Annotated Bibliography On Divorce

Annotated Bibliography

In my research paper, I will explore how people with divorced parents perceive the effects of the divorce on their lives emotionally. To gather information for my study, I will interview four college students (two males and two females).

Studies devoted to this topic exhibit that divorce has an overall negative emotional impact on children. Cherlin, Chase-Lansdale and Mcrea (1998) found that divorce had a negative and continuous effect on adult mental health. Children with divorced families exhibited high levels of emotional problems than those with no divorced parents. As the individual grew older these emotional problems continued to worsen. Similarly, Amato’s study (2003) found that adults who experience a parent’s

divorce have lower levels of psychological well-being and have poorer relationships with their parents. A study done by Cooper, Holman, and Braithwaite also added that children from non-cohesive families exhibited lower levels of self-esteem, feelings of closeness within their family, and family support. Demo and Acock reviewed studies by Parish on how divorce affects people’s self-esteem level. Like in the study by Cooper, Holman, and Braithwait, it found that divorce does negatively impact a person’s self-esteem, but also that after some time goes by after the divorce their self-esteem levels rise again, suggesting they adjusted to their new situation. Furstenberg (1990) argued that while studies that exhibit differences in how boys and girls are affected by their parents’ divorce, these results may not be as accurate as they seem because of other confounding variables, but overall they do show that females may have more severe long-lasting effects from the divorce. Together, these studies support the theory that divorce has a negative impact on the emotional health of individuals, and therefore it is likely that individuals will perceive the effects of divorce on their lives in at least some form of negative way.

Cherlin, Andrew J., P. Lindsay Chase-Lansdale, and Christine Mcrae. 1998. "Effects of Parental Divorce on Mental Health Throughout the Life Course." American Sociological Review 63.2: 239-47. Web.

The authors, researchers at the John Hopkins University and University of Chicago, use data from a British birth cohort that has followed individuals from birth to age 33 to analyze the continuing effects divorce has on adult mental health.

By using fixed-effects and growth-curve models the researchers found that individuals with divorced parents had higher levels of emotional problems compared to individuals who never experienced parental divorce. They also found that the individuals with divorced parents had higher levels of emotional problems even before the divorce occurred, which are attributed to pre-divorce characteristics of the family. After the divorce takes place the individuals’ levels of emotional problems continues to increase, which suggests that the divorce and its aftermath may have effects that persist into adulthood. This study is important because while it shows children of divorce already have high levels of emotional problems before their parent’s divorce, it showed that these problems worsened directly after the divorce and continued to worsen into adulthood. Similarly, a later study by Amato shown below also shows that divorce leads to lesser mental health aspects in

children.

Amato, Paul R. 2003. "Reconciling Divergent Perspectives: Judith Wallerstein, Quantitative Family Research, and Children of Divorce." Family Relations 52.4: 332-39. Web.
The author, a researcher at Pennsylvania State University, uses data from the longitudinal Marital Instability Over the Life Course study to compare the psychological well-being and the parent child relationships of individuals with divorced parents to individuals who never experienced parental divorce. Amato’s research found that if the differences in psychological well-being between the two groups were entirely due to parental divorce, then 1 out of 10 children will reach adulthood with a lower level of physiological well-being than the individuals whose parents remained married. The data showed that there were fewer differences between the distributions of individuals who experienced divorce and those who didn’t at the positive end of psychological well-being. This suggests that divorce does not lower the percentage of children who reach adulthood with high levels of well-being, but instead it appears to shift some children from an average level of well-being to a low level of well-being. The results of the child-parent relationships were more substantial. The data suggests that one out of three children with divorce parents will have a poorer father-child relationship than those with intact families. The impact of the divorce appeared to shift children from having positive relationships with their fathers to having more negative relationships. The result for mother-child relationships was similar, but not as strong. Not only does this research show that divorce hurts a child’s physiological well-being, but that it also hinders their relationships with their parents. A study by Cooper, Holman, and Braithwaite cited below shows how divorce can also negatively impact children’s self-esteem, which is an important part of their physiological well-being.

Cooper, Judith E., Jacqueline Holman, and Valerie A. Braithwaite. 1983. "Self-Esteem and Family Cohesion: The Child's Perspective and Adjustment." Journal of Marriage and the Family 45.1: 153. Web.

The authors, researchers at the Canberra College of Advanced Education and the Australian National University, analyze the results of a study on 467 fifth and sixth grade
children to investigate the relationship between children’s self-esteem and different family structures. It found that children from two-parent cohesive families were less likely to report parent-child or total conflict, and were more likely to have fun with their families. The divided family showed higher levels of both parent-child conflict and total conflict and the children had reduced enjoyment in family activities. The data also showed that children who did not live in two-parent households exhibited lower levels of self-esteem, as well as lower levels of closeness and support in the family. Their self-esteem levels decreased along with diminishing family support. This suggests that a lack of family support as a result of a divorce can hurt a child’s self-esteem. In contract, a review of studies by Furstenberg shown below notes that some research done on the effects of divorce, which shows negative impacts on children, can yield less significant results. A review of other literature by Demo and Acock also shows that divorce can cause a negative impact on one’s self-esteem, but that after a period of time after the divorce the child’s self-esteem increased.

Demo, David H., and Alan C. Acock. 1988. "The Impact of Divorce on Children." Journal of Marriage and the Family 50.3: 619. Web.

The authors, researchers at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University reviews a series of studies by Parish to explain the effects of divorce on children’s self-esteem. The research summarized showed that children in divorce, non-remarried families have lower self-esteem than children in families where no parental divorce occurred. The research also showed that after a period of 3 years after the divorce the individuals reported higher self-esteem levels than previously, suggesting they may have adjusted to their family’s divorce. Although these results seem significant the author notes that these studies never considered the levels of pre and post-divorce conflict in the family. This study is important because unlike the other studies it shows that the continuing effects of divorce may not be as great on some aspects of an individual’s emotional health, like one’s self-esteem, as researchers originally thought.

Furstenberg, F. 1990. "Divorce And The American Family." Annual Review of Sociology 16.1: 379-403. Web.

Furstenberg reviews a study done by Hetherington (1987) on the effect of gender in how children cope with the effects of divorce.

The research argued that boys are more likely to display behavioral disturbances after the divorce, as well as exhibit more problems of maladjustment years after the divorce. The author explains that the evidence found in these research findings may not be clear, for example he notes that the hazards of divorce may be not be greater for boys, they just manifest these problems in more visible ways. Research suggests that females are, however, shown to exhibit more long-term emotional problems as result of the divorce. For example, a study done by Wallerstein and Blakeslee (1989) found they have more severe problems in establishing emotional commitments in early adulthood and a study by Chase- Lansdale & Hetherington (1989) found that females are more likely to experience greater distress when their mothers enter remarriage. Furstenberg research shows that while there are negative effects of divorce on children, which are influenced by gender, they may be less significant than most researchers

believe.