Economic Stress, Coercive Family Process, and

Developmental Problems of Adolescents

Rand D. Conger and Xiaojia Ge

Iowa State University

Glen H. Elder, Jr.

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Frederick O. Lorenz and Ronald L. Simons

Iowa State University

CONGER, RAND D.; CE, XIAOJIA; ELDER, CLEN H . , JR.; LORENZ, FREDERICK O.; and SIMONS, RON-
ALD L. Economic Stress, Coercive Family Process, and Developmental Problems of Adolescents.
CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1994, 65, 541-561. We propose a model of family conflict and coercion
that links economic stress in family life to adolescent symptoms of internalizing and externalizing
emotions and bebaviors. The 180 boys and 198 girls in the study were living in intact families
in the rural Midwest, an area characterized hy economic decline and uncertainty. Theoretical
constructs in the model were measured using hoth trained observer and family member reports.
These adolescents and their parents were interviewed each year for 3 years during the seventh,
eighth, and ninth grades. Our theoretical model proposes that economic pressure experienced
by parents increases parental dysphoria and marital conflict as well as conflicts between parents
and children over money. High levels of spousal irritability, coupled with coercive exchanges
over money matters, were expected to he associated with greater hostility in general by parents
toward their children. These hostile/coercive exchanges were expected to increase the likelihood
of adolescent emotional and behavioral problems. Overall, results were consistent with the pro-
posed model. Moreover, the hypothesized processes applied equally well to the hehavior of
mothers and iathers, as well as sons and daughters.

During the past decade, the rural Mid-
west suffered its most dramatic economic
decline since the Depression years of the
1930s. Literally thousands of farmers and
small town businesses went bankrupt, the
rural poverty rate increased beyond that for
metropolitan areas, and the financial pros-
pects of many rural residents were placed in
jeopardy for the foreseeable future (David-
son, 1990; Friedberger, 1989; Murdock &
Leistritz, 1988). As in urban America, these
economic problems are likely to be most de-
structive for a community and for individual
family members when they become chronic.
seemingly without solution (Davidson, 1990;
Wilson, 1987). In the present report involv-
ing rural Iowa families and adolescents,
we examine the influence of continuing
economic strain on people living in rural ar-
eas that are not expected to regain the eco-
nomic prosperity they once enjoyed even a
decade ago.
Research evidence continues to accu-
mulate that economic hardship, such as that
experienced in the rural Midwest, has an ad-
verse influence on psychological well-being
and on the quality of family relationships
(Conger, McCarty, Yang, Lahey, & Kropp,
1984; Conger et al., 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993;
Elder, 1974; Elder & Caspi, 1988; Elder,
Conger, Foster, 6c Ardelt, 1992; Liker & El-
der, 1983; McLoyd, 1989; Voydanoff, 1990;
Whitbeck et al., 1991). Moreover, an increas-

This paper is hased on collaborative research involving the Iowa Youth and Families Project
at Iowa State University, Ames, and the Social Change Project at the University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill. The comhined research effort is currently supported hy the National Institute of
Mental Health (MH43270 and MH48165), the National Institute on Dnig Abuse (DA05347), the
John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Program for Successful Adolescent Develop-
ment among Youth in High-Risk Settings, and a Research Scientist Award (MH00567). Requests
for reprints should he addressed to Rand Conger, Department of Sociology, 107 East Hall, Iowa
State University, Ames, IA, 50011; Project No. 2931 of the Iowa Agriculture and Home Econom-
ics Experiinent Station, Ames, Iowa.
[Child Development, 1994, 65, 541-561. © 1994 by the Society for Research in Child Development, Inc.
All rights reserved. 0009-3920/94/6502-000.3$01.0d]
542 Child Development
ing number of studies has shown that the
influence of economic stress on adolescents
is mediated to a significant degree by disrup-
tions in parent-child relations (Flanagan,
1990; Lempers, Clark-Lempers, & Simons,
1989; McLoyd & Wilson, 1990, 1991). The
processes through which economic strains
exacerbate emotional distress or troubled re-
lationships in families, however, have not
been adequately identified.
We expect that strong emotional re-
sponses to hardship, including withdrawal
from intimates as well as hostility in marital
and parent-child interactions, are consonant
with findings from a rich history of social
psychological research that demonstrates
the negative consequences of aversive
events and conditions for human health and
behavior (Berkowitz, 1989). The loss or ab-
sence of valued resources has been shown
both experimentally and in naturalistic stud-
ies to produce a variety of emotional re-
sponses such as apathy, depression, anger,
or aggression (Berkowitz, 1989; Conger et
al., 1984; Patterson, Reid, & Dishion, 1992).
The adverse impact of economic hardship on
individual well-being is further exacerbated
by its indirect effects through the behaviors
of other family members. Indeed, Coyne and
Downey (1991) have recently argued that
the acute stresses and chronic strains of daily
life may have their most debilitating effect
on individual functioning through the con-
flicts and disruptions they may create in
one's closest social relationships.
This study examines the possibility that
the aversive experience of economic stress
will increase the occurrence of what Pat-
terson has called coercive family processes
(Patterson, 1982; Patterson et al., 1992). Ac-
cording to Patterson, a high density of irrita-
ble, hostile interchanges between family
members often occurs when stress is high
and parents suffer the dysphoria associated
with such life circumstances. He suggests
that these negative interactions often in-
volve a negative reinforcement mechanism
in which hostile behaviors are used in at-
tempts to control the behavior of another
family member. More specifically, he notes
that "the term coercive refers to the use of
an aversive stimulus by one member of a
dyad that is contingent on the behavior of
the other person" (Patterson et al., 1992, p.
39).
Patterson (1982) postulates that specific
reinforcement contingencies operate to es-
calate the level of coercive or aversive inter-
changes; however, research to date has
failed to demonstrate the impact of such
contingencies on problematic adolescent
development independent of the base rates
for coercive interactions (Knutson, 1982;
Patterson, 1982; Patterson et al., 1992;
Robinson & Jacobson, 1987).^ As Robinson
and Jacobson (1987) have noted, the central
finding to date from research on coercion
theory is that families at risk for having chil-
dren with developmental problems are con-
siderably more likely than controls to dem-
onstrate high levels of conHict or aggression
in their interactions. Thus, we use the con-
cept of coercive family process to describe
the degree to which families engage in high
levels of aggressive or aversive interaction,
presumably as a mode of interpersonal con-
trol. We propose that economic stress is an
environmental factor that increases the like-
lihood of such control strategies, particularly
in struggles or disagreements over the use
of material resources.
Earlier studies have suggested that such
a process may be involved in the emotional
and relationship difficulties of economically
hard-pressed couples. For example, in their
research on Depression era families, Liker
and Elder (1983) found that economic stress
was associated with spouses' confiicts over
finances. For a contemporary sample of 76
couples. Conger et al. (1990) also found that
financial difficulties were associated with
higher levels of marital conflict. This result
has been replicated with a second sample as
well (Conger et al., 1992). These latter two
studies, however, were concerned with con-
fiicts in general and not those specifically
related to finances.

^According to Patterson (1982), the operation of reinforcement contingencies can he in-

ferred from sequential chains of ohserved hehavior when predicted conditional prohahilities are
signiflcantly greater than unconditional probabilities or base rates. For example, coercion theory
suggests that, in a coercive family, the conditional probability of the parent being hostile to the
child after the child has first been hostile to the parent will he significantly greater than the
parent's unconditional probability, or base rate, of being hostile to the child. This escalating
process has not yet been clearly demonstrated; however, it is clear that problem families are
generally more aversive or hostile toward one another (i.e., they have higher hase rates) than
controls.

Although it seems reasonable that, for
parents and older children or adolescents,
similar confiicts and control attempts over
the use of money might occur, this possibil-
ity has not been directly tested in previous
research. To be sure, several studies have
demonstrated that financial pressures may
increase parental hostility toward children
(Conger et al., 1984, 1991, 1992, 1993; Elder
& Caspi, 1988; Elder et al., 1992; McLoyd,
1989), but the specific role of confiicts about
money has not been evaluated in the analy-
ses. In the following presentation of the the-
oretical model guiding the present study, we
hypothesize that confiicts over money will
directly infiuence adolescent development
and also exacerbate more generally hostile
behavior by parents.
The Theoretieal Model
Drawing on past research with finan-
cially distressed families, we proposed a the-
oretical model that specifies the role that co-
ercive family processes might play in linking
family economic stress to problematic ado-
lescent development (Fig. 1). Several stud-
ies have demonstrated that adverse eco-
nomic conditions (the exogenous construct
in the model), such as low income, high debt
relative to assets, job disruptions, or income
loss, affect individual distress and family re-
lations through the daily strains or pressures
they create in family economic life (e.g..
Conger et al., 1992, 1993; Elder et al., 1992;
Flanagan, 1990; Kessler, Turner, & House,
1988; Simons, Lorenz, Conger, & Wu, 1992;
Voydanoff & Donnelly, 1988). Therefore, as
indicated by the economic pressure con-
struct in Figure 1, we postulated that ad-
verse financial circumstances would affect
parents' emotional state and the quality of
family interactions primarily through paren-
tal behaviors, emotions, and cognitions that
refiect parents' awareness of and responses
to economic difficulties.
In the conceptual model (Fig. 1), a high
level of economic pressure indicates spousal
agreement that the family (a) cannot meet
its material needs, (b) often falls behind in
Conger et al. 543
paying its debts, and (c) has had to cut back
on everyday expenses in an attempt to live
within available means (Conger et al., 1990,
1992).^ Consistent with the research just re-
viewed, we postulated that, when economic
conditions worsen to the point that parents
experience this degree of deterioration in
their financial situation, they will become
depressed, demoralized, pessimistic about
the future, and generally less stable emo-
tionally (Fig. 1).
The proposed model both builds upon
and also extends earlier theory regarding
family mediation of economic stress infiu-
ences on adolescent development. Consis-
tent with previous work, we hypothesize
that economic distress is indirectly linked to
adolescent adjustment through parental
mood and marital difficulties (Elder &
Caspi, 1988; McLoyd, 1989). The model
adds to previous theory and empirical work
by also postulating a direct path from eco-
nomic pressure to parent/adolescent confiict
over finances. This construct describes con-
tingent, aversive interactions (coercive be-
haviors in Patterson's terms) involving strug-
gles over money that are expected to occur
when parents experience economic difficul-
ties and cannot provide the level of material
support desired by their children. We hy-
pothesized that these circumstances would
be associated with greater risk for coercive
exchanges involving disagreements in
which parents attempt to reduce demands
for money and adolescents use aversive
techniques in their attempt to meet their ma-
terial needs. As one father in the study notes,
"You don't have it (money) and they argue
with ya. They want it and you don't have
it and you holler at them more." Findings
reported by McLoyd and Wilson (1990)
showed that parent-adolescent discussions
about financial problems may partially link
economic stress to adverse developmental
outcomes, offering indirect evidence for the
process hypothesized here.
Regarding the indirect path to adoles-
cent adjustment through parental emotions
and marital troubles, depressed mood repre-

^ Although economic pressure or strain is often thought to be a subjective measure of eco-

nomic circumstances, in our conceptualization it also has many objective dimensions. For exam-
ple, one indicator involves parents' reports that they cannot pay their bills and another that they
have had to give up what many would consider necessary expenditures (e.g., medical insurance).
These measures assess ohjective experiences that can he ohserved, not simply subjective evalua-
tions from good to bad of one's financial state. From our perspective, it is objective experiences
like having to cut back or heing unable to pay bills that are at the core of the economic pressure
construct. When material resources decline to the point that these experiences occur, then family
members are at psychological and hehavioral risk.

sents the principal mechanism by which fi-
nancial problems are hypothesized to pro-
voke or intensify marital conflict. There is
considerable empirical evidence to support
the prediction that hardship-related depres-
sion will increase the risk of marital conflict.
Both experimental and naturalistic studies of
depressed affect have shown that negative
mood is positively related to irritable or hos-
tile behavior between intimates (Berkowitz,
1989; Downey & Coyne, 1990; Gotlib &
McCabe, 1990). According to our conceptual
model (Fig. 1), spousal conflict, in turn, was
expected to intensify financial conflicts be-
tween parents and their children.
We reason that parents who are already
irritable and angry with one another are
more likely to respond in a hostile fashion
during confrontations with children or ado-
lescents about troubled finances (Berkowitz,
1989; Conger et al., 1991). This "spillover"
effect from marital conflict to aversive be-
havior toward children was predicted to
have both a specific influence on financial
disagreements as well as a more pervasive
influence on parental hostility in general
(Fig. 1). Following Berkowitz (1989), we ex-
pected that the anger reflected by marital
conflict would be more strongly related than
depressed mood to hostile/aggressive be-
haviors toward the adolescent at a later point
in time. That is, aggressive and angry acts in
the marriage were predicted to directly re-
late to later conflict and hostility and to serve
as a conduit through which parental depres-
sion would affect interactions with children.
Thus, the model includes direct paths from
marital conflict at wave 1 (family interviews
in 1989) to financial conflicts and parent hos-
tility at wave 2 (family interviews in 1990),
but only indirect paths for depressed mood
through conflicts in the marriage.
As noted in the model, conflicts over fi-
nances were also predicted to affect a par-
ent's overall level of hostility toward a child
or adolescent. Here, again, we expected a
spillover effect akin to Berkowitz's (1989)
thesis that higher levels of anger and nega-
tive mood increase the risk for more general-
ized aggression and hostility. This hypothe-
sis is also consistent with a number of recent
studies that have demonstrated increased
risk for parent hostility or parent-child con-
flict in response to economic stress (e.g.,
Flanagan, 1990; Lempers et al., 1989). Fi-
nally, we postulated that high levels of fi-
nancial conflict and parental hostility toward
children lead both to greater internalizing
and externalizing symptoms for adolescents
Conger et al. 545
(Fig. 1). Harsh, coercive behaviors by par-
ents have repeatedly been shown to ad-
versely affect their children's development
(Cecas & Seff, 1990; Maccoby & Martin,
1983; Patterson et al., 1992; Peterson & Rol-
lins, 1987).
In the present report we focus on two
generally accepted categories of develop-
mental problems during adolescence: inter-
nalizing and externalizing emotions and be-
haviors (Cicchetti & Toth, 1991). Theory and
empirical findings suggest that repeatedly
hostile confrontations between parents and
children should diminish sense-of-self as in-
dicated by child or adolescent internalizing
symptoms such as depression and anxiety
(Cecas & Seff, 1990). Parents' aversive be-
haviors toward their children are also likely
to increase the risk of overt aggression or
conduct problems, core symptoms of exter-
nalization. Adolescents who learn from their
parents to use coercive techniques for con-
trolling relations with others are more likely
to become antisocial and troublesome to
those around them (Patterson et al., 1992).
Inasmuch as externalizing and internalizing
symptoms are moderately to highly corre-
lated (Cicchetti & Toth, 1991), we expected
that they may well be affected by similar pa-
rental behaviors.
An alternative perspective to the chain
of events described in Figure 1, of course,
is that depressed mood leads to perceptions
or behaviors associated with economic pres-
sure. That is, the negative perceptual bias
typical of depression may lead to a judgment
that one's financial circumstances are worse
than they are, or depressive symptoms may
disrupt work performance and limit financial
success. Earlier community studies, how-
ever, provide no support for the hypothesis
that depressive symptoms or psychological
well-being significantly affect economic cir-
cumstances (e.g.. Conger et al., 1993; Dun-
can & Liker, 1983; Iversen & Sabroe, 1988;
Kessler et al., 1988; Liem & Liem, 1988;
McLoyd & Wilson, 1991; Warr, Jackson, &
Banks, 1988). Longitudinal studies consis-
tently show that economic difficulties dis-
rupt psychological well-being and that emo-
tional distress does not predict later
economic status. Indeed, Kessler, Turner,
and House (1989) found that relatively more
depressed unemployed workers were more
motivated in their search for work and were
reemployed more quickly. Thus, we con-
clude that the weight of the research evi-
dence from community studies such as this
one supports our thesis that current eco-
546 Child Development
nomic pressure leads to emotional distress.
The following analyses address this ques-
tion more directly.
In this report, we test the empirical ade-
quacy of this postulated model of economic
stress, coercive family process, and adoles-
cent developmental problems employing a
sample of two-parent rural families who
were interviewed once each year in 1989,
1990, and 1991. By studying intact families,
we were able to examine the differential im-
pact of economic stre. on mothers and fa-
thers. This aspect of the investigation is im-
portant because earlier research suggests
that fathers may be more adversely affected
than mothers by family financial difficulties
(McLoyd, 1989). Although more contempo-
rary studies demonstrate that modern
women may be just as strongly affected by
economic stress as men and that their roles
in family hardship may affect adolescents as
much as paternal response to financial prob-
lems (Conger et al., 1992, 1993; Flanagan &
Eccles, 1993; Romero, Castro, & Cervantes,
1988), we separate the analyses for mothers
and fathers to determine whether parental
gender differences in the stress process will
be present for these contemporary, but rela-
tively traditional, rural husbands and wives.
In addition, although some researchers
report that economic hardship differentially
influences boys and girls prior to adoles-
cence and, perhaps, during early adoles-
cence (Elder & Caspi, 1988; Flanagan,
1990), other studies of both early and later
adolescence find no adolescent gender dif-
ferences in response to economic stress
(Flanagan & Eccles, 1993; Lempers et al.,
1989). Moreover, there is evidence that sex
differences in stress vulnerability in general
may decline by mid-adolescence (Forehand,
Neighbors, & Wierson, 1991). Thus, because
of the inconsistent evidence regarding ado-
lescent gender differences in response to
economic stress and to stress processes more
generally by mid-adolescence, we did not
predict adolescent gender differences in the
following analyses. We did test for the possi-
bility of such differences, however.
This research adds to other contempo-
rary studies of family economic hardship by
(a) considering the behavior of both mothers
and fathers (see also Phares & Compas,
1992), (b) examining the influence of eco-
nomic stress across time, and (c) carefully
tracing specific interactional processes
through which economic problems should
affect the developing adolescent (McLoyd,
1989; Voydanoff, 1990). In addition, we em-
ploy a multimethod, multi-informant study
design which improves both the measure-
ment of theoretical constructs and the esti-
mation of relations among them (Conger et
al., 1990). These procedures help to correct
for single respondent biases in the study of
family process (Bank, Dishion, Skinner, &
Patterson, 1990; Lorenz, Conger, Simons,
Whitbeck, & Elder, 1991).
Method
Sample
When first interviewed in 1989, the sam-
ple for these analyses consisted of 451 fami-
lies. Only white families were studied be-
cause there are too few minority families in
rural Iowa to generate meaningful data for
them. In these analyses, listwise deletion of
missing data was used across three waves of
data collection, leaving a total of 378 families
for whom complete data were available.
Each family included two parents, a sev-
enth-grade adolescent (198 girls, 180 boys),
and a sibling within 4 years of age of the
seventh grader. Families lived in one of
eight adjacent counties in a midwestem
state in an area heavily dependent on agri-
culture. For the final sample of 378 families,
32% lived on farms, 12% lived in rural areas
but not on a farm, and 56% lived in towns
or small cities with a population under 6,500
(all but one of the towns was under 5,000).
These families were selected for study be-
cause of the dramatic, adverse changes in
the rural economy produced by the past de-
cade's crisis in agriculture (Murdock & Leis-
tritz, 1988). For example, 51 of the 378 fami-
lies had been displaced from farming.
Participants were interviewed during the
first 3 months of 1989, 1990, and 1991.
Family median income for these 378
families from all sources for the past year
(1988) in 1989 was $33,800, about $5,000 per
year less than married couples with children
in the United States as a whole. A total of
11.0% of the families (N = 42) had incomes
below the federal poverty line, about twice
the proportion (5.6%) for married-couple
families nationally in 1988 (Bureau of the
Census, 1989). Because of the sampling cri-
teria, the average number of family members
was 4.95. Table 1 contains additional demo-
graphic information for these families. Per
capita income ranged from a net loss of over
$10,000 (a troubled farm family) to $51,800
in the last year. The sample clearly con-
tained sufficient variability to test the impact
of differing economic circumstances on fam-
 Conger et al. 547
TABLE 1
DEMOGRAPHIC CHARACTERISTICS OF THE SAMPLE {N = 378)

Demographic Mean Standard Minimum Maximum

Variable Score Deviation Value Value
1. Per capita family
income in dollars .. 8,163 5,829 -10,245 51,800
2. Father's occupational
prestige score (on a
scale from 1 to 99) .. 42.75 1L93 22.05 86.05
3. Mother's occupational
prestige score (on a
scale from 1 to 99) .. 33.66 15.67 22.05 66.37
4. Father's education
in years 13 57 2 14 8 00 20 00
5. Mother's education
in years .. 13.31 1.76 9.00 18 00
6. Father's age
in years .... 40 01 4 86 31 00 68 00
7. Mother's age
in years .. 38.01 4.10 29.00 53 00
8. Target child age
in years 12.6 .34 12.10 14.27

ily processes. Occupational prestige scores
(from 1 = least prestigious to 99 = most
prestigious) for fathers (M = 42.75) and
mothers (M = 33.66) indicate that fathers
were generally skilled laborers or entrepre-
neurs and working mothers averaged less
skilled occupations typically in the service
sector of the economy. On average, these
families could best be described as middle
to lower middle class, ranging from house-
hold heads who are unskilled laborers
(22.05) to those who are professionals (86.05)
(Nakao & Treas, 1990).
The retention rate at each wave of data
collection was about 95%. Overall retention
rate from 1989 (N = 451) to 1991 (N = 407)
was 90%, although the final sample for these
analyses was reduced to 378 (84% of the
original sample) by listwise deletion for
missing data. Families not included in the
analyses did not have significantly lower in-
comes than those who remained in the sam-
ple nor were they likely to demonstrate
higher levels of emotional distress. How-
ever, parents not included in the final sam-
ple of 378 families were slightly less well
educated. Fathers not in the analyses aver-
aged 12.74 years of education compared to
13.57 years for those who remained in the
study, a statistically significant difference
(p < .05). For mothers, the mean years of
education were 12.87 (missing subjects) and
13.31 (in the final sample), which was not
a significant difference. These findings are
consonant with those for other longitudinal
studies of families and adolescents which
also report greater attrition for less educated
parents (e.g., Flanagan & Eccles, 1993).
Procedures
Families were recruited in 1989 through
34 public and private schools in the eight
counties. Names and addresses of seventh-
grade students and their parents were ob-
tained from all schools in communities of
6,500 or less. Families were sent a letter ex-
plaining the project and were subsequently
contacted by telephone and asked to partici-
pate. In 1989, 78.8% of the families agreed
to be interviewed. Each family member was
compensated at a rate of about $10 per hour
for his or her time in the study.
Each year interviewers visited each
family at home for approximately 2 hours on
each of two occasions. During the first visit,
each of the four family members completed
a set of questionnaires focusing upon indi-
vidual family member characteristics, the
quality of family relationships and interac-
tions, and family economic circumstances.
During the second visit to the home, which
occurred within 2 weeks of the first, the fam-
ily members were videotaped as they en-
gaged in several different structured interac-
tion tasks. A trained interviewer began the
session by asking each individual to com-
plete independently a short questionnaire
designed to identify issues of concern that
548 Child Development
led to disagreements within the family (e.g.,
chores, recreation, money, etc.). The family
members were then gathered around a table
and given a set of cards with questions for
them to read and discuss. All four family
members were involved in this first task,
which lasted 35 min. The cards for the first
task asked general questions about family
life, such as approaches to parenting, perfor-
mance in school, household chores, and im-
portant family events.
After explaining the procedures, com-
pleting a practice card with the family, and
checking the video-recording equipment for
task 1 (and each subsequent task), the inter-
viewer left the room for another part of the
house where she or he could not hear the
discussion. The family members were asked
to discuss among themselves each of the
items listed on the cards and to continue
talking until the interviewer returned. The
video camera recorded the family's interac-
tion around the issues raised by the task
cards. After the first task was completed, the
interviewer returned, stopped the discus-
sion, and described the second task. The
next tasks proceeded in a similar fashion.
The second interaction task, 15 min in
length, also involved all four family mem-
bers. For this task, the interviewer selected
three topics based on the questionnaires
completed at the beginning of the visit. The
family members were asked to discuss and
try to resolve the issue that they had identi-
fied as leading to the greatest conflict in their
family. If they resolved this problem, they
could go on to the second or even the third
issue during the task.
The third task involved only the siblings
and was 15 min in length. We did not ana-
lyze data from this task in the present study.
The fourth task involved just the married
couple and lasted for 30 min. We asked
spouses to discuss the history and current
status of their relationship, areas of agree-
ment and disagreement (e.g., parenting, fi-
nances), and their plans for the future. Dur-
ing the marital task, siblings completed a
questionnaire on important events in their
lives in a location where they could not hear
their parents' discussion.
Trained observers rated several dimen-
sions of family interaction and family mem-
ber characteristics from the videotapes. Ob-
servers received 2 months of training and
had to pass extensive written and viewing
tests before they could code videotapes. A
separate, independent coder was used for
each task. For approximately 12% of all tasks
in 1989, and for 20% of all tasks in subse-
quent years, a second observer was ran-
domly assigned to code independently
family interactions so that interobserver reli-
ability coefficients (an intraclass correlation)
could be estimated. An observer rating man-
ual with complete definitions for all rating
scales and all task procedures is available
from the first author.
Measures
The description of measures moves
across constructs from left to right following
the model presented in Figure 1. We first
describe measures of family economic status
indicative of adverse economic conditions
(per capita income, debt-to-asset ratio, unsta-
ble work, income loss). These measures
were predicted to affect the first endogenous
construct, economic pressure. Initial eco-
nomic conditions and the first three endoge-
nous constructs (economic pressure, parent
mood, marital conflict) were measured with
data collected during wave 1 (1989) of the
study. The second two constructs (financial
conflicts and parental hostility) were as-
sessed during wave 2 (1990), and adolescent
outcomes were measured at wave 3 (1991).
To minimize the biases in estimates of
path coefficients produced by single sources
of information (Bank et al., 1990; Lorenz et
al., 1991), we follow the advice of Bank and
his colleagues (1990) and, to the extent pos-
sible, vary reporting agents across and
within constructs. Our basic rule was that,
for adjacent constructs, the indicators for the
two constructs could not be based only on
data from a single reporter. That is, we at-
tempted to control for the unique disposi-
tional biases of a single reporter that might
produce a spuriously high association be-
tween two adjacent constructs in the model.
For example, the measures of adolescent
externalizing and internalizing symptoms
were based on adolescent self-report. There-
fore, parent and observer as well as adoles-
cent reports were used to measure financial
conflicts and parental hostility. This proce-
dure assured that significant relations would
not be obtained between the predictor and
outcome variables simply as a result of
shared method variance in the measures.
Adverse economic conditions.—Four
different constructs were used to describe
adverse economic conditions. Each con-
struct was based on a single indicator. We
asked the spouse who handles family fi-
nances to provide information about their

economic situation. Thus, these data came
from either the husband or wife or, in some
cases, from both of them if they were equally
involved in the family's economic activities.
Family per capita income includes total in-
come from all sources (e.g., wages, interest,
business profits, etc.) divided by the number
of family members. This measure correlates
highly (r = .98) with family income divided
by family need (the poverty line for a family
of a particular size) and, thvis, appears to ad-
just for economies of scale achieved with
larger family sizes. Both parents responded
to four items (1 = yes, 0 = no) that assessed
unstable work: (a) changing jobs for a worse
one, (b) trouble at work such as demotions,
(c) being laid off or fired, and (d) other invol-
untary losses of work. Mother and father re-
sponses were summed to create a single in-
dex for the family.
We computed a debt-to-asset ratio score
for each family. The estimated value of all
debts was divided by total family assets. Be-
cause of skewness in the resulting distribu-
tion of ratios, in the analyses we used a natu-
ral log transformation of the original
variable. Each parent also provided an inde-
pendent estimate of whether family income
increased, decreased, or stayed about the
same during the past year. The nine possible
responses ranged from "increased more than
30%" to "decreased more than 30%." Scores
for the couple were summed and averaged
to provide an estimate oi income loss.
Family economic pressure.—Our theo-
retical model (Fig. 1) postulates that these
conditions of economic hardship influence
parents' moods and behaviors through the
daily financial pressures they create. For ex-
ample, a loss in income, according to the
model, should have adverse consequences
for family members to the extent that it cre-
ates difficulties in meeting material needs.
Three indicators were used to assess
family economic pressure, each of which
was based on reports from both parents. Two
items assessed whether parents felt they
can't make ends meet. Each spouse reported
whether they have difficulty paying bills
each month (1 = no difficulty at all, 5 = a
great deal of difficulty) and whether they
have money left over at the end of the month
(1 = more than enough money left over, 4
= not enough to make ends meet). The two
items were correlated .61 for mothers, .65 for
fathers. Each spouse's responses were stan-
dardized and summed. The correlation be-
tween parent reports for the summed scales
Conger et al. 549
was .66; therefore, the father and mother
measures were combined and averaged to
produce a single indicator for the construct.
Each parent also responded to seven
items which asked if they agreed or dis-
agreed on a five-point scale from strongly
agree to strongly disagree that their family
had the money they needed for a home,
clothing, household items, a car, food, medi-
cal care, and recreational activities. The
summed scales (alpha = .87 for mothers, .88
for fathers) for each parent were highly cor-
related (r = .52) and were averaged to create
the material needs indicator for economic
pressure. The final indicator for the con-
struct, economic adjustments, consists of re-
ports from both parents concerning changes
they have made in response to financial dif-
ficulties during the past year. Each spouse
noted (1 = yes, 0 = no) whether their family
had made any of 17 possible cutbacks in ex-
penditures or assets during the past year, for
example, giving up medical insurance, re-
ducing utility costs, etc. Parent responses
were combined into a single index. If either
or both parents responded yes to an item,
the index increased by one (range = 0-17).
Separate parental reports of adjustments
were significantly correlated (r = .64).
Parents' depressed mood.—Three mea-
sures were used as indicators of each par-
ent's depressed mood. Both mothers and fa-
thers completed the depression subscale
from the SCL-90-R (Derogatis, 1983) which
has demonstrated reliability and validity.
The alpha was .87 for father's and .86 for
mother's self-reported depression. Parents
also answered two questions that were
summed to create a spouse report of depres-
sion. They each indicated on a five-point
scale from strongly disagree to strongly
agree whether they agreed or disagreed that
their spouse is a happy person (item 1, re-
verse coded), or whether he or she is always
sad or depressed (item 2). The correlations
between these two items were .44 and .57
for mothers and fathers, respectively.
The final measure of depressed mood,
observer-reported depression, came from a
single rating during task 4 (marital interac-
tion) by an observer who reported, on a
five-point scale from low to high, whether
each parent was sad or unhappy during their
videotaped interactions. Intraclass correla-
tion (generalizability) coefficients were used
to estimate interobserver reliability (.60, fa-
thers; .67, mothers).
Marital conflict.—During the marital
550 Child Development
interaction task (task 4), each observer used ent's hostility to target (alpha = .86 for fa-
five-point scales to rate both parents, from thers and .88 for mothers). Interobserver re-
low to high, on their degree of hostility, anti- liabilities (.80 for fathers and .72 for mothers)
social behavior, angry coerciveness, and re- for the summed scale were acceptable.
ciprocal negativism toward one another. The
four rating scales (hostility, angry coercion, Adolescent internalizing symptoms.—
antisocial, transactional conflict) for each Adolescent self-reported depression and
spouse were summed as they were highly anxiety were assessed using these subscales
internally consistent (alpha = .78 for fathers from the SCL-90-R (Derogatis, 1983) and the
and .83 for mothers). The two summed NEO-personality inventory (Costa &
scales were combined to form an observer McCrae, 1985). Each of the four subscales
rating of marital conflict. The overall alpha was used as a separate indicator for the la-
coefficient for the combined scale is .86 (in- tent construct for internalizing symptoms.
terobserver reliability = .83). The internal consistency alphas were .89 for
depression and .87 for anxiety for the SCL-
Using a seven-point scale (1 = never 90-R. They were .85 for the depression and
and 7 = always), mothers and fathers each .71 for the anxiety subscales from the NEO.
independently rated one another on 12 We employed both state (SCL-90-R) and
items describing how often the partner en- trait (NEO) measures for the internalizing
gaged in hostile behaviors such as getting symptoms to determine whether these prob-
angry, shouting or yelling, threats, etc., to- lems would reflect ongoing personality char-
ward the respondent. The internal consis- acteristics, momentary moods, or both.
tency alpha is .93 for father and mother re- Adolescent externalizing symptoms.—
port. Each of these summed scales was used Hostile, aggressive, antisocial behaviors also
as a separate indicator for the marital conflictwere assessed using four different adoles-
construct. cent self-reports. The hostility subscales
Parent-adolescent financial conflict.— from the SCL-90-R (state hostility, alpha =
The latent construct for parent-adolescent .84) and the NEO (trait hostility, alpha =
financial conflict was based on independent .71) were used to measure both momentary
reports by mothers, fathers, and the target and more enduring dimensions of a hostile
adolescent. On a five-point scale (5 = all the personality. Six items were used to assess
time), mothers SiXid fathers were asked to in- the frequency of aggressive behaviors oc-
dicate how often they and their adolescent curring in the community during the past
child disagree or get upset with one another year (beat up someone; purposely damage
about money matters. Likewise, adolescents or destroy other's property; throw objects at
were asked to rate on a five-point scale (5 people; attack someone with a weapon; use
= always) how often they argued with their a weapon or force to get money or things
parents about not having enough money. from someone; set fire to a building; alpha
Each of these items was used as a separate = .67). Nine items selected from the Buss
indicator for the financial conflict construct. and Durkee (1957) hostility scale that most
reflect overt aggression were used to assess
Parent hostility.—There also were adolescent antisocial behaviors. High scores
three indicators for the parent hostility con- on a five-point scale indicate greater antiso-
struct based on separate reports by the par- cial behavior. Responses were internally
ents, adolescents, and observers. Using a consistent (alpha = .86) and were summed
seven-point scale (7 = always), each parent to create an indicator for antisocial behavior.
independently reported how often during These four scales were used as separate in-
the past month he or she got angry at, criti- dicators of externalizing symptoms.
cized, shouted or yelled at, or argued with
the target adolescent (alpha = .83 for moth-
ers and .82 for fathers). The target adolescent Results
answered the same items about his or her Correlational Analyses
parents using the same response categories Table 2 contains the correlations among
to rate hostile behaviors during the past all variables used in testing the theoretical
month (alpha = .84 for fathers and .83 for model for mothers; Table 3 provides the cor-
mothers). Using five-point scales, observers relations for fathers. Intercorrelations among
(task 1) rated each parent's hostility, angry indicators within constructs are underlined.
coerciveness, and antisocial behavior toward Cenerally speaking, correlations between
the target adolescent. The three items were measures within constructs are higher than
summed to create an observer report of par- those across constructs. For example, the in-
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tercorrelations among the indicators for eco-
nomic pressure range from .63 (economic ad-
justments correlated with material needs for
both mothers and fathers) to .79 (can't make
ends meet by material needs for both
mothers and fathers). Similarly, father's self-
report of his own hostility (Table 3) corre-
lates .35 with adolescent report of his hostil-
ity; for mothers and adolescents (Table 2)
the same correlation is .42.
In addition, the correlations among indi-
cators across constructs provide preliminary
support for the hypothesized family coercion
model. For instance, the indicators of par-
ent-child financial conflict correlate with pa-
rental hostility from .10 (father report of fi-
nancial conflicts with adolescent report of
mother's hostility) to .35 (father's report of
financial conflicts with self-report of his own
hostility toward the adolescent). Taken to-
gether, the correlations suggest some prom-
ise for a more formal test of the theoretical
model.
Structural Equation Models for the
Complete Sample
Latent-variable structural equation mod-
els were used to examine the empirical
credibility of the proposed theoretical pro-
cesses (Fig. 1). Maximum likelihood esti-
mates of the model coefficients were ob-
tained using LISREL VII (Joreskog &
Sorbom, 1989). Because analyses of mean
differences (see Table 4) between boys and
girls showed that girls were significantly
higher on all measures of internalization and
were significantly lower on two measures of
externalization (antisocial and aggressive-
Conger et al. 553
ness), we first conducted multigroup com-
parisons for the structural equations. A
multigroup comparison of the full model
showed no statistically significant adoles-
cent gender differences in the relations
among concepts. Because the multigroup
test for the full model included too few cases
(fewer than five) for the number of parame-
ters estimated, we repeated the analyses us-
ing just financial conflicts and parent hostil-
ity to predict adolescent internalizing and
externalizing symptoms. Again, no signifi-
cant gender difference was found; therefore,
we examined the correspondence between
the model and the data using the complete
sample of boys and girls. By estimating the
combined measurement and causal model
using the full sample, we were able to main-
tain an adequate number of cases (10 or
more) per parameter estimate as recom-
mended by Bentler and Chou (1987) and
Bollen (1989).
To test the full model shown in Figure
1 would have reduced well below 10 the
number of cases per parameter estimate. For
that reason, we first tested the direct relation
between the measures of adverse economic
conditions and economic pressure, as shown
in Figure 2. All of these measures of adverse
economic conditions were significantly re-
lated to economic pressure ranging from a
standardized regression coefficient of .11
(imstable work) to — .39 (per capita income).
The set of economic conditions accounted
for 39% of the variance in economic pres-
sure. The modest correlations among the
measures of economic conditions support
their use as separate constructs. The model

TABLE 4
MEAN DIFFERENCES BETWEEN NINTH-GKADE BOYS AND GIRLS ON
MEASURES OF INTEHNALIZATION AND EXTERNALIZATION

BOYS GIRLS
{N = 180) (N = 198)

MEASURES M SD M SD t TEST

Internalization:
State depression 16.34 4.50 19.46 7.29 -4.99*
Trait depression 19.45 4.48 22.01 6.11 -4.47*
State anxiety 13.27 3.81 14.29 4.76 -2.25*
Trait anxiety 21.07 3.77 23.91 4.70 -6.39*
Externalization;
State hostility 8.94 3.26 8.68 3.20 .49
Trait hostility 22.16 3.81 22.15 4.75 .11
Antisocial 24.65 6.29 20.36 6.27 6.59*
Aggressiveness 6.72 1.09 6.21 .66 5.02*
* p < .05.
** p < .001.
554 Child Development

Adjustments Ends
Meet Needs

X",,, - 14.89
p - .061
GFI - .989
Critical N - 380.75
FIG. 2.—Maximum likelihood estimation of the model predicting economic pressure from eco-
nomic conditions (*p < .05).

fit the data fairly well as indicated by a non-
significant chi-square, a goodness-of-Rt in-
dex of almost 1.0, and a critical N greater
than 200 (Hoelter, 1983; Joreskog & Sorbom,
1989).
To assure that the exogenous measures
of adverse economic conditions had only an
indirect association through hypothesized
linking variables with other constructs in the
model, we estimated the paths from per cap-
ita income, unstable work, debt-asset ratio,
and income loss to each endogenous con-
struct controlling for postulated intervening
variables (see Fig. 1). For example, each
economic measure was used to predict mari-
tal confiict controlling for economic pressure
and parent depression. A total of 32 separate
paths were estimated, only one of which was
statistically significant. Because this out-
come would be expected by chance at the
.05 level, we conclude that the evidence
supports the model in Figure 1 showing only
an indirect association between economic
conditions and later constructs in the model.
These findings allowed us to test a less com-
plex model, using economic pressure as
the exogenous construct, in the following
analyses.
Figure 3 presents the results for a
mother and father version ofthe model (stan-
dardized coefficients for the mother model
are in parentheses) predicting internalizing
symptoms of the adolescents at wave 3
(1991) when they were in the ninth grade."^
For the mother model, the depression and
parent hostility constructs pertain only to
her depressed mood and hostile behavior.
The same procedure was followed in the fa-
ther model, estimated separately from the
mother model, in which the depression and
hostility constructs refer only to his moods
and behavior. Because unique dispositions

^ Because we assume that the acute economic decline of the middle 1980s had led to rela-
tively chronic differences in economic well-being for these families by the time they were
interviewed in 1989, the proposed model describes processes hypothesized to be in a state of
equilibrium rather than continuing change. In this situation, including controls at time 1 for
endogenous constructs assessed at time 2 and time 3 would misspecify the model (see Dwyer,
1983; Kessler, 1987; Mulaik, 1987). For that reason, lagged variables were not used in the
analyses.

Wave 1 (1989)
Adjustments Ends Meet Material Needs Father
Spouse
FIG. 3.—Maximum likelihood estimation ofthe model for internalizing symptoms (*p < .05, *p <
.10). Residuals for indicators involving the same reporters were allowed to correlate across constructs
(not shown). For the mothers' model (numbers in parentheses), x"(13''') = 268.2, GFI = .931, and
critical N = 230.2. For the fathers' model, x^(137) = 221.5, GFI = .943, and critical N = 277.2. (R^'s
are reported in the circles.)
of individual reporters may systematically
influence their measures for different con-
structs (e.g., father's report of own depres-
sion and his report of confiict in the mar-
riage), error terms for indicators based on the
same reporter for different constructs were
allowed to covary in these analyses. This
procedure reduces the impact of method
variance error on the findings (Bank et al.,
1990). To simplify the presentation, these
correlations are not shown in the path mod-
els (Figs. 3, 4). Path coefficients predicted to
be nonsignificant (e.g., economic pressure to
parent hostility) were fixed to zero, and other
parameters were allowed to be estimated.
With the exception ofthe nonsignificant
direct path from financial conflicts to prob-
lems of internalization, the results were con-
sistent with the proposed model (Fig. 3). At
wave 1 the standardized path coefficients
from economic pressure to depressed mood
are statistically significant for both mothers
(beta = .63, t = 6.51) and fathers (beta =
.58, t = 5.37). For both parents, depressed
mood is significantly related to marital con-
flict. Because this portion of the model is
estimated at a single point in time, we exam-
ined the earlier discussed possibility that
depressed mood would lead to economic
Conger et al. 555
W.VC 2 (1990) Wave 3 (1991)
Mother Adolescent
State State Trait Trait
Depression Anidety Depression Aniiety
Parent Obsen
pressure which, in turn, would increase the
risk of marital conflict. This alternative or-
dering of the variables significantly reduced
the fit ofthe data with the model, providing
further support for the originally hypothe-
sized theoretical processes.
As expected, economic pressure at wave
1 is significantly related to parent/adoles-
cent financial conflict at wave 2 (beta = .28,
mothers; beta = .29, fathers). Marital con-
flict is even more strongly related to finan-
cial conflicts (beta = .48, fathers; beta = .50,
mothers). Consistent with the postulated
processes, allowing a direct path from de-
pressed mood to any of the wave 2 or wave
3 constructs did not significantly improve
the fit of the data with the model, that is,
none of these path coefficients was statisti-
cally significant. The numbers within the
circles representing endogenous constructs
are squared multiple correlation coefficients
(R^). They show that the wave 1 variables
account for from 40% (fathers) to 44% (moth-
ers) of the variance in wave 2 financial con-
flicts between parents and adolescents. Mar-
ital confiict is also predictive of the global
measure of parental hostility toward adoles-
cents, although for mothers the path coeffi-
cient of .18 is only marginally significant (t
556 Child Development
Wave 1 (1989)
SpOU!
Observer
Father Obsei
FIG. 4.—Maximum likelihood estimation ofthe model for externalizing symptoms {'p < .05, ^p <
.10). Residuals for indicators involving the same reporters were allowed to correlate across constructs
(not shown). For the mothers' model (numbers in parentheses), x^(138) = 261.5, GFI = .932, and
critical N = 238.4. For the fathers' model, x^(138) = 227.6, GFI = .941, and critical N = 273.4. (R^'s
are reported in the circles.)
= L59). The path coefficients from financial
conflicts to hostility are both statistically sig-
nificant. Interestingly, while economic pres-
sure explains a greater portion of the vari-
ance in mother's (40%) than father's (33%)
depression, and mother's mood is more pre-
dictive of marital conflicts than father's de-
pression, the marital and financial conflict
variables explained a greater portion of the
variance in father's (45%) than mother's
(31%) hostility. These differences between
spouses must be cautiously interpreted,
however, because none of them attains sta-
tistical significance.
Only one of the final two paths in the
model is supportive of the predicted set of
relations. Financial conflict is not signifi-
cantly related to internalizing symptoms
{t = -1.35, mothers; t = -.68, fathers), but
it does make a difference indirectly through
the more general measure of parental hostil-
ity. Mother's hostile behavior accounts for
over twice the variance (22%) in internaliz-
ing symptoms as father's (10%) hostility.
Again, this difference is not statistically sig-
nificant.
Both the mother and father models fit
the data reasonably well as indicated by a
W«ve 2 (1990) Wive 3 (1991)
critical N greater than 200 (Hoelter, 1983)
and a goodness-of-fit index greater than .90
(Joreskog & Sorbom, 1989). Releasing the
paths from economic pressure, parental
mood, and marital conflict to additional en-
dogenous variables (i.e., testing the fully re-
cursive model) did not significantly improve
the fit of either the father or mother model;
thus, the theoretical model was accepted as
the more parsimonious representation of re-
lations among the constructs (see Bollen,
1989). In general, the coefficients in Figure
3 also demonstrate a reasonable degree of
association between indicators (all were sta-
tistically significant) and constructs. Only in
the case of adolescent reports of financial
conflicts did a factor weight drop below .40.
Figure 4 provides the results ofthe anal-
yses predicting externalizing problems. As
would be expected, the findings up to paren-
tal hostility are quite similar to those in Fig-
ure 3. There is even less evidence, however,
of a direct connection between marital
conflict and mother's hostility toward the
adolescent. For mothers, marital conflict
appears to affect generalized hostility
primarily indirectly through financial con-
flicts. Rather unexpectedly, the associations
between externalizing symptoms, financial

conflicts, and parent hostility are of about
the same magnitude as those for internaliza-
tion. Although not actually predicted, we as-
sumed that aversive family interactions
would be more likely to generate similar be-
haviors in adolescents. These findings sug-
gest that coercive or hostile family interac-
tions associated with economic stress
increase in a similar fashion the risk for both
internalization and externalization problems.
As with internalizing symptoms, finan-
cial conflicts are only indirectly related to
externalizing problems through their associ-
ation with overall parental hostility. More-
over, mother's hostility explains twice the
variance in externalizing symptoms as fa-
ther's hostility. This difference, however,
was not statistically significant. The model
presented in Figure 4 fits the data reason-
ably well using the criteria reviewed earlier.
A fully recursive estimate ofthe model did
not significantly improve the fit. Moreover,
the indicators for constructs are all statisti-
cally significant and load on the latent vari-
ables as expected.
Discussion
Farlier research suggests that economic
stress may exacerbate conflict and irritability
in family interactions (McLoyd, 1989; Voy-
danoff, 1990). An important aspect of this
process involves arguments and disagree-
ments about Tnoney, although only one pre-
vious study has directly addressed this pos-
sibility, and the findings pertained only to
interactions between husbands and wives
(Liker & Elder, 1983). In this report we ex-
tended this earlier work by investigating the
role of financial conflicts between parents
and adolescents in the economic stress pro-
cess. Such financial conflicts are likely to in-
volve coercive interactions of the type de-
scribed by Patterson (1982) in which family
members rely on aversive behaviors as a tac-
tic in attempts to control one another's ac-
tions. We also proposed that this coercion
process would be associated with more gen-
eralized hostility toward children and ado-
lescents by economically stressed parents.
The findings were generally supportive
of the theoretical model (Fig. 1). Adverse
economic conditions were indirectly related
through economic pressure to other con-
structs in the model. Economic pressure was
associated directly with parent-adolescent
financial conflicts as well as indirectly
through parent depressed mood and hostile
interactions in the marriage. As expected.
Conger et al. 557
both marital conflict and financial conflict
were significantly related to parent hostility
toward the child, although the effect of mari-
tal conflict was primarily indirect for moth-
ers through parent-adolescent financial con-
flict. Moreover, financial conflict affected
problems in adolescent development only
indirectly through parent hostility which, in
turn, directly increased the risk of adoles-
cent symptoms of internalization and exter-
nalization.
Although several path coefficients were
suggestive of differences in the model for
mothers and fathers, none ofthe differences
in these parameter estimates was statisti-
cally significant. Consistent with other re-
cent studies (e.g.. Conger et al., 1991), there
was little support in these findings for the
notion that fathers will be more adversely
affected by family financial problems than
mothers. It may be that men and women in
contemporary families experience economic
stress in a more similar fashion than those
in earlier studies because of the changing
role of women in the workforce. Moreover,
there were no gender differences in the sep-
arate estimates of path coefficients for boys
and girls even though predictable differ-
ences in symptomatology were observed
(i.e., greater internalization for girls and ex-
ternalization for boys). This finding is also
consistent with other recent reports (e.g.,
Flanagan & Eccles, 1993; Lempers et al.,
1989). This difference from Depression era
findings also may reflect a secular trend to-
ward greater similarity in expectations re-
garding males and females.
The results presented here suggest
other promising extensions ofthe family co-
ercion model. Patterson et al. (1992) frame
the coercion process within interaction se-
quences composed of aversive attacks and
counterattacks by family members. These
conflicts may be very general or they may
be quite specific involving, for example, the
financial disagreements between parents
and adolescents reported in the present
study. Although Patterson's work has been
based on analyses of microsocial process in-
volving thousands of family interactive
events, the present findings suggest that
questionnaire responses, as well as sequen-
tial analysis of moment-by-moment ex-
changes, can shed understanding on coer-
cive family behaviors. Indeed, these data
indicate that coercive family processes can
profitably be studied around specific dis-
putes involving such areas of disagreement
as money, chores, schoolwork, etc. Future
558 Child Development
analyses should examine how specific family
stressors (e.g., time pressures in dual-earner
households) lead to arguments and disagree-
ments of particular types (e.g., concerning
child and adolescent household responsibil-
ities) and how these coercive family ex-
changes affect child and adolescent devel-
opment.
Equally important will be research on
family dynamics that decrease the risk for
these destructive processes under condi-
tions of family stress. For example, returning
to Figure 1, one might ask what emotional
or instrumental competencies in families re-
duce the impact of economic pressure on
parent-adolescent financial conflict? Be-
cause economic problems cause distress for
a significant proportion of American families
(Voydanoff, 1990), an especially important
product of research on families and eco-
nomic hardship will be the identification of
processes through which families and indi-
viduals reduce the negative impact of such
experiences (Rutter, 1990).
Another issue raised by the present
findings concerns subjective versus objec-
tive experience of economic difficulties.
One might assert, for example, that the con-
struct "economic pressure" represents a
subjective reality only partially connected to
more objective indicators of economic hard-
ship such as income loss or high debt. Al-
though this is a plausible perspective, for
several reasons we take an opposite view of
the findings.
First, we believe that economic pres-
sures such as cutting back on expenditures
and having difficulty paying bills are real,
everyday experiences, not simply subjective
impressions of reality. Second, from our per-
spective, the financial realities and adjust-
ments represented by the economic pres-
sure construct provide the means by which
economic conditions are translated into psy-
chologically meaningful life events for fam-
ily members. That is, a seemingly objective
measure of hardship, such as low income,
should affect the individual only to the ex-
tent that it creates demands for oftentimes
painful behavioral adjustments, like cutting
back on expenditures.
Especially important, when income is
low, parents with high resource demands
such as ongoing medical costs for chronic
illnesses will need to make more difficult
economic adjustments than those without
such demands. Thus, although people with
a lower income will, in general, experience
greater economic pressure than those with a
higher income, as suggested by the present
findings, the psychological impact of such
objective markers of economic conditions
will vary depending on other constraints or
demands in family life. The economic pres-
sure construct indirectly takes into account
these other contextual influences.
Finally, we question exactly how objec-
tive many of the "hard" measures of eco-
nomic circumstances really are. Given the
limited time available for collecting eco-
nomic data in most behavioral studies, the
information on economic conditions is typi-
cally incomplete. For example, we already
noted that ongoing and necessary expendi-
tures (e.g., for chronic medical problems)
may vary dramatically across families and
significantly affect the demands created by
a particular income level. Yet, this informa-
tion on family expenditures is rarely consid-
ered in behavioral research, including our
own. Moreover, we find only moderate
agreement between spouse reports on fam-
ily income, income loss, etc. We suspect that
parents often do not have exact information
on their economic circumstances or, if they
do, may be reticent to report it. For example,
many of the parents in our study appear to
be involved in barter economies or sideline
"cash only" businesses that are not reflected
in the income figures they report. Thus, we
expect that there are significant biases in re-
ports of economic conditions, biases that
may be systematic and subjective in nature.
To summarize, although our primary ex-
ogenous construct (economic pressure) has
a subjective dimension, we propose that it
also reflects objective features of a family's
daily economic reality. We suspect that more
comprehensive and accurate measurement
of family economic conditions would in-
crease the association between putatively
objective economic measures and the pres-
sure construct. From a policy perspective,
economic pressure represents a key psycho-
logical link between economic hard times
and daily family experience. The present
findings suggest that the most fundamental
means for reducing economic pressure and
its adverse influences on adolescents and
parents is to increase family economic well-
being.
Although the findings presented here
are consonant with the hypothesized theo-
retical model, several limitations in the re-
search should be noted. First, despite our
consideration of family coercive processes

across time, a passive longitudinal study of
this type does not rival an experiment in
terms of causal inference (Dwyer, 1983).
Nevertheless, a longitudinal design pro-
vides greater confidence in the temporal or-
dering of constructs than does a cross-
sectional research strategy. Second, the
generalizability of the findings should be
tested in urban as well as rural settings, with
different family structures (e.g., step- and
single-parent), with children of different
ages, and with other than white families. If
the present findings prove robust upon fur-
ther examination, they provide a basis for
understanding and minimizing the coercive
processes through which economic stress
has adverse developmental consequences.
The prevention of such stress-related emo-
tional and relationship problems should re-
duce long-term difficulties along these di-
mensions and also assist families in focusing
their energies more effectively on the man-
agement of hard times.
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