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Summary of all articles of the Interpersonal Processes course
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Summary of all articles of the course Interpersonal Processes at Utrecht University
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Artikel week 1: Amato – Research on Divorce: Continuing Trends and NewDevelopments
Complete count of annual divorces in US lacks just as official estimate of number of children affected
by divorce every year.
Estimating probability that members of different birth cohorts end their marriages in divorce
difficult to calculate but easier to understand than crude divorce rate.
Common belief: half of all marriages are voluntarily disrupted.
o 42% of non-Hispanic Whites and Hispanics divorced within the first 15 years of
marriage, compared with 55% of African Americans. High rate for African Americans
is because of a complex set of historical, economic, structural and cultural factors
that have yet to be disentangled.
o Puerto Ricans and Cubans are more likely to be divorced than Mexican Americans or
Central Americans.
o Immigration status is also relevant Mexican Americans born outside of US have an
especially low divorce rate.
o Hispanics and African Americans are more likely than non-Hispanic Whites to end
their marriages in permanent separations rather than divorce.
The divorce rate has been declining for college-educated couples since the late 1970s but has
remained essentially flat for couples without college degrees.
Decline in marital dissolution since 80s but unknown if this varied with race and ethnicity,
except to the extent that these groups differ in social class.
Major risk factors for divorce
Marrying as a teenager
Being poor
Unemployment
Low level of education
Cohabiting prior to marriage
o Only under certain circumstances? Nonmarital birth, with someone else than spouse.
o Entirely dependent on selection factor? Traits that increase the likelihood of
cohabitation as well as the risk of marital discord and divorce.
o Stanley, Rhoades & Markman (2006): couples have lower standards for and
commitment to cohabiting partners. Living together accumulates constraints to
ending the relationship marriage, even if they wouldn’t have under other
circumstances Engaged prior to cohabitation report fewer problems and greater
relationship stability following marriage.
Premarital birth
Bringing children from a previous union into a new marriage (especially among mothers)
Different race
Being in a second- or higher order marriage
Growing up in a household without two continuously married parents
Domestic violence
Frequent conflict
Infidelity
Number of perceived relationship problems
Weak commitment to marriage
Low levels of love and trust between spouses
Accumulation of risk factors can lead to divorce through 2 paths:
1. A high level of conflict and unhappiness
2. A low level of commitment
1
,Protective factors for divorce
Positive affect neutralizes the potentially negative effect of unskilled behaviours.
Effect of divorce on children
Lower emotional, behavioural, social, health and academic outcomes.
As adults less education, lower levels of psychological well-being, more problems in own
marriage & greater risk of divorce, less close to parents (especially fathers).
Three research methods
1. Genetically informed designs
o Passive genetic model: genetic dispositions for traits such as aggression and
antisocial behaviour in parents divorce. Children inherent these traits conduct
disorders, weak attachments to peers and classmates and other problems.
o 2 types of designs
1. Studies of children of twins: most associations can’t be attributed to passive
genetic transmission, intergenerational transmission of divorce because of a
mix of genetic and environmental influences.
2. Studies of adopted children: majority of outcomes can’t be explained by
passive genetic inheritance.
o Model based on gene x environment interactions may turn out to be more useful:
genetic polymorphism associated with antisocial behaviour (DRD2*178/304) more
likely to exhibit high level of delinquency when living with a single parent.
2. Fixed-effects models
o Controlling for variables that may be causes of parental divorce as well as child
adjustment. Eliminate unobserved sources of heterogeneity that are time invariant
(gender, race, birth cohort, parents’ personality, some genetic effects and other
selection factors) but don’t control for time-varying factors.
o Designs
Measuring child well-being at 2 or more times with some observations
occurring before divorce and others after.
Lagged dependent variable approach: longitudinally estimating
effects of divorce on child well-being while controlled for same
outcome measured prior to divorce. Similar to child-fixed effects
models, although they don’t control for time-invariant unmeasured
variables.
Adolescents with later divorced parents: lower scores on
standardized achievement tests, more behaviour problems at school
and lower self-esteem. These predivorce differences largely
accounted for the post-divorce differences between groups of
children.
Sibling fixed effects: observing 2 siblings from the same family with one living
in a divorced single-parent household longer than the other. Controls for all
unobserved time-invariant family variables that are shared by the two
siblings.
State fixed effects: comparing aggregate levels of child well-being in states
prior to and after the adoption of particular divorce legislation (no fault
divorce). Controls for all unobserved time-invariant state-level variables.
o Results
No associations between parental divorce and children’s behaviour problems
or achievement scores.
2
, No association between childhood family structure and the risk of a
premarital birth among women.
Consistent with a selection perspective (effects of divorce unmeasured variables).
More psychological distress when parents are divorced.
Living in a single-parent family lower educational achievements,
heightened risk of having nonmarital birth among women and greater
likelihood of smoking.
Unilateral no-fault divorce lower educational attainment and increase in
suicide.
Effect on children even after controlling for time-invariant unmeasured sources of
heterogeneity. It is difficult to reach firm conclusions number of studies is small, and
results are contradictory.
Social psychological measures of children such as self-esteem revealed a U-
shaped pattern, declining as divorce approached and improving as divorce
receded.
Even before marital dissolution higher levels of anxiety, depression and
antisocial behaviour, further increase in anxiety and depression (but not
antisocial behaviour) following divorce.
o Limitation of these studies is that they are open to multiple interpretations.
3. Longitudinal comparisons of children’s wellbeing before and after divorce
o Future distinguish between low- and high-conflict couples with children who
divorce.
Laumann-Billings & Emery (2000) – new perspective on thinking about children and divorce:
divorced parents no lower scores on measures of clinical depression or anxiety.
Nevertheless, often deal with subclinical levels of pain suggest that standardized
measures of well-being overlook many of the subtle consequences of divorce for children.
Factors affecting children’s adjustment to divorce
Divorce-stress adjustment perspective: marital dissolution is a process that unfolds over
time, beginning when couples are still married and ending years after legal divorce. Legal
divorce itself few direct effects on children, short-term stresses and long-term strains that
precede and follow marital disruption risk of variety of behavioural, emotional,
interpersonal and academic problems among children.
o Drawn on notions of stress, coping and resiliency.
o Lot of factors moderate reactions to divorce adjustment can occur quickly (few
long-term negative consequences) or slowly (negative consequences that persist well
into adulthood).
o Stressful circumstances surrounding divorce accounting for link parental divorce and
forms of well-being:
Declines in household income, poor psychological functioning among
resident parents, ineffective parenting from resident parents, loss of contact
with non-resident parents and continuing conflict between parents and
absence of cooperative co-parenting behaviour.
However, mix of children with divorced and never married parents
and few to no gender and ethnicity differences.
Strong attachment to same-sex parent delinquent behaviour if divorce
separated them from this parent.
o Understudied moderator quality of family relationships prior to marital
dissolution (difference in outcomes between high- and low-conflict).
Multiple transition perspective: treating divorce as one of a series of transitions that children
may experience before reaching adulthood instead of treating it as a single transition.
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