Development and Validation of Perceived Inter-
Parental Conflict Scale for Adolescents
Nosheen Ramzan, Farah Malik, PhD, & Iram Fatima, PhD
Institute of Applied Psychology, University of the Punjab, Lahore.
Background
Although, disputes between parents
are universal phenomenon, but
parenting styles that vary from culture
to culture and parent-child
relationships in cultural context have
made the inter-parental conflict or
relationship very cultural specific
psychological concept. Parental
relationships with each other due to
cultural impact and living in a joint
family system and if nuclear, the
influence of in-laws and other people
in the family is too much, that affects
the husband-wife relationship.
Moreover, the socio-economic
environment of the house ,
socialization process of children, and
family values also vary in culture to
culture and has a direct and indirect
impact on children’s perceptions.
Therefore, inter-parental conflict
becomes a cultural specific
phenomenon (Malik & Rohner,
2012, 2016). Progressive evidence has
suggested that children not only
affected by parental conflicts in forms
of physical or verbal violence but it
places the children’s mental health at
risk (Harold et al., 2017). Researchers
have so far focused on measuring the
perception of inter-parental conflicts
in young children whereas perception
of inter-parental conflicts in
adolescents is different (McDonald &
Grych, 2006).
Objectives
 To construct culturally and
linguistically appropriate indigenous
tool for inter-parental conflicts for
Pakistani adolescents.  s
 To establish validity and
determine the psychometric properties
of the scale.
Method Results
It was an exploratory study conducted Table 1: Descriptive Statistics of Perceived
into two phases. Inter-Parental Conflict Scale for Adolescents
(N =500).
First Phase:
In this phase, a pool of 88 items were
drawn from in-depth interviews with
10 adolescents, three focus group
discussions with parents and teachers,
searching literature review and taking
experts opinion.
Second Phase:
In second phase, psychometric
properties of the scale were Table 2: Inter-Correlations among
determined. Perceived Inter-Parental Conflicts Scale
Sample: for Adolescents and its Subscales
The sample of the study comprised of (N=500).
500 adolescents both boys (n = 253, M
age = 15.32, SDage = 1.06) and girls (n
= 247, Mage = 15. 25, SDage = 1.09).
Results
Principal Axis Factoring (PAF)
followed by Oblique rotation and
The Kaiser-Mayer-Olkin (KMO)
generated six factors which were
Conclusion, Implications,
labeled as:
and limitations
Figure 1: The Perceived Inter-
 The current study provides
parental Conflict Scale for
evidence that inter-parental conflicts
Adolescents (PIPCSA).
are cultural-specific and particular
society traditions play a key role in
modifications of adolescents’
Overt perception concerning inter-parental
Conflicts
conflicts.
Psychologi
Familial
 Since this scale was developed
cal
Conflicts
Conflicts and validated on adolescents living
in intact families with both parents.
Future studies should focus on
comparing the factor structure of
Child Conflicts PIPCSA across diverse family
Related Related
structures such as broken families,
Conflict Emotional
Reactivity
step-parent's families, etc.
Financial The six distinctively reliable
Conflicts
subscales of PIPCSA assist in
assessing different aspects of inter-
parental conflicts in the Pakistani
cultural context.