Conflict-Resolution Behavior in Adolescent Boys: Antecedents and Adaptational Correlates

We investigated three self-reported conflict-resolution behaviors (avoid, attack, and compromise) in a longitudinal study of eighty-one 10th-grade boys drawn from a school-based sample. Boys used all three conflict-resolution behaviors. Boys who frequently responded to parent-adolescent conflict with attack were at risk for the widest range of concurrent adaptational deficit, including both externalizing and internalizing problems. Avoidance was associated with internalizing problems, compromise with fewer problems of all types, and better school functioning. Sixth-grade antecedents of 10th-grade conflict-resolution behaviors included (a) child personality; (b) parents' management of their own affect; (c) inconsistent, rejecting, and supportive child rearing; and (d) family structure (intact, separated or divorced, and remarried). Results are interpreted in terms of modeling and arousal theories.