Exploration of the Individual and Family Process Variables Impacting College Students from Families of Divorce.

摘要

Available research on parental divorce in childhood has primarily focused on the immediate negative consequences experienced by children. With a primary focus on short term effects, less focus has been placed on more long term developmental concerns (Wallerstein & Lewis, 2004; Hetherington, 1993). A comprehensive understanding of the individual and family process factors responsible for post-divorce outcomes, as well as the complex relationships, has been increasingly absent across divorce literature.;The purpose of this study was to enhance our understanding of post-divorce outcomes, specifically later relationship competence. Past research has implicated age (Amato, 1996), gender (Palosaari & Aro, 1994), family cohesion (Kirk, 2002), parental conflict (Kirk, 2002), and resilience (Eldar-Avidan et al., 2009) in the prediction of future outcomes. One hundred college students experiencing divorce in childhood were asked to complete a series of self-report measures. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was utilized to test three proposed models and a post-hoc model, while identifying the model accounting for the most variance and achieving the most optimal goodness of fit.;It was hypothesized that children experiencing divorce at a younger age would report increased resilience in adulthood. Females were hypothesized to report greater perception of hostility between parents. Young adults from cohesive families were expected to report higher levels of resilience and decreased parental conflict. All of these variables were expected to be associated with relationship competence. An exploratory independent behavioral measure was utilized to assess whether or not help-seeking behavior plays a role in the relationship competence of young adults from divorce.;In general, the models accounted for a medium amount of variance and achieved mediocre to good approximations of fit. The post-hoc model was identified as the most parsimonious and best fitting model. The model suggests the presence of family cohesion predicts resilience and decreased parental conflict, with gender rendering the relationship between family cohesion and parental conflict significant. In turn, both resilience and parental conflict predict competence in relationships. Resilience also serves as a mediating variable in the relationship between family cohesion and relationship competence. Clinical implications, study limitations, and directions for future research are discussed.