FAD 3432 01 SPRING 2012 Study Guide and Prep Sheet for Examination 3 Chapters 10 14 and Class Lectures Discussion Text Readings PowerPoint Blackboard Notes and select Video Presentations Chapter 10 Divorce A Risk and Resilience Perspective Please be familiar with or be able to define or identify the following concepts terms or illustrations Estimates and Prevalence of Divorce in the US And among the racial ethnic groups It is true that large proportions of families have experienced or are experiencing divorce this phenomenon affects groups differently by race with African Americans having a higher divorce rate yet are less likely to marry European Americans marry at a much higher percentage than African Americans According to Cherlin 1998 In the 1990s approximately 47 of African American marriages resulted in separation within 10 to 15 years compared with 28 of European American marriages Divorce rates for Latinos are lower than that for both African Americans and European American Be familiar with the Family Systems Theory and Risk and Resiliency Framework to understanding divorce Risk and Protective factors According to Kline and White 2007 Family systems theory views the Family as a system of interconnected individuals with changes in one or more members or relationships having reverberating effects throughout the entire family Families as systems influence their environment and in turn are influenced by the circumstances and contexts around them When looking at divorce family systems theory suggests that the family needs to be viewed in its entirety because it may be misleading to focus on only on particular individuals or dyads within the family While family systems theory is useful it needs to be supplemented and supported using he risk and resiliency perspective to delineate more precisely how divorce affects family members and the family system Risk factors increase the likelihood of negative outcomes whereas resilience refers to processes by which an individual or group overcomes difficult circumstances bounces back from adversity and becomes stronger in the face of a crisis Walsh 2002 A risk resilience approach places the research focus on understanding variation in responses to the challenges posed by divorce and life in a single parent context Demo Aquilino Fine 2005 Be familiar with the historical context of divorce in the United States and the reasons why divorce rates rose dramatically The divorce rate actually increased steadily from the mid 19th century through the 1970s according to research by Teachman and colleagues 2006 The divorce rat then stabilized at a high level in the early 1980s and declined moderately since then according to Amato and colleagues 2005 Teachman and colleagues suggested that this drop was due to a decline in divorce rates among individuals with college degrees Reasons why the divorce rate rose dramatically after World War II o The aberration of the concept of the Nuclear family Cherlin 1992 o Traditional marriages associated with male bread winner and female homemaker of the 1940s and the 1950s were more susceptible to divorce due to expectations and inequities in power and the division of labor in households This resulted in less power and more burdens for women o Cultural climate and shifts toward more individualism in the 1960s and 1970s From the 1950s to the late 1980s singlehood cohabitation childlessness and nonmarital sexual relations became more acceptable and opposition to abortion and divorce weakened Amato 2004 Demo Fine 2010 o Economic factors also contribute to rising divorce rates Be familiar with the factors that predict or cause divorce individual difference variables and relationship difference variables Demographic risk factors include o Being African American o Living in the Western and Southern U S o Living in an urban area o Cohabitating premaritally o Having a premarital birth o Being younger at the time of marriage o Having less education o Being married for a shorter amount of time o Being remarried o Having divorced parents o Being non religious Individual Difference variables experience negative emotions such as sadness anger guilt fear and embarrassment psychopathology thinking of divorces and higher levels of self monitoring the ability and motivation to control one s presentation of others Divorce risk is positively related to Neuroticism tendency to With respect to relationship variables divorce risk is related to dissatisfaction with marriage lower levels of commitment to the relationship marital aggression and more negatively than positively in marital interactions Rodrigues and colleagues 2006 Explore the literature in relationship to the aftermath of divorce and the effect on children Be able to highlight why researchers have come to different conclusions of the effects of divorce on family members Some have argued that children and adults experience severe long term post divorce adjustment problems some of which become more severe over time Others however using larger and more representative samples have found moderate and short term effects for adults and children Emery concluded that 1 Divorce stressful for children 2 divorce leads to higher levels of adjustment and mental health problems among children 3 most children are resilient and adjust well t divorce over time 4 Children whose parents divorce report considerable pain unhappy memories and continued distress 5 post divorce family interaction patterns greatly influence adjustment following divorce According to Emery different researchers have reached varying conclusions regarding the consequences of divorce because they have tended to focus their efforts on one or two of these areas of inquiry at a time to the exclusion of the others A second reason why investigators have reached differing conclusions is that there is considerable variability in the nature of adjustment to divorce individuals differ in how they respond to divorce and in their perceptions of their adjustment to divorce A third reason why researchers have drawn different conclusions about divorce effects is that many of these effects are modest effect sizes in divorce studies are often small so they are difficult to measure consistently across investigations Be familiar with the economic consequences of divorce psychological adjustment children s adjustment and the issue of multiple transitions and children s and parents adjustment Economic consequences o Women are more likely to