Definition

Social conflict refers to the various types of negative social interaction that may occur within social relationships (e.g., arguments, criticism, hostility, unwanted demands), and may include physical violence.

Measurement

To date, social conflict has been a relatively neglected aspect of social relationships in sociological and epidemiological research on social relationships and health. Existing measures generally consist of a small number of items asking about the frequency of various types of negative social interaction (i.e., demands, criticism); items are generally asked with respect to specific types of relationships (e.g., spouse, friends) (Seeman et al, 1994; Schuster et al, 1990). Data from the Mid-Mac, national survey provide the only psychometric data on this type of measure, indicating reasonable internal reliability, with coefficient alphas of .79-.81 for scales measuring social conflict with family, friends and spouse (measures derived from Schuster et al, 1990). Evidence of construct validity in terms of correlations with other measures is also seen for Mid-Mac data (unpublished data).

Relationship to SES

Available data suggest that lower SES is associated with higher levels of social conflict for adults (Ryff, Seeman, unpublished analyses of Mid-Mac data; Schuster et al, 1990). Evidence also suggests that the same is true at younger ages where lower SES is associated with more troubled peer relations (Bolger et al, 1995).

Relationship to Health

Research on links between social conflict and health outcomes in adults is nonexistent except as such conflict relates to psychological distress; evidence for health effects among children is also largely related to psychological and/or behavioral outcomes though there is a small literature relating family conflict to physical health outcomes.

Research from two MacArthur networks indicates that greater social conflict is associated with greater psychological distress (Ryff, Seeman – analyses of Mid-Mac data) and suggestive evidence that such conflict may also be associated with greater HPA axis activity, particularly for women (Seeman et al, 1994). Other research corroborates these findings, showing relationships between social conflict and greater physiologic arousal both with respect to blood pressure (Ewart et al, 1991; Gerin et al, 1992) and neuroendocrine activity (Kiecolt-Glaser et al, 1994) as well as greater psychological distress (Schuster et al, 1990; Rook, 1992; for review see also Burg & Seeman, 1994). Significantly, the impact of social conflict on psychological distress levels is greater among those living in more crowded homes (Lepore et al, 1991c) – an effect that appears to be partially mediated by reductions in perceptions of control (Lepore et al, 1992). To date, there does not appear to be any published research linking more negative aspects of social interaction with adults’ disease outcomes or longevity.

As in the case of adults, children exposed to social conflict exhibit heightened physiological reactivity. Preschoolers exposed to videotapes of angry adult interactions exhibit increases in heart rate and blood pressure (El-Sheikh et al, 1989). Research also demonstrates relationships between childhood exposure to conflict and/or physical violence and increased risks for depression (Burge & Hammen, 1991; Downey & Walker, 1992; Koverola et al, 1993), headaches and stomachaches (Mechanic & Hansell, 1989), shorter stature at ages 7 and 33 (Montgomery et al, 1997) and increased risk of mortality (Sorenson & Peterson, 1994). Increased levels of reported stressors in both day-care and family environments (some reflecting social stressors) have also been related to increased incidence of respiratory illness though specific measures of family conflict were not related to illness (Boyce et al, 1995).

Limitations

Currently the greatest limitations relate to the relative lack of attention to this aspect of social relationships. They include both the lack of good measurement instruments as well as the lack of specific research focusing on more negative aspects of social interaction, either with respect to their relative prevalence across population subgroups (i.e., descriptive research) or their relationship to health outcomes.

Network Usage

Measures of social conflict are currently under investigation using data from both the Successful Aging cohort and the Mid-Mac national survey.

Conclusions

This area of research has, to date, received much less attention than have more positive aspects of social interactions in terms of potential relationships to health outcomes. Existing data suggest that more negative aspects of social interaction are importantly and negatively related to both SES and health, suggesting that we should include consideration of both more negative as well as more positive characteristics of individuals social ties in our models of SES and health. As in the case of social support, there is no established measure of negative aspects of social interactions, though the psychometric data from the Mid-Mac scales suggests that these may be a good first choice. At this time, there has been little or no research on the possible role of such negative social interactions in the SES-health model. As with positive social interactions, it is likely that negative qualities of social interactions function as mediators and moderators of SES effects on health. However, all of these relationships remain to be investigated.

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