family journal

Journal of Family Psychology2001, Vol. 15, No. 1, 3-21

Copyright 2001 by the American Psychological Association, Inc.0893-3200/01/35.00 DOI: 1O.1O37//0893-32O0.15.1.3

Coparenting: A Link Between Marital Conflict andParenting in Two-Parent Families

Gayla Margolin, Elana B. Gordis, and Richard S. JohnUniversity of Southern California

Coparenting is examined as an explanatory link between marital conflict andparent-child relations in 2-parent families. Data were collected from 3 samples(pilot sample, n = 220 mothers; preadolescent sample, n = 75 couples; preschoolsample, n = 172 couples) by using the Coparenting Questionnaire (G. Margolin,1992b) to assess parents' perceptions of one another on 3 dimensions—cooperation, triangulation, and conflict. Main effects for child's age and for parents'gender were found for cooperation, and an interaction between parent and childgender was found for triangulation. Regression analyses were consistent with amodel of coparenting mediating the relationship between marital conflict andparenting. Discussion addresses the theoretical and clinical importance of viewingcoparenting as conceptually separate from other family processes.

Coparenting may be the most daunting yetsignificant experience that two adults share. It isthrough this relationship that parents negotiatetheir respective roles, responsibilities, and con-tributions to their children. This relationship ischaracterized by the extent to which parentseither support or undermine one another's par-enting efforts. When parents divorce, the co-parenting relationship often is the only arena in

Gayla Margolin, Elana B. Gordis, and Richard S.John, Department of Psychology, University ofSouthern California.

Preparation of the manuscript was supported byNational Institute of Mental Health Grants 1 RO136595 and 10947.

Earlier versions of these data were presented at theUniversity of Washington Conference on "Toward aCommon Definition of a Successful Couple: Criteriafor Evaluating Couple Interventions," Seattle, De-cember 1997, and at the 4th International Conferenceon Children Exposed to Family Violence, San Diego,October 1998.

We wish to thank Leslie Morland, Betsy Morris,Victoria Van Wie, and our University of SouthernCalifornia Family Studies Center colleagues for theirassistance in collecting these data.

Correspondence concerning this article should beaddressed to Gayla Margolin, Department of Psy-chology, SGM 930, University of Southern Califor-nia, Los Angeles, California 90089-1061. Electronicmail may be sent to [email protected].

which the parents continue to relate. Accordingto Aydintug (1995), parents are "expected todiscuss children, to reach major child-relateddecisions together, to keep to themselves whathappened between them, not to share privatematters with (especially younger) children, notto badmouth each other, not to fight in front ofthe children, not to manipulate children to ob-tain favors from the former spouse" (p. 152).The coparenting relationship has been identifiedas an important key to understanding children'simmediate reactions to divorce and their well-being following divorce (Buchanan, Maccoby,& Dornbusch, 1991; Dozier, Sollie, Stack, &Smith, 1993; Garrity & Baris, 1994; Maccoby,Depner, & Mnookin, 1990).

Although coparenting has played a lessprominent role in theories about two-parentfamilies as contrasted with postdivorce families,this relationship surely deserves attention in un-derstanding influences within the family sys-tem. When parents reside together, as opposedto separately, additional arenas exist for effec-tive coparenting, such as assisting each otherwith parenting responsibilities, lending supportto the other's authority, and conveying an at-mosphere of mutual respect and affection. Assuggested by Belsky, Crnic, and Gable (1995),coparenting may help to unravel the connec-tions between marriage, parenting, and childadjustment. In this study we examined whether

MARGOLIN, GORDIS, AND JOHN

coparenting mediates the association betweenthe marital relationship and parent-child rela-tions. We explored a mediating effect for twodimensions of parenting: overall parentingstress and specific caretaking behaviors. In ad-dition, in this investigation we introduced aquestionnaire for assessing spouses' coparent-ing from the perspective of each spouse, and weexamined whether dimensions of coparentingvary as a function of parents' gender, child'sgender, and age of child.

Increasing attention is being paid to the waysthat relationships affect one another within theoverall family unit (Hinde & Stevenson-Hinde,1988; Margolin, Christensen, & John, 1996;Parke, 1993), with particular attention beingpaid to the association between marital relationsand parent-child relations. Family systems lit-erature highlights the link between marital ad-justment and parenting, and several reviews(Easterbrooks & Emde, 1988; Engfer, 1988)have supported the hypothesis that marital qual-ity is associated with parenting quality. Erel andBurman's (1995) meta-analysis of 68 studiesportrayed a spill-over, or transfer, of mood,affect, and interactional style from the maritalrelationship to parent-child relationships. Al-though effects from parenting to the marriageare not ruled out, most theories point to waysthat the marital relationship has a positive or anegative effect on parenting (e.g., Belsky, 1984;Christensen & Margolin, 1988; Easterbrooks &Emde, 1988; Engfer, 1988). Little is knownabout the mechanisms underlying this associa-tion. We suggest here that the coparenting alli-ance, or how spouses relate around issues andfunctions of parenting, may mediate the associ-ation between marital and parent-child rela-tionships. That is, coparenting may be a linkthat explains the relation between marital func-tioning and parenting. Specifically, conflict inthe marriage may spill over and be reflected inthe coparenting relationship, which, in turn, af-fects the level of efficacy and the amount ofstress experienced in the parenting relationship.

Coparenting is not simply one dimension ofthe marital relationship, but conceptually playsa distinct role in the family system. Accordingto Gable, Belsky, and Crnic (1992), coparentingis a dimension characterizing the family system,not just a dyadic system. A major differencebetween coparenting and marital relationshipsis that effective coparenting is motivated by

concern for the welfare of the child, whereas astrong marital relationship is motivated by con-cern for the welfare of the partner, for oneself,or for the two-person marital relationship. Cer-tainly feelings toward the spouse are likely toinfluence the coparenting relationship such thatgood marital relations are reflected in positivecoparenting and bad marital relations are re-flected in negative coparenting. However, con-ceptual and clinical perspectives would suggestthe possibility of differentiation between themarriage and coparenting, particularly for con-flictual couples and their children. Some con-flictual couples, motivated by a desire to protecttheir children from repeated exposure to inter-parental conflict, collaborate in child rearingregardless of their strong feelings of disdain andanimosity toward one another. Thus, despiteanticipated overlap between the marriage andcoparenting, the potential for separation be-tween these two constructs is relevant for un-derstanding the impact of marital conflict onparenting. To the extent that marital conflict andcoparenting are distinct, coparenting may helpexplain the association between marital conflictand parenting. Coparenting is a likely interven-ing variable because the collaboration betweenspouses specifically with regard to parentingmay influence the way parents interact withtheir children and the parenting stress theyexperience.

Coparenting is also different from what fre-quently is referred to as marital conflict aboutchild-related topics. Considerable evidence ex-ists that marital conflict about child-related top-ics is more salient for children than is generalmarital conflict (Grych & Fincham, 1993;Jouriles et al., 1991; Mahoney, Jouriles, &Scavone, 1997). Coparenting conflict, however,not only encompasses conflict about the chil-dren or even overt marital conflict observed bychildren, but also encompasses spouses' under-mining of one another's parenting efforts. Al-though the coparenting relationship frequentlyis reflected in dyadic processes between the twoparents, it may also be demonstrated in the wayone parent talks about the other parent to thechild. One parent may support or sabotage theother parent regardless of whether the secondparent is present. As such, indexes of generalmarital conflict, overt marital conflict that thechild observes, or even child-specific marital

COPARENTING, MARITAL ADJUSTMENT, AND PARENTING

conflict do not fully capture the coparentingconstruct.

Similarly, sensitive coparenting goes beyondgood parenting. Cowan and McHale (1996)stated that coparenting "is uniquely character-ized by the parents' connection as parents (aconnection that endures even if the marriagedoes not). A well-functioning coparental rela-tionship accomplishes parenting tasks but alsoconveys to the child a sense of solidarity andcommon purpose" (p. 99). Thus, a parent maydisplay excellent child management skills and ahigh level of emotional responsiveness to achild but still be disparaging of the other partnerto the child. Measurements of parenting, whichgenerally focus on discipline style, emotionalattunement, and specific caretaking behaviorstypically do not assess the coparenting dimen-sion of family relations.

On the basis of our reading of the coparentingliterature regarding divorced families as well astwo-parent families, we chose to highlight threegeneral dimensions of coparenting. One dimen-sion is the amount of conflict between parentssurrounding parenting issues, specifically interms of how often the parents argue or disagreeabout the child, how much hostility there issurrounding child-rearing issues, how mucheach parent undermines the other's parenting,and how much they disagree about overall stan-dards and household rules (Gable et al., 1992;Maccoby, Buchanan, Mnookin, & Dornbusch,1993). A second dimension, cooperation, is theextent to which mothers and fathers support,value, and respect each other as parents and thedegree to which they ease one another's parent-ing burden (Frank, Hole, Jacobson, Justkowski,& Huyck, 1986; Weissman & Cohen, 1985).Cooperation reflects a shared sense of the re-sponsibilities of parenting and assurance thatthe partner is physically and emotionally avail-able to the child. Belsky and colleagues (Bel-sky, 1984; Belsky & Volling, 1986) have sug-gested that the instrumental and emotionalsupport that spouses provide for each other maybe a key factor in effective parenting.

The third coparenting dimension, triangula-tion, reflects the extent to which parents distortparent-child boundaries by attempting to forma coalition with the child that undermines orexcludes the other parent. This process drawschildren into the parents' conflict through pres-sure by one parent to side against the other

(Minuchin, Rosman, & Baker, 1978). The di-vorce literature describes children's experienceof being "caught between," such that one parentencourages the child not to comply with theother parent or sends communications to theother parent via the child rather than directly(Garrity & Baris, 1994; Maccoby et al., 1993).Adolescents' reports of feeling "caught be-tween" parents are related to parents' overalllevels of conflict and to the adolescents' ownindexes of maladjustment (Buchanan et al.,1991). Even children who are residing with bothparents may feel pressure to form an alliancewith one parent against the other or to delivermessages from one parent to the other.

Research on coparenting, as well as on par-enting roles more generally, shows that co-parenting may be affected by children's age,parents' gender, and children's gender. Mac-coby et al. (1990, 1993) reported that familieswith younger children were more likely to beconflicted, whereas those with older childrenwere more likely to be disengaged. The co-parenting of younger children, compared withthat of older children, may require a higher levelof cooperation and teamwork to meet themoment-to-moment demands of parentingyoung children. The parents of older children,on the other hand, may be more likely to engagein triangulation because successfully enlistingthe child as an ally against the other spouse mayrequire a certain level of verbal skill and emo-tional maturity on the part of the child. Al-though children's age has received some atten-tion in studies of divorced families, it has notreceived similar attention in studies of coparent-ing in two-parent families. In the present studywe included parents of preschool children andparents of preadolescent children to examinewhether coparenting varies by children's age.

Mothers and fathers may function differentlyin the coparenting relationship. Floyd andZmich (1991) found that mothers rated the par-enting alliance less positively than did fathersamong parents of mentally impaired children aswell as among parents of normally developingchildren. The authors attributed this finding tothe view that mothers generally carry a heavierload of parenting responsibilities. Russell andRussell (1994) similarly indicated that mothersreport more overall involvement with their chil-dren than do fathers. These studies imply thatmothers, compared with fathers, may be higher


on the cooperation dimension of coparentingbut do not suggest differences on either conflictor triangulation. Parents' gender has also beenidentified as a potentially important variable inthe linkage between marital relations and par-enting. Individual studies indicate that negativemarital relations are associated with negativerelations in the father-child relationship morethan in the mother-child relationship (Belsky,Youngblade, Rovine, & Volling, 1991; Brody,Arias, & Fincham, 1996; Jouriles & Farris,1992; Margolin, John, Ghosh, & Gordis, 1996),although this gender difference did not hold upin Erel and Burman's (1995) meta-analysis. Tofurther explore differences based on parents'gender, in the present study we comparedmothers' and fathers' coparenting ratings andseparately examined, for mothers and fathers,coparenting as a mediator between marital con-flict and parent-child relations.

In this study we also explored whether co-parenting varies as a function of the child's gen-der. Data from divorced families indicate thatgirls, more than boys, are likely to feel caughtbetween parents or triangulated (Buchanan etal., 1991). Some studies on two-parent familiesindicate that parental agreement about standardsof behavior is higher for sons than it is fordaughters (Russell & Russell, 1994), althoughother studies show no differences based on thechild's gender (Lamb, Hwang, & Broberg,1989). Moreover, links between the marriageand other dimensions of the family system arenot necessarily the same for boys and girls.McHale (1995) reported that high marital dis-tress is reflected in conflictual coparenting infamilies with boys but is reflected in discrepan-cies in parental engagement in families withgirls. Moreover, a poor parenting alliance isassociated with increases in negativity in thefather-daughter relationship but not in thefather-son relationship (Floyd, Gilliom, &Costigan, 1998).

In the present study we introduced the Co-parenting Questionnaire (CQ; Margolin, 1992b),which is used to assess spouses' perceptions ofone another as coparents. Previous assessmentsof coparenting have been obtained through thefollowing: (a) indirect reports of coparenting,for example, spousal similarity versus discrep-ancy scores on child-rearing practices and atti-tudes (Russell & Russell, 1994); (b) direct ob-servation of support versus undermining in

time-limited family interaction, usually withvery young children (Belsky et al., 1995; Katz& Gottman, 1996; McHale, 1995); (c) chil-dren's reports of marital conflict or triangu-lation (Grych, Seid, & Fincham, 1992); (d) in-terviews on a wide range of coparentingdimensions (Maccoby et al., 1990); and (e) sub-scales of larger parenting questionnaires, forexample, the General Alliance scale of the Fam-ily Experiences Questionnaire (Frank et al.,1991). Abidin and Brunner (1995) developed abrief questionnaire that assesses support andinvolvement with the child in the coparentingalliance but does not measure overt conflict ortriangulation. McHale (1997) also developed abrief questionnaire that measures behaviors thatreflect family integrity, disparagement of thepartner, overt conflict, and coparental disci-pline, but does not include triangulation. Ourobjective was to include cooperation, triangula-tion, and conflict in a brief questionnaire thatstandardizes, streamlines, and focuses exclu-sively on the assessment of coparenting. Theprocedures we used in this study rely on spousesas reporters of the coparenting relationship andreflect the assumption that parents can providethe most comprehensive perspective of co-parenting. As with many marital conflict andfamily assessment measures, we used individualperceptions to measure the family systems phe-nomenon of coparenting.

In the present study we first examined theassociation between parents' perceptions of co-parenting and reports by children and outsideobservers on related constructs. We then exam-ined coparenting as a function of children's age,parents' gender, and children's gender. Next,we evaluated whether coparenting mediates therelationship between marital conflict and par-enting. We assumed that coparenting is an in-tervening variable that helps explain the associ-ation between marital conflict and parenting.The extent to which one spouse underminesversus supports the other's parenting is likely toaffect the second spouse's experience of stressin the parent-child relationship and his or heractual parenting practices. We explored the fol-lowing specific hypotheses: (a) the coparentingdimensions of conflict and cooperation will berated higher by parents of preschool, comparedwith preadolescent, children; (b) conflict will behigher in parents of boys, whereas triangulationwill be higher in parents of girls, particularly in


the preadolescent sample; (c) mothers will behigher on cooperation than will be fathers; and(d) coparenting will mediate the relationshipbetween marital conflict and parenting.

Table 1Demographics of the Three Samples

Method

Participants

Data for this study were obtained from three com-munity samples of two-parent families. The firstgroup, the pilot sample, involved 220 mothers with-out their partners and was used only to explore themultidimensional structure of the coparenting mea-sure. The second and third groups, the preadolescentsample (n = 75 families) and the preschool sample(n = 172 families), involved both spouses of thecouple and were used to test the relationship betweenchild's age, child's gender, and parents' gender andthe coparenting dimensions. The preadolescent sam-ple additionally was used to examine the associationof the coparenting measure with measures from otherreporters, whereas the preschool sample was addi-tionally used to test whether there was support forcoparenting mediating the relationship between mar-ital adjustment and parenting. Table 1 provides asummary of the demographic characteristics of thethree samples.

Pilot sample of mothers. The pilot sample in-cluded 220 mothers who brought their children (146girls, 74 boys) to a toy manufacturer to participate inproduct testing. Because the mothers had unstruc-tured time while their children were in another roomplaying with a new toy, we left a stack of blankquestionnaires that parents could choose to complete.An information sheet indicated that these question-naires would be used as part of a study on howparents work out their joint parenting roles. Partici-pation in this study was entirely voluntary and en-tailed no direct contact with the experimenter.Mothers who chose to fill out the questionnaires wereincluded in this sample as long as they also met thefollowing criteria: (a) had a child 4 to 9 years old; (b)were reporting on a biological child; (c) were cur-rently married; and (d) completed each item of thequestionnaire.

Preadolescent parent sample. Participants were75 families (40 girls, 35 boys) who were part of alarger study on family interaction and were recruitedthrough public notices and flyers announcing a studyon family communication and interaction. This largerstudy involved two stages, and the 75 families werepart of those who were invited and agreed to partic-ipate in the second phase. (See Margolin, John, andFoo [1998] for further details about the sample atStage 1, and Gordis, Margolin, and John [1997] fordetails about the sample at Stage 2.) Although 90families participated in Stage 2, the CQ was corn-

Demographic variable M SD

Pilot mothers sample(n = 220; 146 girls, 74 boys)

Girls' age 6.5 1.4Boys' age 6.5 1.4Mothers' age 36.3 4.4Years together with partner 11.3 3.7

Preadolescent parent samplea

(n = 75 families; 40

Girls' ageBoys' ageMothers' ageFathers' ageYears together with partnerMonthly income ($)

Preschool parent(n = 172 families; 92

Girls' ageBoys' ageMothers' ageFathers' ageYears together with partnerMonthly income ($)

girls, 35 boys)

11.211.439.942.816.3

4,656.7

sample1"

1.11.24.96.03.9

2,239.2

girls, 80 boys)

5.04.9

33.736.29.6

3,945.8

0.60.65.56.23.5

2,305.2a 67% Caucasian, 24% African American/Black; 1%Latino, 2% Asian/Pacific Islander, 8% other/mixed.b 54% Caucasian, 16% African American/Black; 6%Latino, 2% Asian/Pacific Islander, 23% other/mixed.

pleted by the last 75 couples in the sample. At thetime of their participation in Stage 2, each couple hada child age 9 to 13 years old. Criteria for participationduring the initial phase included the following: (a)having a child age 8 to 11 years old inclusive; (b)both parents living in the home; (c) both parentsbiologically related to the child, or one nonbiologicalparent who has lived with the child since the childwas 2 years old; (d) both parents able to read andspeak English fluently; and (e) having a telephone inthe home. Families received $70 for participation inthe full Stage 2 procedures, which involved one lab-oratory visit.

Preschool parent sample. The 172 participantfamilies (92 girls, 80 boys) for this sample wererecruited through similar procedures as the preado-lescent sample and comprised a community sampleof volunteer families for a study on family relation-ships. To participate, families needed to meet thefollowing criteria: (a) having a child age 4 or 5 yearsold currently living with her or his biological parentsin a two-parent home; (b) both parents able to readand speak English fluently; and (c) having telephonein the home. For participating in the one laboratoryvisit, the family received $90.


Procedures

Participants in the pilot sample had only one ques-tionnaire to complete in addition to some basicdemographic information, whereas participants in thepreadolescent and preschool samples completed anumber of questionnaires. Participants were in-formed (verbally and in writing for the preadolescentand preschool samples and in writing only for thepilot sample) that they could choose to end theirparticipation and withdraw from the study at any timewith no penalty.

For the pilot sample, there was a stack of ques-tionnaires displayed along with other reading mate-rial in the waiting area of the product testing office ofa toy manufacturer. The 4-page packet, which in-cluded the CQ as well as some demographic ques-tions, was designed to take no more than 15 min tocomplete. Mothers who chose to fill out the packetsput the forms in a box upon completion.

For the preschool sample, parents were sent apacket of questionnaires, including the CQ, the twoparenting questionnaires, and an initial consent form,to be filled out at home prior to their lab meeting. Forboth the preschool and the preadolescent samples,after an initial introduction and lab based consentprocedures, spouses were seated in separate rooms tocomplete the questionnaires independently. A gradu-ate student researcher periodically checked in witheach spouse, answering any questions, reading aloudthe directions to the Domestic Conflict Index (DCI;Margolin, Burman, John, & O'Brien, 1990), andmaking sure that the participant understood the for-mat for responding to that questionnaire.

Procedures for the preadolescent sample also in-cluded a marital discussion that was coded by trainedobservers. As one component of a series of interac-tional tasks, each spouse was individually asked toidentify a child issue that was the source of seriousconcern in his or her household and about which thespouses disagreed. Spouses were then brought to-gether and instructed to spend 12 min discussing thetwo child-related topics. The discussion was video-taped and then coded by trained observers using theMarital Coding System (Gordis, Margolin, & Garcia,1996). Preadolescent children completed a number ofquestionnaires, including the Child's View Question-naire (Margolin, 1992a). This questionnaire was readaloud to children as they followed along to circum-vent any reading problems that the children mighthave.

Measures

CQ. The CQ was developed to assess variousdimensions of coparenting for parents currently liv-ing together. An item pool of 27 items was con-structed from interview questions from Maccoby'sStanford Child Custody Study interviews (Buchanan

et al., 1991; Maccoby et al., 1990; Maccoby &Mnookin, 1992). Each item begins "My spouse" andthen has a different ending (e.g., "uses our child toget back at me"; "undermines my parenting").Spouses rate each item on a 5-point scale {never,rarely, sometimes, usually, or always). On the basisof feedback from early use of the questionnaire, theinitial item pool was reduced to a questionnaire con-sisting of 14 items determined to be both usable andrepresentative of our definition of coparenting. Itemswere eliminated because of any of the followingreasons: (a) they were stated in an ambiguous fashion(3 items); (b) they appeared to measure parents'individual involvement in parenting rather than thedimension of cooperation (4 items); (c) they de-scribed a parenting style more than a coparentingquality (4 items); or (d) they had a different meaningfor male and female respondents (2 items). Each ofthe remaining 14 items, which are listed in Table 2,was interpretable to respondents and conceptually fitthe overall coparenting construct.

Coparenting scores reflect parents' perceptions ofone another. Thus, mothers' coparenting scores werederived from the fathers' questionnaires and, viceversa, fathers' coparenting scores reflected themothers' questionnaires. Parents were instructed tofill out the CQ with a specific child in mind. Mothersin the pilot sample completed the CQ with respect tothe child they brought in to do the product testing.Parents in the preadolescent and preschool familiesfilled out the CQ for their one child who participatedin the overall study, generally the oldest child withinthe designated age range.

Exploratory factor analysis was performed on the14 coparenting items with the pilot sample. The fac-tor scree plot of eigenvalues was consistent with ourexpectation that the 14 coparenting items could begrouped into a three-factor structure. The three ex-tracted factors accounted for 58% of the total vari-ance for the 14 coparenting items. As correlationsamong the three hypothesized factors of coparentingwere expected, an oblique transformation was ap-plied to the three-factor solution, resulting in threecorrelated factors accounting for 47% of the variance.Table 2 presents the factor pattern matrix of loadings.All 14 of the coparenting items were grouped into thethree factors, including 5 cooperation items, 4 trian-gulation items, and 5 conflict items. All items loadedgreater than .40 on one factor and less than .40 on theother two factors.

Table 3 presents data on the internal consistencyof the three factors. Cronbach alphas for the threefactors are presented for wives in the pilot sampleand for husbands and wives in the preadolescent andpreschool samples. Alphas ranging from .69 to .87reflect good internal consistency for the three factorsand the total scale.

To assess associations among the three factors,correlations between each pair of factors were run for


Table 2Rotated Factor Pattern Matrix of Loadings for the 14 Items of theCoparenting Questionnaire in the Pilot Sample

Coparenting factorItem Cooperation

.80

.77

.63

.50

.43- .03- .07

.12

- .10

- .03.04.04.16

- .12

Triangulation

- .04- .09

.35

.10- .08- .70- .69- .58

- .49

.09- .08- .17

.15- .34

Conflict

.04- .05

.13- .15- .38

.02- .05

.14

.15

.75

.62

.54- .47

.43

My spouse . . .tells me lots of things about this child,fills me in on what happens during this child's day.says nice things about me to this child,asks my opinion on issues related to parenting.a

shares the burden of discipline.says cruel or hurtful things about me in front of this child.'uses this child to get back at me.tries to get this child to take sides when we argue,delivers messages to me through this child rather than say

them to me.a

and I have different rules regarding food, chores, bedtimeor homework.8

and I have different standards for this child's behavior.11

argues with me about this child.a

supports my discipline decisions."undermines my parenting."

Note. Numbers in boldface represent factor loadings with absolute value > .40.a Item is adapted from a lecture by E. Maccoby at the 1990/1991 meeting of the Southern CaliforniaConsortium on Family and Social Development.

pilot sample wives, preschool and preadolescentsample wives, and preschool and preadolescent sam-ple husbands. The correlations between conflict andtriangulation for the three groups were .56, .56, and.52, respectively; the correlations between conflictand cooperation were —.48, —.47, and - . 5 1 , respec-tively; and the correlations between triangulationand cooperation were —.37, —.36, and —.45,respectively.

DCI. The DCI is a 51-item questionnaire assess-ing physical abuse, emotional abuse, and generalanger. Margolin et al. (1998) reported data reflectinggood test-retest reliability. This index was reportedfor the spouses in the preschool sample to testwhether the data were consistent with a modelwhereby coparenting mediates the relationship be-tween marital conflict and parenting. The index con-tains 26 general anger items (e.g., "screamed oryelled at your spouse" and "called your spouse

names"), 11 emotionally abusive items (e.g., "triedto prevent spouse from seeing/talking to familyor friends" and "purposely damaged or destroyedspouse's clothes, car, or other personal possessions"),and 14 physically abusive items including the 8 phys-ically abusive items found in the Conflict TacticsScale (Straus, 1979) as well as 6 additional items(e.g., "choked or strangled spouse," "physicallytwisted spouse's arm," and "physically forced sex onspouse").

Each respondent completed the entire listing ofDCI items with respect to the spouse's behavior andthen completed the items a second time with respectto his or her own behavior. After reading an individ-ual item, the respondent reported whether spouse orself ever had engaged in that behavior in the historyof the relationship ("yes" or "no"). For every itemendorsed with a "yes," the respondent then reportedhow many times the behavior occurred during the

Table 3Alphas for Coparenting Factors

Factor

CooperationTriangulationConflictTotal coparenting

Pilotsample

Husband

.80

.73

.79

.85

Preadolescentsample

Wife

.72

.80

.84

.84

Husband

.69

.84

.77

.87

Preschool sample

Wife

.73

.74

.74

.87

Husband

.77

.80

.82

.85

10 MARGOLIN, GORDIS, AND JOHN

past year, using the following six frequency ranges:none, 1 per year, 2 to 5 per year, 6 to 12 per year, 2to 4 per month, more than once per week. Eachfrequency range is assigned a rating between 0 and 5,reflecting how often the behavior occurred during thepast year. For the purposes of this study and tominimize error variance due to different reporters, weused only spouses' reports on each other. For parentsin the preschool sample, the mean conflict score, sum-ming across all items, for wives' reports on husbandswas 23.3 (SD = 20.3; range = 0 to 92), and forhusbands' reports on wives was 25.5 (SD = 24.1;range = 0 to 133); 51% of the couples reported somephysical aggression in the marriage in the previous year.

Parenting Stress Index (PSI). The PSI (Abidin,1986), completed by parents in the preschool sample,was developed to identify parent-child systems un-der stress. The instrument consists of 101 items, mostof which are answered through a 5-point scale rang-ing from strongly agree to strongly disagree. Reli-ability and validity data for this questionnaire areprovided in Abidin (1986). Abidin and Brunner(1995) reported modest associations between theirParenting Alliance Inventory and total PSI scores(-.26 for mothers and - .29 for fathers). One scale inthe parenting domain of the PSI, Relationship WithSpouse, shows an expected overlap with ParentingAlliance (—.45 for mothers and - .39 for fathers).

For this study, scores on the parenting domain ofthe PSI were used for an evaluation of parents' senseof comfort and competence in their parenting roles.Parenting domain subscales, scored in the directionof stress and dysfunction, include the following: (a)Depression (difficulty mobilizing psychological andphysical energy to fulfill parenting responsibilities);(b) Attachment (lack of emotional availability, close-ness, and bonding with the child); (c) Restriction ofRole (parenting role experienced as restricting par-ents' freedom and frustrating them); (d) Sense ofCompetence (sense of lacking knowledge or skillregarding parenting, or reinforcement from the par-enting role); (e) Social Isolation (lacking an emo-tional support system for parenting role); (f) ParentalHealth (deterioration in parental health as a result ofstress or an additional stressor in the parent-childsystem); and (g) Relationship With Spouse (lackingthe emotional and active support of the other parentin the child management). A parent domain scoregreater than or equal to 153 is considered high (Abi-din, 1986). Mean parent domain scores in the pre-school sample were 122.2 for mothers (SD = 23.7,range = 73 to 202) and 118.3 for fathers (SD = 23.0,range = 65 to 195). Toward the objective of concep-tually separating coparenting from parenting, the do-main of Relationship With Spouse was omitted fromall further analyses, resulting in slightly lower meanscores for mothers (M = 104.0, SD = 19.9, range =66 to 173) and fathers (M = 101.1, SD = 19.3,range = 59 to 168). For the preschool sample, alphas

on the total PSI scale (excluding Relationship WithSpouse) were .89 for wives and .90 for husbands.

Parenting Practices Questionnaire. The Parent-ing Practices Questionnaire (PPQ; Strayhorn &Weidman, 1988), completed by preschoolers' par-ents, is a 34-item self-report instrument of parents'patterns of interaction with their young children.Items on this questionnaire reflect the following typesof positive goal behaviors for parents of preschool-ers: (a) eliminate unnecessary commands; (b) enforcecommands that are given; (c) look for the positive;(d) do not inadvertently reward negative behavior; (e)expose the child to a high ratio of positive to negativemodels; (f) cultivate the ability to enjoy doing thingswith your child; (g) avoid harsh punishment; (h)be consistent in meeting the child's needs; and (i)avoid attributing negative traits to the child. Withhigh scores indicating positive parenting, Strayhorn(1989) reported mean scores for two preschool sam-ples of 140 (SD = 15.7) and 138 (SD = 15.0). For thepreschool sample examined in this study, the meanscores were 145.7 for mothers (SD = 12.5, range =105 to 173) and 142.4 for fathers (SD = 11.9,range = 106 to 168). Alphas on the PPQ for thissample were .77 for wives and .73 for husbands.

Child's View Questionnaire (Margolin, 1992a).This 45-item questionnaire assesses children's per-ceptions of various dimensions of their family pro-cess such as parents' conflict, triangulation of thechild, overall family chaos, parents' monitoring ofchild, time spent together, and emotional attunement.The child responds to each item using a 5-point scaleanchored at never and always. For purposes of vali-dating the CQ, the conflict and triangulation itemswere used in this study. Conflict items include thefollowing: "My parents argue or criticize each otherin front of me," "When one parent says 'no,' I can getmy other parent to say 'yes,' " and "My parents arguewith each other about me or things I do." Trian-gulation items were adapted from a lecture by E.Maccoby at the 1990/1991 meeting of the SouthernCalifornia Consortium on Family and Social Devel-opment; the items include the following: "My parentsask me to convey messages that they should saydirectly to each other," and "I feel caught in themiddle of my parents' disagreements." The meanscore for parents' conflict was 4.55 (SD = 2.55,range = 0 to 10) and for triangulation was 2.04(SD = 2.04, range = 0 to 8).

Marital Coding System (Gordis et al., 1996). Anobservational system was used to code dyadic maritalconflict discussions about a child-related topic by theparents of preadolescents. This coding system re-quires coders to judge each speaker turn for affect/style and verbal content and to classify it into 1 of 21codes. Two summary categories were used for thecurrent analyses. Hostility/Defensiveness includeshostile, angry, exasperated, blaming, and contemptu-ous behavior. Agreeableness/Problem Solving con-

COPARENTING, MARITAL ADJUSTMENT, AND PARENTING 11

tains behaviors reflecting a willingness to be flexibleabout one's point of view, to be agreeable to thepartner's point of view, to accept responsibility, todisclose vulnerable feelings or thoughts, to reflect orrephrase the other's point of view, and to engage inproductive problem solving. Each discussion wascoded by 2 out of 14 trained undergraduate andpostbaccalaureate-level students, using both a verba-tim transcript and a videotape playback. For eachparticipant, the total number of speaker turns identi-fied by each coder as belonging to a code categorywas divided by the total number of speaker turns tocalculate frequency percentages. Intraclass correla-tion coefficients (Shrout & Fleiss, 1979) providedreliability estimates for Hostility/Defensiveness (.86for wives and .75 for husbands) and Agreeableness/Problem Solving (.81 for wives and .76 for hus-bands). Means were taken across coders. Because ofthe distributional properties of frequency percent-ages, we reexpressed the data as logits, as recom-mended by Mosteller and Tukey (1977).

Results

Correlations Between CoparentingDimensions and Reports of Behaviorby Children and Trained Coders

Table 4 presents cross-reporter correlationsfor the preadolescent sample between spouses'reports of the coparenting dimensions and chil-dren's reports on the Child's View Question-naire as well as trained coders' observations of

marital communication samples. Data from theChild's View Questionnaire were an indicationof the validity of the CQ, as the children werereporting on two of the coparenting constructs.Children's reports of triangulation correlatedsignificantly with both parents' triangulation,husbands' conflict, and both parents' total co-parenting on the CQ. Children's reports of con-flict correlated with both parents' conflict be-haviors, triangulation, and total coparenting ontheCQ.

We also examined the association betweendata from the CQ and husbands' and wives'objectively observed behaviors when discussinga marital conflict about a child-related problem.Wives' coded hostile and defensive behaviorscorrelated in predicted directions with theirown and their husbands' coparenting behaviors.Similarly, wives' coded agreeableness andproblem solving correlated with their own andtheir husbands' coparenting. Both types ofcoded behaviors correlated strongly with wives'triangulation. That is, wives who showed highlevels of hostility and defensiveness in maritaldiscussions, and low levels of agreeablenessand problem solving, were those rated by theirhusbands as high in triangulation.

Husbands' coded behaviors, in contrast,showed more consistent associations with thewives' coparenting than with their own co-

Table 4Correlations Between Coparenting Dimensions and Reports of Behavior by Childrenand Trained Coders in the Preadolescent Sample

Coparenting

Wives' cooperationHusbands'

cooperationWives' triangulationHusbands'

triangulationWives' conflictHusbands' conflictWives' total

coparentingHusbands' total

coparenting

Child's

Parents'

j report

behavior

Triangulation Conflict

- .11

- .16.44**

32**.21.36**

- . 3 1 * *

- .35**

- .18

- .19.48**

.24*

.33**

.38**

- . 4 1 * *

- .35**

Wives'

Hostility/Defensiveness

-.36**

-.24*.53**

.37**

.34**

.24*

-.50**

-.36**

Coding by trained observers

behavior

Agreeableness/ProblemSolving

.34**

.37**-.46**

-.36**- .29*- .30*

44**

44**

Husbands

Hostility/Defensiveness

-.44**

- .18.41**

.25*

.33**

.18

- .48**

-.26**

' behavior

Agreeableness/ProblemSolving

.34**

.29*-.46**

- .28*- .27*- .24*

.44**

.35**

*p < .05. **p < .01.


parenting. Husbands' hostility and defensive-ness during the marital discussions correlatedwith their wives' coparenting, but only weaklywith husbands' coparenting triangulation andnot with their conflict or cooperation. Hus-bands' agreeableness and problem solving cor-related with the wives' and their own coparent-ing. In general, these data from trained coderssuggested that couples' communication pro-cesses were related to coparenting, particularlyfor wives, but the variables were predominantlynonoverlapping.

Coparenting, Children's Age, Parents'Gender, and Children's Gender

To examine how coparenting scores vary bychildren's age, parents' gender, and children'sgender, we conducted 2 (age) X 2 (parents'gender) X 2 (children's gender) mixed modelanalyses of variance on the coparenting factors.Children's age was a between-groups variablecomparing parents in the preadolescent versusthe preschool samples. Parents' gender was awithin-couple variable, whereas children's gen-der was a between-groups variable comparingparents who reported on coparenting of adaughter versus a son.

As displayed in Figure 1, we found a signif-icant main effect for children's age on cooper-ation, F(l, 243) = 5.93, p < .05. Parents ofpreschool children, compared with parents ofpreadolescent children, reported more coopera-tion from one another. The significant maineffect for parents' gender on cooperation, F(l,243) = 71.41,/? < .001, indicated that motherswere rated higher on cooperation than werefathers. We found an interaction betweenchild's gender and parents' gender for triangu-lation, F(l, 243) = 4.88, p < .05. Post hocanalyses showed that mothers of boys wererated higher on triangulation than were mothersof girls, f(193.22) = -2.39, p < .05, but thatfathers of boys were not rated differently ontriangulation than were fathers of girls, f(245) =0.07, ns. We found no significant main effectsor interactions for the conflict dimension, al-though there was a trend for parents of pre-schoolers, compared with parents of preadoles-cents, to report more conflict, F(l, 243) = 2.81,p < .10.

Coparenting as a Mediator BetweenMarital Conflict and Parenting

Each analysis of the mediational model ex-plored how one spouse's report of the other'smarital conflict and coparenting was related tothe reporting spouse's own parenting. Table 5presents the correlations for the two predictors,marital conflict and total coparenting, and thetwo parenting outcomes in the preschool sam-ple. To compute total coparenting, we reversescored items in triangulation and conflict toreflect a positive direction. High total coparent-ing scores were indicative of low conflict, lowtriangulation, and high cooperation.

The first step in the mediational analysesrequired demonstrating significant correlationsbetween marital conflict and parenting. Thesecorrelations for both husbands and wives weresignificant, ranging from .26 to .33. The secondstep required demonstrating a linear relation-ship between marital conflict and coparentingand between coparenting and parenting. Thecorrelations between marital conflict and totalcoparenting were significant, indicating approx-imately 37% shared variance between these twoconstructs for husbands and 44% shared vari-ance for wives. The correlations between co-parenting and parenting were also significant,ranging from .35 to .40.

The final step in the analyses of the media-tional model was to examine whether maritalconflict still was a significant predictor of par-enting when entered simultaneously with co-parenting. Table 6 presents a series of regressionanalyses exploring whether total coparentingmediated the relationship between marital con-flict and parenting in the preschool sample.There are four sets of analyses, with regressionsrun separately for husbands and wives on par-enting stress and parenting practices. Two mod-els were presented for each analysis; first mar-ital conflict was entered alone and then bothtotal coparenting and marital conflict were si-multaneously entered.

For wives and husbands alike, the data wereconsistent with a mediational model. Wives'marital conflict, as reported by husbands, was asignificant predictor of husbands' own parent-ing when entered alone but then no longer wassignificant when entered with coparenting. Hus-bands' report of wives' coparenting was a sig-nificant predictor of husbands' parenting prac-tices and parenting stress when entered in


Preadolescent Sample

Mothers

Fathers

Girls Boys

Girls Boys

0.5-

0.4-

0.3:

0.2-

0.1-

0

1.5-1

1.25-

1:

0.75-

0.5-

0.25-

0

3.5.

3-

2-

1.5:

1-

0.5-

n.

Preschool Sample

Girls Boys

Girls Boys

Girls Boys Girls Boys

Figure 1. Analyses of variance examining effects of child's age, parents' gender, and child's gender oncoparenting dimensions.

Model 2 simultaneously with marital conflict.Likewise, husbands' marital conflict, as re-ported by the wives, was significant when en-tered alone but not when entered with coparent-ing. Wives' report of husbands' coparentingpredicts wives' parenting practices and parent-ing stress above and beyond the predictive con-tribution of marital conflict. Although not pre-sented in the Table 6, mediational analyses runseparately for boys and girls showed similarpatterns.

Coparenting Factors, Marriage,and Parenting

Because the factor analysis suggested that thethree factors were assessing slightly differentconstructs, Table 7 is presented to examine howeach separate factor relates to marital conflictand parenting in the preschool sample. Each ofthe separate coparenting factors for wives andhusbands was moderately correlated with bothmarital conflict and parenting.


Table 5Correlations Between Predictor and Outcome Variablesin the Preschool Sample

Variable

1. Husbands' marital conflict2. Husbands' coparenting3. Wives' parenting practices4. Wives' parenting stress

5. Wives' marital conflict6. Wives' coparenting7. Husbands' parenting

practices8. Husbands' parenting stress

1

5

Wife as reporter

2 3

- . 6 1 * * -.27**— .39**

Husband as reporter

6 7

-.66** - .33**— .39**

4

.32**-.35**-.47**

8

.26**-.37**

-.45**

**p < .01.

Table 6Mediating Model for Marital Conflict and Parenting in the Preschool Sample

Regression model Adjusted R Total equation F

Wives' total parenting stress8

Model 1Husbands' marital conflict

Model 2Husbands' marital conflictHusbands' coparenting

Model 1Husbands' marital conflict

Model 2Husbands' marital conflictHusbands' coparenting

Model 1Wives' marital conflict

Model 2Wives' marital conflictWives' coparenting

Model 1Wives' marital conflict

Model 2Wives' marital conflictWives' coparenting

.32

.16-.25

4.39***

1.82-2.81**

Wives' total parenting practices0

- .27

- .04.36

Husbands

.26

.03-.35

Husbands' i

- .33

- .14.30

-3.59***

-0.494.04***

' total parenting stress1"

3.52**

0.31-3.71***

total parenting practices'"

-4.60***

-1.453.22**

.10

.13

.06

.14

.06

.13

.11

.15

19.27***

13.97***

12.88***

15.19***

12.40**

13.54***

21.18***

16.34***

Note. For Model 1 F values," Based on wives' reports. b

* * p < . 0 1 . ***/>< .001.

, df = 1, 70; for Model 2 F values, df = 1, 169.Based on husbands' reports.


Table 7Correlations Between Coparenting Variables, Marital Conflict,and Parenting in the Preschool Sample

Coparenting variable

Husbands' cooperationHusbands' triangulationHusbands' conflict

Wives' cooperationWives' triangulationWives' conflict

Husbands'maritalconflict

-.34**.67**.53**

Wives'maritalconflict

- .43**.66**.53**

Wife as reporterWives'

parentingpractices

.32**-.26**-.37**

Husband as reporterHusbands'parentingpractices

.37**-.24**-.34**

Wives'parenting

stress-.32**

.21**

.32**

Husbands'parenting

stress

-.26**.26**.38**

**p< .01.

DiscussionIn this study we examined perceptions of

coparenting as a family system construct thatcan help elucidate the link between the mar-ital and parent-child family subsystems. TheCQ offers a highly efficient measure of thisclinically relevant construct. Data on the CQare consistent with a three-factor model, con-sisting of conflict, cooperation, and triangu-lation. Correlations among the factors indi-cate that, although correlated, they are nottotally overlapping. Results from this studyalso show that coparenting dimensions areaffected by child's age, parents' gender, andchild's gender. Coparenting appears to existin a developmental context in that parents ofpreschool children report more cooperationthan do parents of preadolescent children. Co-parenting also reflects a stereotypic genderpattern in that wives are reported to cooperatewith their husbands more than husbands dowith their wives. Triangulation shows an in-teraction between parents' gender and chil-dren's gender, with high triangulation re-ported for mothers with sons.

With most of the published studies on co-parenting in two-parent families done on fami-lies of young children, there is little informationabout the relevance of child's age. However,data presented here indicate that cooperationexperienced by parents varies by age of child.Higher scores on cooperation reported by par-ents of preschool, compared with preadolescent,

children may reflect the greater moment-to-moment demands when parenting young chil-dren and the need for more coordination inparenting roles. Alternatively, parents of pread-olescents may have devised ways to parent in amore parallel rather than cooperative fashion.The lack of significance of child's age on trian-gulation was unanticipated given the clinicaland theoretical attention to triangulation forchildren who are school age and older. Al-though the overall means for triangulation arerelatively low for both groups of children, thesedata alert us to the possibility that parents mayuse even very young children to get back at eachother. Moreover, the low scores for triangula-tion in the preadolescent sample could be due toa selection effect, in that couples with hightriangulation may be less likely to remain to-gether and, thus, to participate in a study oftwo-parent families.

In addition to findings associated with chil-dren's age, another descriptive finding reportedhere reflects gender differences in coparenting,which proves remarkably consistent with resultsreported by Floyd and Zmich (1991). Similar tothe Floyd and Zmich finding that wives ratedthe general parenting alliance less positivelythan did husbands, we find in the current studythat women report less cooperation from theirhusbands than vice versa. General parentingalliance defined by Floyd and Zmich reflects thepositive dimension of coparenting, namely mu-tual respect, support, and satisfaction with


shared responsibilities. The negative coparent-ing dimensions examined here, triangulationand conflict, show no gender differences just asthe Floyd and Zmich measurement of spouses'denigrating of one another's parenting showedno differences.

Although research comparing family influ-ences on boys versus girls has had inconsistentfindings, there is some evidence here of inten-sified parenting relationships with boys morethan with girls. The significant interaction effectbetween child's gender and parents' gender re-veals high triangulation for mothers with sons.According to fathers' perceptions, mothers tendto draw sons into interparental conflict. Otherresearch also points to an intensified parentingrelationship with boys, more than with girls,particularly in families in which there is maritalconflict. Fathers' aggression toward their wivesis associated with fathers' authoritarian, con-trolling, and physically abusive behavior towardtheir sons more than toward their daughters(Jouriles & Norwood, 1995; Margolin et al.,1996). It is possible that mothers' triangulationof the son and attempts to form a special alli-ance with the son could be either the stimulus orthe result of fathers' punitive relationship withthe son.

The specific question of whether child's gen-der has an impact on the relation between mar-ital conflict and parenting has received mixedsupport in previous literature. When Erel andBurman (1995) limited their meta-analysis to asubset of studies with high methodologicalquality, they failed to find effects for child'sgender or for parent-child gender combinationsin the linkage between the marital and parent-child relations. Similarly, in the present study,child's gender does not appear to be a consid-eration in the link between marital conflict andparenting or in the role of coparenting as amediator. Floyd et al. (1998) also reported nosignificant main effects for child's gender andonly one interaction between child's gender andparenting alliance in predicting change in par-enting experiences.

The major theoretical finding of this studyis that coparenting potentially functions as alink in the relationship between marital con-flict and parenting. Specifically, the data areconsistent with a mediational model indicat-ing that coparenting is an important mecha-nism by which marital relations affect parent-

child relations. The substantial reductions inthe magnitude of the relation between maritalconflict and parenting, when controlling forcoparenting, suggest that coparenting may ac-count for the association between marital con-flict and parenting. These findings are verysimilar to those recently reported by Floyd etal. (1998) on a sample of families who havechildren with mental retardation. In their data,significant path coefficients portraying mari-tal quality as a predictor of parenting compe-tence and negative mother-child interactionno longer are significant after accounting forthe indirect path through parenting alliance.Hence, data from two independent samples,representing families having a child eitherwith or without a disability, are consistentwith the hypothesis that coparenting mediatesthe effects of marital conflict on parenting.

Findings consistent with a model that co-parenting mediates the relationship betweenmarital conflict and parenting lend further def-inition to the ongoing debate as to whethermarital conflict directly affects children or indi-rectly affects children through altered parenting(Emery, Fincham, & Cummings, 1992; Fauber& Long, 1991). According to a direct effectsmodel, exposure to conflict and aggression be-tween one's parents can create a family envi-ronment that is frightening, confusing, andpotentially dangerous (Margolin, 1998). Ac-cording to an indirect model, changes in theparent-child relationship may be the criticalmechanism by which marital conflict affectschildren (Erel & Burman, 1995; Fincham,Grych, & Osborne, 1994; Margolin & John,1997).

The findings presented here include still afurther step in this indirect model, insertingperceptions of coparenting as a possible medi-ator between marital conflict and parenting.This revised indirect model separates the mari-tal relationship from the coparenting relation-ship. In support of this model, the present datashow that, despite relatively high correlationsbetween marital conflict and coparenting, therestill is a considerable amount of unshared vari-ance between these two constructs. Finding thatthe negative impact to parenting stems fromcoparenting more than from general maritalconflict is an example of Rutter's (1994) dis-tinction between risk indicators and risk mech-anisms. According to Rutter, whereas risk indi-


cators are variables statistically associated witha particular outcome, risk mechanisms are fac-tors that explain the association. With longitu-dinal research we may find more conclusiveevidence that marital distress and conflict areassociated with impaired parenting, but co-parenting dimensions actually explain the pro-cesses underlying higher levels of parentingstress and impaired parenting practices.

In light of the multiple dimensions that affectparenting (Belsky, 1984; Sabatelli & Waldron,1995), the coparenting relationship most likelyis not the only mechanism through which mar-ital relationships affect parent-child relation-ships. Another important mechanism may bethe individual adjustment of each parent. De-pression, for example, has been linked to bothmarital relations as well as to parent-child re-lations (e.g., Beach, Smith, & Fincham, 1994;Gotlib & Hammen, 1992). Because individualpsychological functioning is connected withsupport received in close relations (Vondra &Belsky, 1993), linkages between coparentingand individual adjustment are also anticipated.Belsky et al. (1995), for example, reported thatindividual personality differences between thespouses have a direct relationship with co-parenting. Theoretical interest in various familyinfluences points to the importance of examin-ing multiple, bidirectional pathways to identifythe mechanisms underlying associations amongindividual, dyadic, and triadic family variables.

Implications for Application and PublicPolicy

A focus on the coparenting relationship high-lights important targets for intervention andprevention. Although coparenting is related tomarital conflict, emphasis on the conceptualdistinction between marital conflict and co-parenting could prove to be an important strat-egy in marital and family therapy. Clinical ex-perience suggests that parents undergoingsevere marital distress are concerned about theeffects of marital conflict and distress on theirchildren. A frequently expressed goal of parentsin this situation is to promote effective parent-ing. Clinical interventions that focus strictly onparenting skills do not address the problems ofparents undermining one another's efforts. Sim-ilarly, clinical interventions that focus strictlyon the marital relationship may become stymiedby wide-ranging and often irreconcilable differ-

ences that go beyond the child. Alternatively,clinical interventions that focus on the coparent-ing relationship could disentangle coparentingfrom overall marital conflict and prioritizemaintenance or repair of the coparenting rela-tionship, regardless of the state of the marriage.This separation of the coparenting relationshipfrom the marital relationship creates opportuni-ties for spouses to develop a collaborative rela-tionship with the circumscribed objective ofsupporting one another's parenting. Given thateven highly conflictual spouses generally tendto understand the importance of promoting theirchild's welfare, an intervention that focuses oncoparenting may be acceptable to spouseswho are not willing to undergo other types oftherapy.

The data from this study also point to theimportance of routinely assessing the coparent-ing relationship in distressed couples who havechildren. The strong association between mari-tal conflict and negative coparenting suggeststhat the coparenting relationship may be at riskwith many couples who are experiencing mari-tal conflict. A child advocacy perspective wouldpoint to the importance of evaluating the co-parenting relationship even if the spouses them-selves do not identify coparenting as a majorconcern.

Limitations and Future Directions

Certain limitations of the study leave impor-tant questions still to be explored regarding therole of coparenting and parenting. As noted byBaron and Kenny (1986), the causal sequencethat generally is described in a mediationalmodel cannot be proved on the basis of cross-sectional data. With all the data presented herebeing cross-sectional, we cannot identify direc-tional effects or causal links. In light of theabundant literature on how marital relations af-fect parenting, this study assumed a unidirec-tional effect from the marriage and coparentingto parenting. Alternatively, however, a prob-lematic parent-child relationship may nega-tively influence both the coparenting relation-ship and the marriage. Without measuringmarital conflict, coparenting, and parentingacross time, this study cannot draw conclusionsabout directional effects. Two recent studieswith longitudinal designs begin to address di-rectional effects regarding coparenting. Floyd etal. (1998) provided evidence that marital quality


and parenting alliance affect parenting but littleevidence for reciprocal effects in which parent-ing affects either marital quality or parentingalliance over time. McHale and Rasmussen(1998) demonstrated how observed interac-tional processes in families with infants (e.g.,hostility-competitiveness, parenting discrepan-cies) relate to coparenting 3 years later, al-though no comparison was made with effects inthe reciprocal direction.

To identify pathways of influence in familyprocesses requires measuring change over timein each construct of interest. Just as the qualityof marriage and parenting changes over time(Kurdek, 1996), the coparenting relationship isalso likely to fluctuate across time. To concludethat marital conflict influences coparenting re-quires demonstrating that coparenting actuallydeteriorates as a function of increased maritalconflict. Causal inferences about how maritalconflict undermines parenting, and how co-parenting mediates those processes require thatall of these constructs be measured repeatedlyacross time and with enough time between mea-surements to allow for the hypothesized influ-ences to occur.

The use of self-report data could also beperceived as a limitation. Although relianceon spouses' perceptions of coparenting is sub-ject to the limitations of all global, self-reportdata, this assessment strategy was deliber-ately selected to create a broad construct ofcoparenting. Compared with behavioral ob-servations of coparenting, which reflect spe-cific interactional moments, the construct as-sessed here includes behaviors that do notnecessarily occur when both spouses are to-gether or when the child is present. This mea-surement of coparenting is based on an accu-mulation of relationship events that unfoldover days, weeks, and months and, at the timeof assessment, are mentally weighted andsummed by the participants into overall im-pressions. It is these impressions that are mostlikely to have an impact on parenting.

The data presented here offer mixed resultsin terms of the three separate dimensions. Thefactor analyses and correlations suggest thatcooperation, conflict, and triangulation are re-lated but still distinct. Support for discrimi-nant validity is less compelling when thesescales are compared with other measures oftriangulation and conflict. The rationale for

examining separate coparenting dimensions isto develop a basis for further delineating par-ents' coparenting strengths and weaknesses.Additional research is recommended to eval-uate the utility of these separate dimensionsand to assess whether they have a differentialimpact on children.

Despite certain limitations, the findings of thepresent study draw attention to the construct ofcoparenting, identify how it is not simply anextension of the marital relationship, and offeran efficient means of measuring this importantconstruct. Findings from this study are consis-tent with the hypothesis that coparenting medi-ates the relationship between overall maritalconflict and parenting. Whereas previous liter-ature frequently has focused on static variables,such as parents' gender or children's gender, ashaving an impact on the linkage between mar-ital and parent-child relationships, the data pre-sented here identify the coparenting relationshipas a mechanism accounting for variance in theconnection between marital and parent-childrelations. Coparenting provides a modifiablevariable that might be targeted to interrupt thelinkages between deteriorated marital relationsand impaired parenting.

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