Friendship Quality and Interparental Conflict as Predictors of Relationship Status

In order to fulfill the requirements of a psychology research methods course in the 2008 fall semester, I designed and implemented a survey-style study. This study examined the importance of friendship quality, parental marital status, and interparental conflict on young adult romantic relationships. Eighty-three general psychology students took surveys about current relationship status, friendship quality, and observed interparental conflict. Results show that there is a strong correlation between friendship quality and the length of participants’ relationships. There is also a significant difference between males and females regarding how often they talk to their friends. There is a significant negative correlation between talking to friends and how often participants fight with their partners. Results also indicate that participants who report experiencing more interparental conflict growing up are likely to fight more often in their current relationships than those participants who reported relatively less interparental conflict. The implications for parents understanding the impact of their own conflict on the later relationships of their children are discussed