Physical and Psychological Symptomatology, Co-Parenting, and Emotion Socialization in High-Conflict Divorces: A Profile Analysis

TL;DR

This study explores how physical and psychological health, co-parenting, and resilience affect emotion socialization in parents going through high-conflict divorces.

Contribution

The study is the first to examine the interplay of parental health, co-parenting, and resilience in high-conflict divorces and their impact on emotion socialization.

Findings

Parents with fewer physical and psychological symptoms exhibit more emotion socialization behaviors.

In high-conflict situations, physical and psychological symptomatology has a stronger influence on emotion socialization than co-parenting or resilience.

Abstract

Although the consequences of divorce and conflict have been extensively studied, most research has focused on children rather than ex-spouses, although variables such as parental health or co-parenting may have an influence on children’s development through processes such as emotion socialization. In addition, the relationship between these variables has never been considered in high-conflict divorces. Therefore, the present study aimed to analyze the impact of physical and psychological symptomatology and co-parenting on the emotion socialization patterns of parents experiencing high-conflict divorces. Furthermore, the moderating role of resilience was considered, as it has been highly studied as a coping mechanism in adverse situations but barely in divorce at the parental level. For this purpose, a Latent Profile Analysis was carried out with Mplus 8.10, using a sample of 239 parents from Family Visitation Centers. Results revealed, on the one hand, that parents with fewer physical and psychological symptoms sowed more emotion socialization behaviors than those with more symptomatology. On the other hand, in situations of high interparental conflict, the role of co-parenting and resilience seems less relevant than that of physical and psychological symptomatology when analyzing parental skills like emotion socialization.

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