Positive Outcomes of Divorce: A Multi-Method Study on the Effects of Parental Divorce on Children

Introduction

• Divorce rates in the United States have fluctuated, rising during the Great Depression and World War II, then peaking in the 1970s, and declining in the 1980s.

• The average divorce rate has been about 3.7 per 1,000 total population over the past decade, while the average marriage rate was 7.5 per 1,000 total population (National Center for Health Statistics, 2000-2011).

• Scholars have tried to understand the causes and effects of divorce on children.

• Wallerstein (1991) suggested that divorce affects children negatively, causing long-term psychological and social difficulties due to changes in parent-child relationships, living arrangements, and parental relocation.

• Some scholars argue that the nature of family relationships before and after divorce is more important than the divorce itself in determining children’s wellbeing (Fabricius, 2003; Amato et al, 2011).

• Amato et al. (2011) suggest that divorce can remove children from high-conflict households, providing an opportunity to develop in a less stressful environment, which could mitigate academic and behavioral issues.

• Studies have been conducted to explore positive outcomes of divorce, the circumstances under which they occur, and how to maximize the situation for children and parents (Fabricius, 2003; Sever et al, 2008).

• This study aims to determine if parental divorce can positively influence relationship formation and maintenance skills in young adults.

• Previous research indicates that children of divorce may develop nervousness or wariness towards intimate relationships (Cartwright, 2008) or become more appreciative and knowledgeable, thus increasing their confidence (Sever, 2008).

• Recent research suggests that young adult children of divorce can learn and grow, gaining an appreciation for relationship responsibilities and avoiding their parents' mistakes.

• This study contributes to research on positive outcomes by uncovering new ways in which young adults benefit from their parents’ divorce and testing previously observed positive outcomes.

Literature Review

Effects of Divorce on Children

• Studies explore internalizing and externalizing behavior problems in children and young adults from divorced families.

• Scabini and Cigoli (2008) found that young adults may internalize their parents’ divorce differently based on gender.

  • Males tend to view an absent father as an absent role model, fearing they may become abusive or negligent like their father.

  • Females focus on the importance of finding a reliable partner, with excessive maternal presence reinforcing the need for stability.

• Amato et al. (2011) found that children displayed the fewest behavioral problems and closest relationships with their fathers when parents maintained a cooperative relationship post-divorce.

• Carlson (2006) revealed findings on paternal involvement using data from the 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth.

  • Father involvement reduces the impact of family structure effects on adolescent behavioral outcomes, independent of maternal factors and economic status.

  • The benefits of high-quality father involvement apply equally to both boys and girls.

  • Active involvement of the residential father is crucial for promoting a safe and nurturing environment.

  • Only about 10-18% of nonresident fathers devote a significant amount of time to their children (Carlson, 2006).

• Researchers argue for reevaluating divorce studies to examine different angles and look for positive effects (Sever et al, 2008).

• Amato et al. (2011) suggest using more current data to provide more evidence in favor of positive outcomes on children.

• Leon (2003) reviewed existing literature, using the developmental psychopathology organizational framework, and concluded that findings were not grounded in adequate interpretations.

  • The role of other family factors, such as parenting quality, has not been examined in much of the research on the long-term effects of parental divorce.

  • Children whose parents divorced might have experienced the same negative outcomes, or more problems, had their parents remained married.

  • Studies rely on correlational methods rather than experimental methods, making it impossible to infer a causal relationship between early parental divorce and later outcomes (Leon, 2003: 267).

Effects on Relationship Formation and Maintenance

• Research has largely focused on the negative effects of parental divorce on children, teenagers, and young adults.

• Studies demonstrate pessimistic outlooks, low self-esteem, and negative outcomes on academic performance, familial relationships, and everyday functioning (Carlson, 2006; Cartwright, 2008; Scabini and Cigoli, 2008; Sever et al., 2008).

• Qualitative studies depict children of divorce experiencing painful emotional states and decreased self-worth, trust, and communication with peers.

• Scabini and Cigoli (2008) found that males from divorced families often fear being unable to maintain a healthy relationship.

• Cartwright’s (2008) study reported that young adults from divorced families had negative beliefs, such as "no one stays around forever," "relationships are short-lived," and "I’m going to end up divorced" (Cartwright, 2008: 140).

• Sever et al. (2008) found that nearly half of the participants reported more positive than negative outcomes, with reciprocal support yielding the best long-term results.

  • Reciprocal support involves establishing a two-way support system between offspring and parents, improving communication and awareness of others’ needs.

  • The support coping style correlates with empowerment, empathy, and relationship-savvy, leading to greater responsibility, maturity, self-confidence, and acceptance of parents’ choices.

• Researchers have found that indicators of wellbeing exist independently of parents’ marital status (Bernstein, 2012).

• Bernstein (2012) found that fear of abandonment, rather than the divorce itself, increases the risk for insecure romantic attachment in children of divorce.

• Young adults of divorce possessed more sympathy, enthusiasm, awe, and perspective-taking than those with continuously married parents.

Method

• The study explores the effects of parental divorce on young adults’ ability to form and maintain romantic relationships using surveys and face-to-face interviews.

• Surveys were distributed via social networking sites and email to students at the University of Central Florida (UCF).

• Data were analyzed using SPSS to reveal frequencies and correlations between factors of relationship maintenance, parental conflict, and post-divorce emotional adjustment.

• Surveys included a section for students to leave contact information for face-to-face interviews.

Sample

• The population studied was UCF students, using convenience and snowball sampling.

• Surveys were directed towards members of social networks who had experienced parental divorce and then distributed to random UCF students.

• Respondents’ age range was set at 18-29 years old to account for non-traditional students.

• The average respondent’s age was 22 years old.

• Respondents who were not UCF students were removed from the final sample.

• The original goal was to reach a sample size of 300 students, but only 233 respondents were procured.

• Only ten students were willing and able to participate in face-to-face interviews.

• Sixty-seven males and one hundred sixty-six females responded to the survey.

• Thirty-three males and seventy-three females (45.5% of the total sample) reported having experienced at least one parental divorce.

• Sixty-four percent of the respondents were White/Caucasian. Twenty-one percent identified as Latin/Hispanic. African-Americans made up the next largest demographic with fourteen percent, followed by Asian/Pacific Islanders with an eight percent response rate. An overlap of roughly seven percent is due to a small representative (19) of multiracial respondents.

Variables and Coding

Quantitative

• Several aspects of romantic relationship formation and maintenance, including attitudes towards relationships, number of relationships, and average duration were analyzed.

Dependent Variables

• A numerical scale was developed to measure a respondent’s attitude towards romantic relationships, coded from ten five-point Likert scale statements.

• Positive statements were coded so that answers that agree had higher values (4-5) while negative statements were coded so that answers that agree had lower values (1-2).

• The final scale ranges from 10-50 points, with a higher score denoting a more positive overall attitude towards relationships.

• The survey included two questions on the number of relationships the respondent had had following the divorce and how long on average these relationships had lasted.

Independent Variables

• The presence of parental divorce was accounted for by recoding the first survey question into a new variable, with the value 0 representing respondents whose parents never divorced and the value 1 representing those respondents who had experienced at least one parental divorce.

• Question 22 (What is your gender?) was coded with the value 0 representing the response ‘Male’ and the value 1 representing the response ‘Female’.

• Respondents’ age at the time of their parent’s divorce was coded with values ranging from 1-7. In order to account for how many parental divorces respondents experienced I coded the first survey question with the values 0-4, with 0 representing respondents whose parents never divorced and values 1-4 for the number of parental divorces (1-4) respondents experienced respectively.

Qualitative

• Qualitative methodology is necessary to understand the lived experiences of children of divorce as well as to uncover possible new outcomes that cannot be measured by fixed quantitative processes.

• The interviews were semi-structured, consisting of 7 core questions and allowing the respondent to delve into the aspect(s) of their experience that they were most comfortable with.

• Only ten respondents from the Divorced sample were able to participate in face-to-face interviews.

• The majority of these participants experienced one parental divorce; only one experienced a second.

• Eight participants reported conflict between their parents during and/or after the divorce and the remaining two reported that there was no conflict.

Analytic Strategies

• To test the hypothesis that respondents from intact families will have more positive outcomes with relationship formation than those from divorced families, an independent samples t-test was used.

• To test the hypothesis that male adult children of divorce will experience more difficulty in maintaining successful romantic relationships than females, a second independent samples t-test was used.

• To test the hypothesis that young adults who experienced parental divorce as teenagers will experience more difficulty in maintaining successful romantic relationships than those who experienced it as younger children, an analysis of variance was used.

• To test the hypothesis that higher frequencies of parental divorces will have a more negative effect on relationship formation than lower frequencies, another analysis of variance was used.

• After transcribing the interviews, common themes in the responses were searched for.

Findings

Quantitative

General Effects of Divorce

• Forty-six percent of the total sample population reported having experienced at least one parental divorce.

• Negative emotions were reported by an overwhelming majority of the respondents at the time of their parents’ divorce.

• Seventy-five percent of respondents reported feeling sad, stressed, worried and/or anxious.

• The remaining fourteen percent of the respondents reported feeling relieved, and/or happy at the time of their parents divorce.

Effects of Parental Divorce on Relationships

• This study was designed to examine the effects of parental divorce on relationship formation and attitudes towards relationships by testing four hypotheses.

• The first hypothesis was that respondents from intact families would have more positive outcomes with relationship formation than those from divorced families.

• Statistical analyses show that respondents whose parents never divorced reported fairly positive attitudes towards relationships \overline{Y}=32.4836, once again keeping fairly similar results to respondents from the Divorced sample \overline{Y}=32.6923.

• An interesting note is that, while more members of the Never Divorced sample scored a total of 40 points, the maximum in their category, than those in the Divorced sample (4 vs. 3), one member of the Divorced sample scored 41 points, their respected maximum.

• The test revealed no significant relationship between the two variables (see table 1).

Table 1: Independent Samples T-test- Young Adults from Divorced vs. Intact Parents Attitudes towards Romantic Relationships

• Through the lack of significance in the relationship between these variables, these findings demonstrate that parental divorce has no impact on young adults’ attitudes towards relationships; respondents formed their own opinions on romantic relationships and their ability to form/maintain them independent of their parents’ marital status.

• The second hypothesis was that male adult children of divorce would experience more difficulty in maintaining successful romantic relationships than females.

• An independent samples t-test revealed that, while the difference between male and female respondents’ average number of intimate relationships is not significant, there is a significant difference in the duration of these relationships between males and females (t=-2.168; p<.05).

• According to the data, male adult children of divorce tend to have relationships that last 4-7 months whereas females reported having intimate relationships that lasted, on average, 8-11 months.

• Further, there were more female respondents that reported having intimate relationships lasting 12 months of more (35 vs. 6) than males.

• The third hypothesis was that young adults who experienced parental divorce as teenagers would experience more difficulty in maintaining successful romantic relationships than those who experienced it as younger children.

• A one-way analysis of variance revealed that there were no significant relationships between the age at which respondents were at the time of their parents’ divorce and the number/duration of their romantic relationships (see table 2).

• It is still worth mentioning, though, that respondents that fell in the 12-14 age range when their parents divorced reported the highest average duration of intimate relationships \overline{Y}=3.2500 of roughly 8-11 months.

Table 2: Analysis of Variance for Age at Divorce, Number of Romantic Relationships, and Average Duration of Relationships

• The final hypothesis was that higher frequencies of parental divorces would have a more negative effect on relationship formation than lower frequencies.

• Of the respondents whose parents divorced, only nineteen reported experiencing multiple parental divorces.

• Perhaps due to this constraint, the data showed no significant relationships between the number of divorces experienced and respondents’ overall attitudes towards relationships (see table 3).

• In light of this, a bivariate correlation was run using the data on the entire sample’s responses to question one (how many parental divorces experienced, ranging from 0-4) and the sum of their attitude scores.

• Despite this, the relationship still proved to be insignificant, as illustrated by table 4.

Table 3: Analysis of Variance for Number of Divorces Experienced and Attitudes towards Romantic Relationships

Table 4: Bivariate Correlation of Number of Parental Divorces Experienced and Attitudes towards Romantic Relationships

Qualitative

Learning from Divorce

• An analysis of qualitative data reveals common themes in the participants’ responses that complement the survey data.

• Half the participants reported that they felt their parents’ divorce had had a positive impact on their ability to maintain a relationship in some way, while three felt it had neither a positive nor negative impact.

• The most common response to the question of impact was that the participant would strive to perform better than their parents in their own relationships by learning from their parents’ mistakes rather than repeat them.

• In some cases, experiencing parental divorce provided insight to what the participant was looking for in their own relationship.

• Another common finding was the duration of romantic relationships. Seven participants reported having at least one serious relationship since their parents divorced that lasted over 12 months, four of which reporting relationships that lasted for over 2 years.

Family Structure

• A prevalent theme amongst the interviews was the type of family structure participants grew up with following their parents’ divorce.

• Seven participants reported living primarily with their mother, usually due to custody stipulations, or at least preferring not to stay with their biological father.

• This may have inadvertently led to the overall bias against men for female participants.

• Further, due to the relatively young age of many of the participants, some participants had not left home long enough to create their own impressions of how a relationship ought to be.

Discussion

• The findings reveal that in many ways parental divorce does not have an impact on young adults’ ability to form and maintain romantic relationships.

• While the divorce may not necessarily influence their attitudes towards relationships in general, it can cause the child to be more cautious and unsure of their own ability to perform.

• However, there are still cases in which children of divorce may have positive outcomes.

• The data have shown that the age of the child at the time of the divorce does not determine the amount of difficulty they will have maintaining relationships.

• They also showed that the presence of parental divorce is not a significant predictor of how positive or negative the respondents’ romantic relationships would turn out, as respondents from both samples reported fairly similar outcomes in the frequency and duration of their relationships as well as similar attitudes.

• Interview findings were similar to those in Scabini and Cigoli’s (2008) study, where females were more likely to interpret the absence of a father figure as men being unreliable, which would either deter them from participating in long-term romantic relationships or at the very least emphasize the importance of finding a partner who would be stable enough to meet their standards.

• Further, the results of this study aligned with the notion that males from divorced families had a higher chance of becoming unsure of their ability to have a healthy relationship with their partners, primarily because they weren’t sure how a healthy relationship was supposed to turn out.

• While the majority of participants reported conflict between their parents, those who reported a post-divorce relationship that was amicable (or at the very least lacked conflict) were among those who displayed longer-lasting relationships., which ties into the work of Amato et al. (2011).

Limitations

• Due to time constraints and lack of incentive, only 233 people out of my anticipated sample size of 300 UCF students were able to respond to my survey; in addition, only ten students participated in face-to-face interviews.

• Respondent age may have also contributed to the lack of significance in the data set. Due to the respondents’ relatively young age \overline{Y}=21.5505, it could be argued that many of them were not old enough to have experienced a serious relationship or to have had enough life experiences to shape their opinions and attitudes towards romantic relationships.

• The methods used to measure the amount of difficulty experienced with romantic relationships may not have been sufficient. Perhaps attitudes towards relationships, frequency of relationships and average duration were not enough to gauge a respondent’s proficiency with romantic relationship formation and maintenance, as illustrated by the interview data.

Ideas for Future Research

• If this research were to be repeated, a broader age spectrum would allow for a more accurate representation of how parental divorce affects young adults.

• Likewise, a more racially diverse sample would provide a better idea of how parental divorce and romantic relationships differ across cultures, as the majority of respondents fell into the White/Caucasian category.

• Given the personal nature of the topic, some form of incentive may be useful in obtaining respondents for a more adequate sample size.

This study explores the effects of parental divorce on young adults’ ability to form and maintain romantic relationships, utilizing surveys and face-to-face interviews with UCF students. The research aimed to determine if parental divorce positively or negatively influences relationship skills. Quantitative analysis revealed that parental divorce doesn't significantly impact attitudes towards relationships, though males from divorced families tend to have shorter relationships than females. Qualitative data suggested that children of divorce often learn from their parents