The purpose of this study was to examine the relations of marital conflict perceived by children, peer relationship, and self-esteem and a mediation effect of peer relationship on the relation between marital conflict perceived by children and self-es...
The purpose of this study was to examine the relations of marital conflict perceived by children, peer relationship, and self-esteem and a mediation effect of peer relationship on the relation between marital conflict perceived by children and self-esteem.
The questions for this study are as follows:
First, what relations are there among marital conflict perceived by children, self-esteem, and peer relation?
Second, does peer relationship have a mediation effect on the relation between marital conflict perceived by children and children's self-esteem?
The subjects of this study were 393 children in total, including 224 5th grade and 169 6th grade students from 3 different elementary schools located in Seoul and Gyeonggi-do province. To encompass schools with different social and economic backgrounds, this study selected 3 schools located in metropolis, small and medium-sized city, and industrial area.
The measures used in this study are as follows. Grych(1992)'s CPIC (The Children's Perception of Interparental Conflict Scale) was used to examine the marital conflict perceived by children, that was adapted and validated by Yeongok Kwon and Jungdeok Lee(1997)'s. To check the children's self-esteem, Bo-ga Choi and Kwiyeon Jeon(1993)‘s test was used, that was designed based on Coopersmith(1967)'s research. Eunhae Lee and Yunju Go(1999)’s FQS(Friendship Quality Scale) was used to examine the peer relationship.
The collected data were analyzed using SPSS 22.0. Firstly, correlation analysis was conducted to see the relations among marital conflict perceived by children, peer relationship, and self-esteem. Secondly, Baron and Kenny (1986)'s mediation effect analysis method was used to check the mediation effect of peer relationship on the relation between marital conflict and self-esteem. Sobel test was conducted to see if the mediation effect is statistically significant.
The major results of this study were as follows:
First, there were significant correlations among marital conflict perceived by children, peer relationship, and self-esteem. In detail, there were negative correlations between marital conflict perceived by children and children's self-esteem, and between marital conflict perceived by children and peer relationship. In contrast, children's self-esteem and peer relationship had a positive correlation.
Second, peer relationship had a partial mediation effect on the process of marital conflict perceived by children affecting self-esteem. According to this result, this study identified the possibility that even the children exposed to marital conflict can better develop their self-esteem, given the help to make a healthy peer relationship.
This study identified that though marital conflict had an impact on self-esteem, improving the quality of peer relationship could decrease the influence. It suggests both family and school should work together and pay attention to improve children's self-esteem in that it's influenced by healthy family and peer relationships.