. The subjects were
asked to cancel as many target symbols as possible within
20 seconds per row. Total test time is 4ʹ40ʺ without pause
between test rows. The manual provides several process-
ing measures according to standardized formulae.
Concentration (total characters correctly processed minus
errors of commission) and accuracy (error ratio, i.e. false-
positive errors and errors of omission divided by the total
characters processed) were calculated in this study since
all other parameters enter in these two formulae. It should
be noted that low scores on error ratio imply high
accuracy.
The d2 test is a very popular and frequently used
attention task in German-speaking countries. Cronbach’s
alpha within the relevant age range were α = .82–.86
regarding accuracy and α = .92–.95 with regard to con-
centration (Brickenkamp et al., 2010). The authors had
already pointed out in previous editions that considerable
training effects are to be expected (Brickenkamp, 2002),
which has been con firmed empirically (Bühner, Ziegler,
Bohnes, & Lauterbach, 2006). It there fore had to be
assumed that all children would enhance performance
from pre- to post-measurement but to different degrees.
Skin conductance level reactivity
SCL was measured for a 3-min baseline period (SCL-B)
and continuous ly throughout stimulus exposure (SCL-R)
using two Ag-AgCl electrodes filled with isotonic elec-
trode gel (0.5% saline in a neutral base). Two electrodes
were placed on the volar surfaces of the distal phalanges
of the first and second fingers of the children’s nondomi-
nant hand having been washed with pure water. An SCL
response amplifier using a constant voltage (0.5 V) tech-
nique and a 16-channel A/D converter were used to
amplify and digitize the signals. The AcqKnowledge
data acquisition and analysis software (Biopac Systems,
Inc.) collected SCL assessments at a rate of 1000 readings
46 M. Zemp et al.
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per second. Averages (expressed in microsiemens) for
SCL-B and SCL-R were calculated. SCL data were not
available for four children because of equipment failure or
measurement artifacts. These children were excluded from
the whole study.
Results
Descriptive analyses
Descriptive statistics of the study variables are presented
in Table 1. As it is immanent in data of repeated measures,
high correlations wer e found between the repeated mea-
sures concerning children’s physiological reactivity and
attention performance in the present study. Random
assignment could be considered as succes sful since no
significant group differences among the variable means
at prestimulus assessment were present (see t-tests in
Table 1). Additionally, a chi-square test was computed in
order to assure that boys and girls were equally distributed
across the two experimental conditions (χ(1) = 2.11; ns).
Children’s reactivity to video exposure
In order to test the group-by-time interactions, a series of
repeated meas ures analyses of covariance (ANCOVA)
were computed with different dependent variables accord-
ing to the study hypotheses, that is, SCL-B, accuracy, and
concentration performance in the attention task prior to
film exposure as premeasurement and SCL-R, accuracy,
and concentration performance after stimulus exposure as
post-measurement, respectively. We controlled for chil-
dren’s gender as a between-subjects factor and CPIC (i.e.
Persisting conflict) as a covariate.
As listed in Table 2, the first hypothesis was supported
by a significant 2 (couple conflict vs. action film) × 2
Table 1. Means, standard deviations, correlations, and t-tests for comparing group means among study variables.
12345 6 7
Group 1
Mean (SD)
Group 2
Mean (SD) t
1. Age – 11.76 (.69) 11.58 (.72) .98
2. Persisting conflict .16 – 2.05 (.65) 1.90 (.77) −1.48
3. SCL-B −.16 −.10 – 10.28 (3.28) 9.89 (3.68) .42
4. SCL-R −.18 −.05 .84*** – 11.57 (3.44) 13.14 (4.50) −1.47
5. Accuracy (pre) .01 −.13 −.20 −.11 – 5.80 (4.24) 8.06 (8.35) −1.34
6. Accuracy (post) .01 −.11 −.14 −.12 .65*** – 4.31 (3.84) 3.47 (3.62) .87
7. Concentration (pre) .33* −.01 .19 .03 −.54*** −.33** – 128.31 (23.44) 122.42 (26.21) .92
8. Concentration (post) .32* −.07 .10 −.05 −.30* −.21 .92*** 155.76 (26.55) 154.00 (30.65) .24
Notes: Group 1 = couple conflict group; Group 2 = action film group; SCL-B = skin conductance level baseline; SCL-R = skin conductance level
reactivity. *p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001.
Table 2. Multivariate results of the repeated measures ANCOVA.
Pillai F df 1 df 2 p η
p
2
I. Skin conductance
Time .06 3.19 1 52 .08 .06
Time * Persisting conflict .02 1.10 1 52 .30 .02
Time * Group .22 14.63 1 52 .00 .22
Time * Sex .02 .81 1 52 .37 .02
Time * Group * Sex .00 .00 1 52 .95 .00
II. Accuracy performance
Time .03 1.81 1 55 .18 .03
Time * Persisting conflict .00 .10 1 55 .76 .00
Time * Group .10 6.07 1 55 .02 .10
Time * Sex .02 1.30 1 55 .26 .02
Time * Group * Sex .03 1.52 1 55 .22 .03
III. Concentration performance
Time .52 59.14 1 55 .00 .52
Time * Persisting conflict .02 1.00 1 55 .32 .02
Time * Group .02 1.12 1 55 .29 .02
Time * Sex .03 1.65 1 55 .20 .03
Time * Group * Sex .00 .11 1 55 .74 .00
Notes: Time = Measurements prior to and after stimulus exposure; Persisting conflict = children’s perception of interparental conflict; Group = couple
conflict vs. action film; Sex = child’s gender.
Family Science 47
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(SCL-B vs. SCL-R) interaction indicating that the action
stimulus induced significantly higher physiological arou-
sal than the couple con flict (F(1,52) = 14.63; p < 0.001;
η
p
2
= .22). No other main or interaction effects achieved
significant values in this analysis (H1 confirmed).
As expected due to general training effects in the
attention task, children in both groups improved their
performance in the d2-R test from pre to post; however,
concerning accuracy, there was a significant g roup × time
effect (F(1,55) = 6.07; p < .05; η
p
2
= .10). In accordance
with our hypothesis 2, children exposed to the couple
conflict improved their accuracy performance after video
exposure compared to prior to the stimulus to a lesser
extent than children exposed to the action film indicating
more serious cognitive interference by the couple conflict
(H2 confirmed). Regarding the concentration performance
in the attention task, all children improved significantly
from pre- to post-measurement (F(1,55) = 59.14; p < .001;
η
p
2
= .52), but the pre– post change in the couple conflict
group did not differ from the action film group
(F(1,55) = 1.12; ns). Hypothesis 3 was therefore not con-
firmed. The two-way interactions between child’s gender
and time or the three-way interactions between child’s
gender, time, and group were nonsignificant in all
analyses.
Discussion
In the current study, children’s performance in an attention
task was assessed prior to and immediately after a video-
based stress inducing stimulus (either couple conflict or
action film) and children’s physiological reactivity (i.e.
SCL) was measured throughout video exposure. While
taking into account that our findings are preliminary due
to the relatively small sample size, we found significant
evidence that a 1-min couple conflict interfered detrimen-
tally in children’s cognitive functioning on the level of
accuracy performance in the attention task, even after
controlling for CPIC at home. To the best of our knowl-
edge, this study contributes to the pertinent literature by
providing the first empirical test of short-term resource
allocation owing to marital conflict. The presen t results
are particularly notewort hy since effects were rigorously
tested comparing them with a sequence of an action film, a
conservative control stimulus in this context given that it
induced significantly more physiological arousal than the
couple conflict. Previous research underlined the signifi-
cant association between exposure to arousing television
programs and child’s cognitive impairments in both short-
tem (Lang et al., 1999; Lillard & Peterson, 2011) and
longitudinally (Landhuis, Poulton, Welch, & Hancox,
2007; Swing, Gentile, Anderson, & Walsh, 2010).
While we cannot reveal from our data what underlying
psychological mechanisms may be involved, results match
theoretical frameworks. Con ceptions offered by the EST
(Davies & Cummings, 1994) and resource allocation mod-
els (e.g. Kahneman, 1973 ) suggest that children’s emo-
tional insecurity elicited by a simulated parental conflict
places demands on their central resources, and thus task
performance (in this instance, atte ntion performance) may
deteriorate. Strong support for this hypothesis was
recently provided by two studies: (i) Davies et al. (2013)
reported that toddlers’ insecurity in the interparental rela-
tionship predicted failure in stage-salient tasks 1 year later,
which was linked to their subsequent behavior problems
and (ii) it was established that emotional insecurity follow-
ing interparental discord disrupts children’s adjustment in
school longitudinally by undermining their ability to focus
and sustain attention (Davies et al., 2008 ). Our study
added substantial evidence to these emerging lines of
research by confirming short-term attention impairment
following exposure to a couple conflict within an experi-
mental approach. A major plausible reason for this could
be that thoughts and concerns about family stability
assume primacy in children’s cognitive functioning, lead-
ing to an inability to focus concentration in other contexts.
It must be assumed, thus, that parental conflicts are a
potential cause for attention problems in children.
However, it is worth mentioning again that results
were not consistent across both task outcomes, indi cating
that performed accuracy was affected but concentration
was not. One explanation might be that training effects
in the d2 test are particularly observable with regard to
concentration (Bühner et al., 2006) and this measure
seems to be much more robust which is reflected in its
resistance to falsification (Brickenkamp et al., 2010). In
the current context, this fact could have made the concen-
tration measure less amenable to the impact of the
observed couple argument. On the other hand, accuracy
may be more influenced by affects and cognitive processes
and therefore exposure to experimental stimuli yielded
stronger effects on this variable.
The findings reported in the present study are intri-
guing for several reasons. First, previous studies
revealed that children’s history of interparental discord
might be crucial i n predicting cognitive distortion fol-
lowing conflict exposure (Medina et al., 2000;O’Brien
&Chin,1998). In this study, however, we were able to
show that watching a short display of interadult anger is
as such disturbing to children, independent of their back-
ground of family conflicts. Second, it is remarkable that
an impact of interparental conflict on children’s accuracy
was found even though the stimulus presentation was
only of very short duration (i.e. 1 min). Considering that
interparental conflicts in the family context usually last
longer and chronic marital discord is particularly harmful
for children’s well-being, it can be assumed that the
effects of parents’ disputes in family daily routine
might be considerably stronger. Third, the impact of
the children’s own parents’ conflicts may be much
48 M. Zemp et al.
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higher than effects of an unfamiliar videotaped couple as
it was used in this study. Fourth, previous research
indicated that interparental discord characterized by phy-
sical or verbal aggression is the most detrimental
(Cummings, Vogel, Cummings, & El-Sheikh, 1989 ).
Thus, it is noteworthy that our stimulus, representing
an angry but not hostile, aggressive or violent interaction
already showed such strong effects. As conflicts at home
are often characterized by aggression or violence (in
Switzerland 24% of women experience physical aggres-
sion at least one time during th eir l ifetime ( Gillioz, De
Puy, & D ucret, 1997)), again effects in real life are likely
to be more salient. Fifth, as children often are the subject
of the conflict (e.g. Papp, Cumm ings, & Goeke-Morey,
2002) or actively engage in parental conflicts by playing
an active part in family confl ict situations (Jenkins,
Smith, & Graham, 1989), effects may be more pro-
nounced in real family life than in the lab where there
was no involvement of the child in t he c onflict.
On the other hand, several limitations of this study
merit discussion. First, the experi mental design allows
high internal validity but potentially reduces external
validity. Children’s reactions to marital conflict stimuli in
the laboratory are not equivalent to responses to dispu tes
between their parents at home. Second, the present study
used a conflict-unrelated stimulus without any adult inter-
action as control condition in order to avoid negative
reactivity in children due to potential classical condition-
ing of interparental conflict following children’s family
history. To compare a marital dispute with either a dis-
agreement among peers or siblings or with a constructive
or neutral interparental conversation is therefore an impor-
tant future research direction. Third, since experimentally
in nature, this study focused on short-termed effects of
parental conflict on child’s attention performance.
Although Davies et al. (2008) reported attention difficul-
ties to be one of the pathogenic processes in the impact of
interparental discord on child’s school adjustment, we
cannot establish from our data whether the presented
mechanisms might undermine children’s development
(most likely, their academic performance) in the longer
term. In a simil ar vein, though considerations from
different theoretical assumptions were discussed to inter-
pret our findings, they were not directly tested. Thus,
additional studies employing more sophisticated research
designs, including longitudinal data, are needed. Fourth,
the trainings effects inherent to the attention task used in
this study make interpretation of results more complex.
The application of a task with available parallel forms
would have been more advantageous. Fifth, given the
nature of the study a self-selection bias in terms of over-
representation of well-adjusted families has to be assumed
which limits the generalizability of results. However, this
could also mean that even stronger effects might be
expected in a more representative community sample
including also more families with low income and poorer
education.
Conclusion
Taken toget her, our study added to the evidence that
interparental conflict deserves particular consideration in
explaining attention problems in children. The current
findings are alarming considering that the impact of the
analog conflict stimulus used in this study may be minor
in comparison with frequent and intense pa rental disputes
in real family life. If replicated elsewhere in larger sample
sizes and more sophisticated research designs including
observational measures in the family context, our findings
have several practical implications. Rather than exclu-
sively improve parenting and child-rearing abil ities in
parents, prevention, and intervention programs concerning
child maladjustment should further stress the enhancement
of the parental relationship itself (Emery, Fincham, &
Cummings, 1992). Authors have already pointed toward
the relevance of early prevention on the parents’ level in
this context (Heinrichs, Bodenmann, & Hahlweg, 2008).
There is increasing evidence that relationship education
with an emphasis on confl
ict communication is effective
in reducing psychological problems in children as has
been shown, for instance, in the context of the CCET
(e.g. Bodenmann, Cina, Ledermann, & Sanders, 2008).
Although further research is urgently needed, the present
findings on the significance of couple’s relationships for
children’s attention problems are promising.
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