Family Conflict and Young Adults' Attitudes Toward Intimacy

Summary

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between parental conflict and young adults' levels of intimacy. The participants were 317 college students. The hypotheses that offspring from high-conflict families would have less favorable attitudes toward intimacy and more sexual partners than those from low-conflict families were not supported. Also not supported was the prediction that females who had experienced high family conflict would have more positive attitudes toward dating relationships than males who had had similar family experiences. However, a predicted significant relationship between relationship dependency and high family conflict was upheld.

Key Words:

• Family conflict
• young adults
• intimacy