Parents’ self-concept clarity, marital satisfaction and parent-child relationship quality: Actor-partner interdependence analyses

The family can be viewed as an integrated system consisting of interdependent subsystems, among which marital and parent–child subsystems are critical for family functioning. Given the dominance of parents in the family, it is important to investigate the associations between parents’ characteristics and these two subsystems. In addition, researchers have found a unidirectional effect of parents’ self-concept clarity on their children’s self-concept clarity. Exploring whether and how parents’ self-concept clarity is related to family relationships may provide insight into this intergenerational transmission since the family plays an important role in the development of children’s self-concept. Taken together, the main aim of this study was to examine the links across parents’ self-concept clarity and marital and parent–child relationships. A total of 363 Chinese parental dyads of primary and secondary students completed the self-concept clarity, relationship assessment, and child–parent relationship scales, and the data were analyzed by adopting the actor–partner interdependence model (APIM) and the actor–partner interdependence mediation model (APIMeM). The APIM results indicated significant positive associations between parents’ self-concept clarity and parent–child relationship quality perceived by the parents (actor effects) and their partners (partner effects). The APIMeM results showed that fathers’ marital satisfaction partially mediated the actor effects from parents’ self-concept clarity to parent–child relationship quality. Moreover, after controlling for covariates (e.g., family income), parents’ self-concept clarity had significant indirect partner effects on parent–child relationship quality mediated completely via fathers’ marital satisfaction. These findings contribute to a deeper understanding of family system processes and the intergenerational transmission of self-concept clarity and have implications for family interventions.