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Triadic coordination: an observational method for examining whether children are "caught in the middle" of
1Department of Psychology, New York University, 6 Washington Place, 4th Floor, New York, NY 10003, USA. michael.westerman@nyu.edu
Insights
This study introduces triadic coordination, examining parent-spouse-child interactions. Reliable assessment methods were developed, showing promise for understanding marital discord
Area of Science:
- Family Psychology
- Developmental Psychology
- Social Psychology
Background:
- Triadic coordination describes parental interaction alignment with a spouse's bids toward a child.
- Understanding these dynamics is crucial for studying family interaction processes.
- This framework offers a novel approach to investigate children's involvement in parental conflict.
Purpose of the Study:
- To develop and validate an observational procedure for measuring triadic coordination.
- To explore the relationship between triadic coordination and family/child functioning.
- To investigate if children are "caught in the middle" of marital discord.
Main Methods:
- A small-scale study involving mother-father-child interactions during a structured task.
- Development of a novel observational procedure to quantify triadic coordination.
- Assessment of reliability for the developed measurement procedure.
Main Results:
- The observational procedure for assessing triadic coordination processes was found to be reliable.
- Preliminary findings suggest a link between parental opposition to spousal bids and family/child functioning.
- Further investigation is warranted on the patterns observed regarding parental disagreement.
Conclusions:
- The developed method for measuring triadic coordination shows significant promise for future research.
- Triadic coordination is a measurable construct with implications for understanding family dynamics.
- Future research should explore the nuanced relationships between parental conflict behaviors and child outcomes.
Abstract:
Triadic coordination refers to how a parent coordinates his or her contributions with the spouse's bids toward their child. This construct provides a basis for studying specifically triadic family interaction processes. In particular, it offers a new approach for examining whether children are "caught in the middle" of marital discord. We conducted an initial, small-scale study of mother-father-child interactions in a structured task in order to pursue the methodological goal of developing an observational procedure for measuring triadic coordination processes. The results suggest that the approach has considerable promise for making a contribution to future research on marital discord and child functioning. We found that processes of triadic coordination can be assessed reliably. Other findings included an interesting pattern of results, which merits further investigation in future studies, concerning relations between whether and how a parent disagreed with or opposed the spouse's bids toward their child, on the one hand, and other measures of family functioning and measures of child functioning, on the other hand.