Siblings, parenting, conflict, and divorce: do young adults' perceptions of past family experiences predict their present adjustment?

This study investigated the relations among divorce, parenting quality, parental differential treatment (PDT), perceived unfairness of PDT, direct and differential exposure to interparental conflict, and adjustment in a sample of 368 young adults from intact and divorced families. Participants completed online questionnaires regarding their own and their sibling's family experiences in middle adolescence and their present adjustment. Participants from divorced families differed from those from intact families on their reports of parenting quality, amount and unfairness of PDT, and direct and differential exposure to conflict. Results of regression analyses revealed that lower levels of parental affection, greater amounts of differential maternal affection and control, perceptions of receiving relatively less affection from parents than one's sibling, more perceived unfairness of PDT, and more frequent exposure to conflict predicted poorer adjustment in young adulthood. Limitations of the present study, directions for future research, and implications of the findings for clinical practice are discussed, doi:10.1300/J087v47n03_04 [Article copies available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service: 1-800-HAWORTH. E-mail address: Website: [c] 2007 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.] KEYWORDS. Divorce, parental differential treatment, interparental conflict, parenting quality, young adults, psychological adjustment