Master of Science, Miami University, 2009, Family and Child Studies

This study explores the influence of parental divorce on perceptions of marriage and divorce from the perspectives of adult children who have experienced parental divorce during childhood. The study used qualitative interviews with 12 heterosexual adults who were at least six years old and living at home when their parents divorced. The data were analyzed using template analysis to facilitate identification of common themes. Based on respondents' reported perceptions, three themes were identified including Marriage as a Positive, Divorce as a Negative, and Effects of Parental Divorce, which is composed of Effect on Decision to Marry and Effect on Perceptions of Divorce. Therefore, for selected respondent groups, parental divorce does have an effect on adult children's perceptions of marriage and divorce in very specific ways. These results suggest opportunities for additional study in this important area to allow for validation of the results as well as broader application.

Committee: Elise Radina PhD (Advisor); Charles Hennon PhD (Committee Member); Carolyn Slotten PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Families and Family Life

Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA), Ohio University, 2016, Business Administration

This thesis examines the effects of one's familial structure and financial standing on the pursuit and attainment of collegiate leadership roles in a grounded theory structure. It expands on prior studies by evaluating current collegiate leaders and their perceptions of the effects their familial structure and financial standing had on their pursuit and attainment of leadership roles within recognized student organizations.

Committee: Tim Reynolds (Advisor) Subjects: Business Administration

Doctor of Philosophy, University of Akron, 2014, Marriage and Family Counseling/Therapy

The purpose of the present study was to examine the influences of the created constructs of father involvement, family structure (marital status), parental relationship quality, and paternal religiosity on young adult-father relationship quality. Data from all three waves of the National Survey of Families and Households were used to test the present study's hypotheses. Canonical correlation analysis was used to examine the relationships between the eight independent variables (four from each of the first two waves) and the two dependent variables of interest (both from the third wave). Within the framework of Systems Theory, it was hypothesized that each of the constructs of father involvement, family structure, parental relationship quality, and paternal religiosity would be statistically significant predictors of the constructs of young adult-father relationship quality per parental and young adult reports, to varying degrees. All of the created constructs had acceptable or strong internal reliability. Potential contributions of the present study include a better understanding of the relationship of certain family structure and father involvement factors on children's relationships with their fathers in young adulthood, as well as on their overall development. Such understanding could aid clinicians, researchers, parents and educators in better understanding the role of these family structure variables on young adult-father relationship quality.

Committee: Karin Jordan Dr. (Advisor); Xin Liang Dr. (Committee Member); Cynthia Reynolds Dr. (Committee Member); Rebecca Boyle Dr. (Committee Member); Rikki Patton Dr. (Committee Member) Subjects: Counseling Education; Families and Family Life; Individual and Family Studies; Mental Health; Personal Relationships; Religion; Therapy

PhD, University of Cincinnati, 2006, Arts and Sciences : Psychology

Research suggests divorce can have significant effects on the emotional well-being of children and adolescents. However, there are few studies of depression comparing young college women of divorce with young college women from intact families. Depressive symptoms during college could affect academic achievement and impact eventual socioeconomic success of these women. Young women with multiple adverse family experiences, including parental divorce, appear to respond to recent negative life stress with depression. Some studies of the effects of parental divorce on offspring have examined whether related family issues moderate negative outcomes. However, these studies have focused on relatively mild types of family dysfunction, such as inter-parental conflict and parent-child discord. No known studies examine serious parental psychopathology, such as substance abuse, mental illness and violence, in college women with divorced parents. The current study addressed a gap in the parental divorce literature by examining negative family factors, along with the effect of parental divorce, on perceived stress and levels of depression among college women. Recent life stress was found to be significantly higher in the divorced group. Although the difference in levels of depression between the two groups was not statistically significant, a modest difference in the predicted direction was observed. Although negative family factors were much more common for women of divorced families, negative family factors did not relate more strongly to depression in this group. In summary, increased life stress and negative family factors did not lead to more depression in this sample. These results differed significantly from those of other studies. An incidental finding was an unexpectedly high rate of substance abuse and violence among the fathers in the divorced families. The possible effects of significant psychopathology in the non-residential parent on adjustment to divorce were discu (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Dr. Christine Hovanitz (Advisor) Subjects: Psychology, Clinical

Master of Science, The Ohio State University, 2009, Human Development and Family Science

This thesis sets out to expand the literature on the “cohabitation effect”; that is, the idea that couples who cohabit before marriage have greater marital instability than couples who do not live together before marriage. I test two competing hypotheses. First, the selection/cumulative risk perspective arguing that cohabiters already possess numerous risk factors associated with poor relationship outcomes, so the addition of exposure to parental divorce makes these specific cohabiters even worse off. Following this hypothesis, I predict the children of divorce who cohabit will have lower levels of marital quality and a greater risk of divorce as compared to the children of intact families who cohabit. Also, all respondents who cohabit will have lower levels of marital quality and a greater risk of divorce as compared with the children of intact families who do not cohabit. The second hypothesis favors the differential experience of cohabitation perspective. This assumes that children of divorce want to prevent what they went through while experiencing their own parents' divorce, so they may use cohabitation as way to “weed out” a bad relationship before marriage. So I hypothesize that children of divorce who cohabit will have higher levels of marital quality and a lower risk of divorce as compared to the children of intact families who cohabit. Also, the children of divorce who do not cohabit will have lower levels of marital quality and a high risk of divorce as compared to the children of intact families who do not cohabit. Overall, the results supported the selection/cumulative risk perspective. I found that, regardless of parental divorce, premarital cohabitation, or the other controls, the number of risks for divorce an individual possessed was strongly, and significantly associated with poorer marital outcomes, even stronger than the impact of parental divorce and premarital cohabitation in every instance. In one model I did find support for the differential (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Claire Kamp Dush PhD (Advisor); Anastasia Snyder PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Personal Relationships; Social Psychology

Master of Science, Miami University, 2010, Family and Child Studies

A mixed method design, focusing on 123 college students, was used to examine their perceptions of marriage, divorce and personal relationships by exploring levels of trust, attitudes towards marriage, self-esteem and the relationships between parent and child. Four hypotheses tested whether college students who have experienced parental divorce have: (a) lower level of trust towards partners, (b) more negative attitudes towards marriage, (c) lower self-esteem and (d) less positive parent-child relationships compared to those of intact families and whether age and/or race/ethnicity influences these factors and relationships. Four of these participants were also interviewed to further explore their experiences with divorce. Multivariate statistical and Thematic analyses were conducted. Findings suggest the only significant direct difference was with parent-child relationships, while findings on the other variables only indicated significant differences with interactions by age. Qualitative findings indicate that college students with non-married parents still view marriage positively while considering divorce as an option.

Committee: Kevin R. Bush PhD (Committee Chair); Katherine Kuvalanka PhD (Committee Member); Carolyn Slotten PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Families and Family Life; Social Research

Master of Arts, Miami University, 2009, Psychology

This study was an exploratory project that used the lens of the assimilation model (Stiles, 2002) to study parental divorce. It took a developmental approach, suggesting that Erikson's psychosocial stages, and McAdams's research on life stories could be incorporated within the assimilation model to improve its ability to understand the experience of parental divorce among young adults. Three women between the ages of 18 and 25 were interviewed for approximately 2.5 hours about their experience of childhood parental divorce. Their interviews were then studied to understand how each of the women's ability to narrate her experience of her parents' divorce was tied to their ability to master their current developmental tasks. This study suggested that participants' ability to narrate their experience of parental divorce was tied not only to their assimilation of this experience, but also to their success in mastering their current developmental stage.

Committee: William Stiles Ph. D. (Advisor); Patricia Kerig Ph. D. (Committee Member); Jennifer Green Ph. D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Psychology

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2009, Psychology/Clinical

Utilizing religious coping theory, this study examined the impact of religion and spirituality on documented risk factors for the future divorce of adult children of divorce. Consistent with previous research, approximately one third of the 158 college students whose parents had divorced since they were 13 years old, viewed the divorce as the loss or desecration of something sacred at the time it happened, one fourth struggled spiritually in response to this divorce at the time it happened, and just under one third reported engaging in adaptive spiritual coping at the time of the divorce. After controlling for global religiousness, relevant demographics and non-spiritual struggle and coping, several links between these religious and spiritual constructs and risk factors for future divorce emerged. Specifically, significant relationships existed between the following variables: greater retrospective spiritual struggles and both lower current conflict resolution skills and greater current spiritual decline; higher current appraisals of marriage as sacred and current lower risky attitudes towards cohabitation and sexual intercourse, marriage and divorce as well as greater current spiritual growth; greater retrospective adaptive spiritual coping and greater current conflict resolution skills. Participants' pattern of spiritual struggle across time was also related to some risk factors for future divorce and spiritual decline. Implications of these findings are discussed as well as other expected links that did not emerge.

Committee: Annette Mahoney PhD (Committee Chair); Kenneth Pargament PhD (Committee Member); Michael Zickar PhD (Committee Member); Victoria Ekstrand PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Psychology; Religion

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 2006, Psychology/Clinical

This study examined the relationship between spiritual appraisals (i.e. sacred loss, desecration, manifestation of God) and individual psychological maladjustment (i.e. anxiety/trauma, depression), psychological distress (i.e. painful feelings about divorce), personal and spiritual growth (i.e. post-traumatic growth, spiritual growth and spiritual decline) and parent-child relationship quality (i.e. satisfaction with both mother and father and level of behavioral conflict with both mother and father.) This study also examined the mediation effects of religious coping variables (i.e., negative religious coping, positive religious coping, blessing in disguise and religious conversion) on the bivariate links between negative spiritual appraisals and criterion variables. One hundred and nine undergraduates participated in this study. Analyses indicated that there was a strong correlation between negative spiritual appraisals and psychological maladjustment, psychological distress and personal growth. These relationships remained significant after taking into account global religiousness. Positive spiritual appraisals were correlated with increased anxiety/trauma and personal growth. Hierarchical regressions were used to control for secular appraisals of threat, harm and challenge and results showed that negative spiritual appraisals seem to trigger greater negative secular appraisals; some but not all of the links between negative spiritual appraisals and the criterion variables remained significant once controlling for secular appraisals. Spiritual appraisal variables were not related to any measures of parent-child relationship quality. Results of the mediation analyses suggest that negative religious coping partially or fully mediated the link between negative spiritual appraisals and individual psychological maladjustment and psychological distress. Likewise, positive religious coping and blessing in disguise mediated the relationship between negative spiritual appr (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Annette Mahoney (Advisor) Subjects: Psychology, Clinical