Adolescents’ threat appraisals were assessed at Wave 2 with four items drawn from the Threat subscale of the Children’s Perceptions of Interparental Conflict Scale (Grych et al., 1992). The Children’s Perceptions of Interparental Conflict Scale has demonstrated consistent reliability with adolescents (Fosco & Grych, 2010; Grych et al., 1992). Items on the Threat subscale began “When my parents argue. . .” followed by “I’m afraid something bad will happen,” “I worry that one of them will get hurt,” “I’m afraid that they will yell at me too,” or “I worry that they might get divorced” (α = .88). Items were scored 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree) and were averaged to create an overall scale that reflects fears and potential stress that may result from interparental conflict.
