In turn, we hypothesized that adolescents’ perceptions of interparental conflict and positivity would better explain the degree to which they appraise parental conflicts as threatening than their parents’ own assessment of their relationship. Indicators of couple relationship quality may reflect only a portion of adolescent exposure or awareness of their parents’ relationship. Because DST and vantage sensitivity posit variation in sensitivity to environmental exposures, indicators of actual exposure captured by adolescent perception of interparental relationships is key for these hypotheses. As a result, we expected that couple relationship quality will not be directly related to appraisals of threat, after accounting for adolescents’ perceptions. Adolescents’ perception of conflict and positivity is expected to mediate the relation between parent relationship assessments and adolescent threat appraisals. Higher perceived conflict will lead to higher threat appraisals; higher perceived positivity will lead to lower threat. Last, as found in prior research, we expected that adolescents who report higher levels of threat to be at higher risk for internalizing problems.
