Associations between dyadic relationship quality and stepfamily functioning: A common fate modeling approach

Clinical and empirical literatures have highlighted the value of attending to distinct dyads within stepfamilies to ensure the needs of various relationships are being met. From a family systems perspective, the growth and maintenance of positive dynamics within one dyadic relationship can yield gains in other relationships and shape the larger stepfamily environment. Research seeking to link information about dyads and larger stepfamily systems is often marked by single-informant data or measures that represent individual-level constructs. Methods intended to leverage multi-informant data as indicators of dyad- or family-level constructs (i.e., common fate modeling; CFM) offer valuable opportunities to expand our understanding of stepfamily experiences. Using a sample of 291 stepparent-parent dyads, our study uses multi-informant data and CFM to assess three dyad-level constructs (i.e., marital quality, marital confidence, and stepparent-child relationship quality) as correlates of three stepfamily-level constructs (i.e., cohesion, expressiveness, and harmony). Our findings illustrate meaningful linkages among dyadic relationships and broader stepfamily-level dynamics, specifically emphasizing the role of stepparent-child relationship quality and marital confidence in shaping stepfamily cohesion, expressiveness, and harmony. The results also signal the potential for substantive findings to vary with respect to the selected unit of analysis.