Mother-Coparent Conflict, Parenting, and Externalizing Problems in African American Youth (2011)

Undergraduates: Nada Mussad, none none none

Faculty Advisor: Deborah Jones
Department: Psychology & Neuroscience

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Over half of all African American youth in the U.S. currently live in single-parent households. Given the risk factors associated with single parenthood, these families are more likely to experience negative psychosocial outcomes, including youth externalizing problems. Research on African American single mother families has indicated that conflict between mothers and their nonmarital coparents impacts youth adjustment both directly and indirectly via parenting. The current study examined conflict, parenting, and externalizing outcomes in a community sample of 194 mother-adolescent dyads. It was predicted that high levels of conflict and low levels of maternal and coparent warmth and knowledge would be related to more externalizing problems, and parenting was predicted to mediate the relationship between conflict and externalizing outcomes. This study was the first to investigate the role of coparent parenting for adolescents in this population. Results demonstrated that high levels of conflict and low levels of maternal warmth, coparent warmth, and coparent knowledge were significantly related to externalizing outcomes. Coparent parenting mediated the relationship between conflict and externalizing outcomes. These findings emphasize the important and understudied role of coparents’ relationships with mothers as well as their parenting strategies within African American single mother families. Implications for research, preventions, and interventions are discussed.