It is clear that negative emotion is important in parent–
child relationships generally and in their conflict interactions
in particular, it makes sense that emotion should
function as a marker of the presence of parent–child con-
flict. Steinberg and Silk (2002) argued that ‘‘it may be the
affective intensity of the conflict, rather than its frequency
or content, that distinguishes adaptive from maladaptive
parent–adolescent conflict’’ (p. 123). In other words,
emotion may be more important than what the partners say
to each other during conflicts or how often they engage in
conflict. Negative emotion may be a particularly important
marker of conflict in adolescence. In a meta-analysis by
Laursen et al. (1998), the overall frequency of conflicts
between parents and children declined (rather than
increased, as commonly thought) during adolescence;
however, the intensity of parent and children negative
emotion did increase across adolescence (also see Smetana
et al. 2006).