Parental Marital Conflict And Subjective Well-being Of High School Students: The Intermediary Role Of Attachment

In order to explore the relations among perception of marital conflict,parent-child attachment,peer attachment,and subjective well-being in senior high school students,920 high school students from Grade 10 to Grade 12 from Xi’an were assessed using Satisfaction With Life Scale,Affect Scales,Children’s Perception of Marital Conflict Scale,and Inventory of Parent and Peer Attachment.The main results were as follows:(1)The descriptive statistics showed that subjective well-being of senior high school students was near the median.Life satisfaction varied significantly in gender and grade,and girls’ level of life satisfaction was higher than boys’.Positive affect had no significant difference in gender and grade.Negative affect had no significant difference in gender,while it did in grade.Grade 10 students had the most negative emotional experience.Perception of marital conflict had significant difference in grade.Grade 10 students were the most sensitive to marital conflict,and Grade 11 students had the highest degree of attachment.(2)The correlation analysis showed that parent-child attachment,peer attachment,and life satisfaction,were significantly and negatively correlated with marital conflict and negative affect,and were significantly and positively correlated with positive affect;Marital conflict had significantly negative correlation with positive affect,and had significantly positive correlation with negative affect;father-child attachment,mother-child attachment and peer attachment were significantly and positively correlated with each other.(3)Structural equation model fitting results had shown that the parents’ marital conflict had direct effects on life satisfaction and negative affect,but had no direct effect on positive affect;Marital conflict could exert effects on subjective well-being indirectly not only through father-child attachment and mother-child attachment,but also through the chain mediating effect of father-child attachment-peer attachment and mother-child attachment-peer attachment;Marital conflict had significant indirect effects on life satisfaction and negative affect through father-child attachment,but had significant indirect effects on life satisfaction and positive affect through mother-child attachment;Father-child attachment and mother-attachment had the same direct effects on peer attachment.