ABSTRACT
The present study investigated the relation between resources and experience of family-work conflict during the COVID-19 pandemic and expressions of spousal aggression. Resources were assessed by relaxed family communication and by flexibility in coping. Spousal aggression was assessed by spousal undermining and adoption of maladaptive tactics for marital conflict management: physical violence, verbal-emotional violence, and avoidant tactics. The research sample included 406 Israeli Jewish participants (206 women and 200 men) who worked from home at least 3 days a week during August 2020 and are parents to young children. Family-work conflict was related to spousal undermining and to adoption of verbal-emotional and avoidant tactics. Spousal undermining mediates the relationship between family-work conflict and maladaptive tactics for marital conflict management. The coping flexibility resource is negatively correlated to spousal undermining and to adoption of physical violence tactics during marital conflict management. No gender differences were found in family-work conflict and in assessment of spousal aggression. Based on the findings, practical recommendations are offered to professionals and policy makers in organizations to reduce the damage of a role conflict experience on the marital relationship.
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Notes on contributors
Liat Kulik
Liat Kulik is a Full Professor at Bar Ilan University School of Social Work. She has a BA degree in Psychology, an MA degree in Behavioral Sciences and Management, and a PhD degree in Sociology. Over the past 20 years, Prof. Kulik has engaged in practical work, research, and teaching in different areas relating to workers in organizations and the influence of work on individuals and their families. She has also published numerous articles in scientific journals on topics such as spousal power relations, gender roles at work and at home, work-family conflict, and intergenerational transmission of gender role attitudes. She is co-editor of a book Working Families – Parents in the Labor Market in Israel: Social, Legal and Economic Perspectives, which recently appeared in Hebrew. She is currently involved in public projects for promoting volunteering in Israel
Dan Ramon
Dan Ramon is a lecturer at the international MSc program at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Environment and Bar Ilan University School of Social Work. He has a BA degree in psychology and a PhD degree in experimental psychology. Over the past 10 years Dr Ramon was involved in the establishment of new psychology department in the periphery of Israel and has published articles focusing on emotion regulation, behavioral control and their neurological underpinnings.