Kids exposed to verbal spats with parents handle stress better as adults

A new study has demonstrated that if as a child one had faced verbal conflicts with their parents, then it becomes easy to battle stressful situations as an adult.

The study conducted at Rollins College and The Pennsylvania State University found that individuals who were exposed to intense verbal aggression as children were able to handle intense conflict later in life.

Researchers Aloia and Solomon studied 50 romantically involved couples and found that the more intense the conflict interaction was rated between the couples the stronger the physiological stress response to the conflict. This relationship, however, was weakened for individuals who reported a higher level of childhood exposure to verbal aggression.

Aloia asserted that conflict experiences could be beneficial by alleviating tension and avoiding conflict escalation, reducing communication apprehension, and contributing to closeness within the relationship and given the diversity of outcomes associated with interpersonal conflict, efforts to understand variation in the experienced negativity of conflict experiences were extremely important in helping people navigate these interactions.

The study is published in the journal Human Communication Research.