Family Conflict over Political Issues in Hong Kong and its Psychological Consequences: A Longitudinal Study

Abstract

Politics-related tension has been affecting many families worldwide, and Hong Kong is no exception. Given the lack of scientific research on such a topic, we aimed to advance understanding on the roles of family conflict over political issues by examining our proposed model of parent-child political value discrepancies—family conflict—family relationships. From 2018 June to 2019 May (right before the social movement in the summer of 2019), we successfully collected data from 299 parent-child dyads across two waves of survey, 9-months apart. Our analyses confirm that political value discrepancies with children predicted parents’ conflict experienced at home, which in turns predicted their family satisfaction/well-being 9 months later. Similar effects were also found for children, except that value discrepancies did not seem to be as relevant in predicting these teenagers’ conflict with parents. More importantly, the aforementioned effects were qualified by parents’ personality (i.e., neuroticism) and parents’ and children’s communication styles (i.e., destructive styles). That is, detrimental effects of political value discrepancies and family conflict can actually be reduced if parents are less neurotic and parents and/or children adopt appropriate communication styles at home. Our research design allows us to delineate the inter-influences between a parent and his/her child on politics-related conflict, generating both conceptual and practical implications. Interventions for promoting family welfare may target on modifying learners’ neurotic personality and reinforcing constructive communication styles.