Longitudinal Effects of Parental Drinking Problems and Depression on Adolescent Social Adjustment: Mediating Roles of Constructive and Destructive Marital Conflict, Emotional Security, and Parental Psychological Control

This study investigates how parental depressive symptoms and drinking problems during early adolescence are linked to adolescents' social adjustment through family‐level mechanisms, including marital conflict, psychological control through guilt, and emotional insecurity. Drawing on emotional security theory and a three‐wave longitudinal design, data were collected from 281 families beginning when adolescents were in seventh grade and followed annually over 3 years. Structural equation modeling revealed that parental depressive symptoms and drinking problems at Time 1 predicted increased destructive conflict and decreased constructive conflict at Time 2. These distinct forms of conflict were, in turn, associated with parenting and emotional processes: Destructive conflict was positively associated with adolescents' emotional insecurity and psychological control through guilt, whereas constructive conflict was negatively associated with psychological control through guilt. Emotional insecurity and psychological control through guilt significantly mediated the associations between marital conflict and adolescent social maladjustment at Time 3, after accounting for baseline maladjustment. These results illuminate both family risk and protective factors of early adolescent social adjustment, informing preventive programs of potential underlying mechanisms likely to be intervened upon. By identifying differences between constructive and destructive conflict, this research also constitutes an effort to understand parental adjustment's role in adolescent social outcomes through family dynamics.