Divorce Research Update– 7-27-2015


New findings about predictors of divorce, marital quality, cohabitation, GLBT divorce and more.  The most recent issue of the Journal of Family Psychology Volume 29, Issue 3, (Jun) includes 5 articles that address important issues in our understanding of divorce.

A more complete list of research report about divorce, remarriage and stepfamilies published in 2015 or between 2010-2015.

Goldberg, A. E., & Garcia, R. (2015). Predictors of relationship dissolution in lesbian, gay, and heterosexual adoptive parents. Journal of Family Psychology,29(3), 394.  http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/fam0000095

Goldberg, J. S., & Carlson, M. J. (2015). Patterns and Predictors of Coparenting After Unmarried Parents Part. Journal of Family Psychology,29(3), 416-426. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/fam0000078

James, S. L. (2015). Variation in Marital Quality in a National Sample of Divorced Women. Journal of Family Psychology,29(3) http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/fam0000082

Bourassa, K. J., Sbarra, D. A., & Whisman, M. A. (2015). Women in Very Low Quality Marriages Gain Life Satisfaction Following Divorce. Journal of Family Psychology,29(3) http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/fam0000075

Rhoades, G. K., Stanley, S. M., Markman, H. J., & Allen, E. S. (2015). Can Marriage Education Mitigate the Risks Associated With Premarital Cohabitation? Journal of Family Psychology, 29(3), 500-506. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/fam0000081

 

Interesting New Research Findings


Garneau, C. L. and Adler-Baeder, F. (2015), Changes in Stepparents’ Coparenting and Parenting Following Participation in a Community-Based Relationship Education Program. Family Process. doi: 10.1111/famp.12133

Ly Dan P, Seabury Seth A, Jena Anupam B. Divorce among physicians and other healthcare professionals in the United States: analysis of census survey data

Mauskopf Susan S., O’Leary Allison K., Banihashemi Adria, Weiner Michelle, and Cookston Jeffrey T.. Childhood Obesity. http://dx.doi:10.1089/chi.2014.0053.

Schrodt, P. (2015).  Relational frames as mediators of everyday talk and relational satisfaction in stepparent–stepchild relationships Journal of Social and Personal Relationships,  first published on January 28, 2015 doi:10.1177/0265407514568751

Shafer, K., & Pace, G. T. (2015).  Gender Differences in Depression across Parental Roles Social Work first published online February 5, 2015 doi:10.1093/sw/swu057

New Research Articles on Divorce–Jan & Feb., 2014


A complete list of the major articles published in 2014 with links to other articles.  Complete list of articles from. 

Divorce continues to be an important area of family and social science research.  Below are a few of the studies published in the early part of 2014 that provide insight into divorce issues.  Included in this summary are demographic, economic, causes of divorce, adjustment issues for adults and children, divorce education, marriage & relationship education, non-residential parenting and a new report on custody and shared parenting.

Demographic Issues

Bellido, H., & Marcén, M.Divorce laws and fertility. Labour Economics, (0) doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.labeco.2014.01.005

Kennedy, S., & Ruggles, S. (2014). Breaking up is hard to count: The rise of divorce in the united states, 1980-2010. Demography, , 1-12. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s13524-013-0270-9

Kulu, H. (2014). Marriage duration and divorce: The seven-year itch or a lifelong itch? Demography, , 1-13. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s13524-013-0278-1

Divorce & Economics– Especially the Recession

Baghestani, H., & Malcolm, M. (2014). Marriage, divorce and economic activity in the US: 1960-2008. Applied Economics Letters, , 528-532. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13504851.2013.872753

Cohen, P. (2014). Recession and divorce in the united states,. Population Research and Policy Review, 1-14. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11113-014-9323-z

Causes of Divorce

Røsand, G. B., Slinning, K., Røysamb, E., & Tambs, K. (2014). Relationship dissatisfaction and other risk factors for future relationship dissolution: A population-based study of 18,523 couples. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, 49(1), 109-119. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00127-013-0681-3

Adult Adjustment to Divorce

Kulik, L., & Kasa, Y. (2014). Adjustment to divorce: A comparison of ethiopian immigrant and israeli-born men. Journal of Community Psychology, 42(2), 191-208. 

Children’s Adjustment to Divorce

Mandemakers, J. J., & Kalmijn, M. (2014). Do mother’s and father’s education condition the impact of parental divorce on child well-being? Social Science Research, 44(0), 187-199. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ssresearch.2013.12.003

Non-residential & Shared Parenting Issues

Finzi-Dottan, R., & Cohen, O. (2014). Predictors of parental communication and cooperation among divorcing spouses. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 23(1), 39-51. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10826-012-9684-z

Modecki, K. L., Hagan, M. J., Sandler, I., & Wolchik, S. A. (2014). Latent profiles of nonresidential father engagement six years after divorce predict long-term offspring outcomes. Journal of Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology, , 1-14. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15374416.2013.865193

Rodriguez, S. R. (2014). “We’ll only see parts of each other’s lives:” the role of mundane talk in maintaining nonresidential parent–child relationships. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 

Aging, Intergenerational Issues and Divorce

Cooney, T. M., Proulx, C. M., Snyder-Rivas, L., & Benson, J. J. (2014). Role ambiguity among women providing care for ex-husbands. Journal of Women & Aging, 26(1), 84-104. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08952841.2014.859502

Ganong, L., & Coleman, M. (2014). Responsibility inferences and intergenerational obligations to parents and stepparents: Are Step/Children less obligated when older adults are at fault for their problems? Journal of Divorce & Remarriage, 55(1), 64-81. doi:10.1080/10502556.2013.862098

Stepfamily Issues

Doodson, L. J., & Davies, A. P. C. (2014). Different challenges, different well-being: A comparison of psychological well-being across stepmothers and biological mothers and across four categories of stepmothers. Journal of Divorce & Remarriage, 55(1), 49-63. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10502556.2013.862094

Marriage & Relationship Education

Cordova, J. V. (2014). Findings and future directions for marriage checkup research. Washington, DC, US: American Psychological Association, Washington, DC. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/14321-011

Cordova, J. V. (2014). The marriage checkup practitioner’s guide: Promoting lifelong relationship health. Washington, DC, US: American Psychological Association, Washington, DC. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/14321-000

Divorce Education

Stallman, H. M., & Sanders, M. R. (2014). A randomized controlled trial of family transitions triple P: A group-administered parenting program to minimize the adverse effects of parental divorce on children. Journal of Divorce & Remarriage, 55(1), 33-48. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10502556.2013.862091

Legal Issues and Divorce Services 

Pruett, M. K., & DiFonzo, J. H. (2014).  Closing the Gap: Research, Policy, Practice and Shared Parenting AFCC Think Tank Final Report to be published in Family Court Review

Research Methods for Divorce Research

Lamela, D., Figueiredo, B., Bastos, A., & Martins, H. (2014). Psychometric properties of the portuguese version of the posttraumatic growth inventory short form among divorced adults. European Journal of Psychological Assessment, 30(1), 3-14. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1027/1015-5759/a000161

Other Summaries of divorce research for 2010,  2011, 2012, 2013 

Should I Try and Work on My Marriage or Just Get Divorced?


This is a tough question that faces many couples during their marriage.  There are many issues to consider and it is not always easy to find helpful advice.  Alan Hawkins and his colleagues from Brigham Young University have written a very thoughtful guide to help couples think through this process.

They include helpful activities that either (or both) partners can do to get a realistic assessment of where they are.  Hawkins and colleagues also provide information about the effects of divorce on children and adults.

This is a valuable resource for couples.

Families On The Brink– Dr. Bill Doherty


For more about Doherty’s work with “families on the brink” see his Huffington Post interview.  Here are some other useful links to his work:

Paper describing the Program. 

Website — Minnesota Families on the Brink

Improving Communication to Prevent Divorce– Jeremy Kanter


Although divorce rates in the United States have been decreasing in the last ten years, about 36 percent of first marriages will end in divorce (National Center for Health Statistics). This is a serious problem for Americans due to the negative effects a divorce can have on both children and adults. For adults there is clear evidence of a link between long-lasting healthy marriages and better health outcomes, such as living longer, lower blood pressure, lower risk of heart attacks, cancer, and arthritis (Kiecolt-Glaser et al., 1987). There also is a link to depression from going through a divorce or having a poor relationship (Braithwaite & Fincham, 2009). A healthy marriage can truly add years to one’s life. On average men live seven years longer than single or divorced men and women live three years longer (Harrison 2007). Not only is the consequences of divorce felt by the adults, it also can be detrimental for children. Children who experience their parents fighting are more likely to be depressed, have higher blood pressure, experience social problems, as well as learned negative models to handle conflict themselves (Sarrazin & Cyr, 2007). The conflict that couples fight about most frequently has been observed as arguments over: Money, children (parenting styles, division of responsibilities), chores, leisure time, sex, and relatives (Oggins 2003). Yet, instead of addressing each individual topic to couples, researchers have turned to communication skills in order to help with all of these topics by just improving the way these issues are discussed. These communication skills can be taught before or during marriage. The main focus of these classes is communication exercises in order to help couples with their relationship quality and satisfaction.

One aspect that communication plays a role in couples’ relationships is what Markman, Stanley, and Blumberg (2001) describe as” filters.” They describe multiple filters such as: distractions, emotional state, beliefs and expectations, difference in style, and self-protection.  Distractions are defined as any internal or external factors that take away from the conversation you are having with your partner. An emotional state is simply when a partner comes back from a stressful day and takes this out on his or her partner. Beliefs and expectations can be seen when a partner expects the worst out of their partner, if one partner expects the worst, they will be looking for the worst to happen. Difference in styles is a filter that can be seen when one partner grows up with parents who express themselves by yelling, when the other partner is used to a more quite approach, when these two approaches meet, it could be a negative filter to their conversation. Finally, self-protection is one partner not bringing up a topic because of the fear of getting rejected. All of these filters are part of a communication process.  If these filters are not recognized; they can be detrimental to couples communication and lead to a lowered satisfaction in the relationship and eventually dissolution (Markman, Stanley, & Blumberg, 2001).

A second aspect of communication that can have considerable impact on relationships is the frequency of negative to positive communication.   John Gottman has spent many hours in his Love Lab studying distressed couples and has created several theories involving couples and how to make a marriage work.  This has led him to identify the ratio between positive and negative communication of 5 to 1.  That is, for every 5 positive interactions there is one negative one.  Gottman has found that this is a powerful predictor of divorce.  When this ratio is less than 5 to 1, problems in the relationship mount and dissolution usually follows.  Gottman asserts that the four most damaging types of communication are criticism, contempt, stonewalling, and defensiveness. (Carrere & Gottman, 1999).  He defines criticism as an attack on a person’s character instead of the situation. Contempt would be one partner viewing themselves as better than the other. Stonewalling is when one person shuts down emotionally from the conversation because the other partner is just attacking them with so much at once. Finally, defensiveness is the reluctance of one partner to acknowledge responsibility in the situation the couple is dealing with. These all tie into communication because if one does not recognize these creeping into their relationship, it could doom the conversation and make any communication nearly impossible.

The final way poor communication can lead to divorce is through expectations and roles. With the shifting roles of women throughout the last 30-40 years, marriages have been affected as well. There is a push for equal roles in decision making in relationships which creates new opportunities for conflict.  Many of these conflicts can originate from the expectations an individual has about how a certain topic will be addressed before marriage, and then the actual behaviors that occur during the marriage, this dissonance can cause a lot of dissatisfaction and conflict for couples (Madden & Janoff-Bulman 1981). When poor communication skills are mixed in with this dissonance it can lead to detrimental problems for couples, ones that if not addressed can lead to a divorce.

In the past 20 years these findings about the ways that communication issues can contribute to divorce has been translated into couples’ communication programs.  Researchers have been quite successful in creating curriculums to teach to couples communication skills that can strengthen their relationships.  The most successful marital education program to date is Prevention and Relationship Enhancement Program (PREP)( Markman, Stanley, & Blumberg (2001), which uses a cognitive-behavioral approach. PREP is structured to have 5 main sessions: Sessions 1 and 2 focus on communication skills training, session 3 focuses on problem-solving training, session 4 discusses clarification of marital expectations, and session 5 has a focus on sensual/sexual education and relationship enhancement (Markman et al., 1988). PREP has been shown to sustain its effectiveness over three years and measures its effectiveness on marital satisfaction, lower levels of relationship instability, relationship aggression, lower rates of divorce or breaking up, and more positive interaction. Interestingly, even with this widely research based program, in a 5 year follow-up, the only advantage the experimental group had over the control group was in communication skills and less physical violence in men (Markmen et al., 1993). There also seem to be many limitation to these programs, the biggest concern by many researchers is in fact these classes are not reaching couples that need them the most (low-income families). There also seems to be a gap in testing these programs with a diverse population which makes it nearly impossible to generalize the effectiveness of a program to a wide audience (Carroll & Doherty, 2003).

A way that these classes can be sure to reach more families is moving the program to an online delivery.  There has been one initial attempt by converting PREP to ePREP (Braithwaite & Finacham, 2009). They found in a six month follow up significant improvements in relationship satisfaction and communication skills. A proposed solution would be to create a program similar to PREP and ePREP but with more interaction utilizing the newest social media, such as Facebook and Twitter. When a program like this is created, it could assist many couples who are either reluctant about attending therapy, or do not have time or transportation to go to these classes. An online program could be taken in the convenience of one’s own house. Divorce education programs have already moved many of their co-parenting classes to the internet (Schramm, & Mccaulley, 2012), so to move marriage education classes there next would be a logical step. Using Facebook and Twitter can also help with these programs giving couples exercises to do at home and also help with supplying an open forum where couples can ask questions or just hear different experiences from other couples who are dealing with possibly the same issues as them.  This would also be a great way to post any new findings in the research to keep content up to date. As well, this would be a great application for phones so people can open this up when they have truly any free time, not only when they are in front of their computers. Combining empirical methods to improve communication skills with the newest technology of the 21st century can only help strengthen marriages and benefit families across the world.

There are a multiple of topics that couples fight about, yet it seems to be not what couples are fighting about that leads to divorce, rather how they are fighting (Gottman, 1999). It also has been observed that one of the leading predictors of divorce is poor communication (Bradbury and Karney, 1995). If we can teach couples how to approach these discussions with better communication, we could equip them with the power to strengthen their future marriages. It sometimes is not about being right that gets couples past a fight, but instead, just being heard, which a key concept is taught in communication training (Markman, Stanley, & Blumberg, 2001).

References

Braithwaite, S. R., & Fincham, F. D. (2009). A randomized clinical trial of a computer based preventive intervention: Replication and extension of ePREP. Journal of Family Psychology, 23, 32-38.

Carrere, S., & Gottman, J. (1999). Predicting Divorce among Newlyweds from the First Three Minutes of a Marital Conflict Discussion. Family Process, 38(3), 293-301.

Carroll, J. S., & Doherty, W. J. (2003). Evaluating the effectiveness of premarital prevention programs: A meta-analytic review of outcome research. Family Relations, 52, 105-18.

Center for disease control and prevention. (2011).  Divorce, marriage, and cohabitation rates. Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/02news/div_mar_cohab.ht

Gottman, J.M. (1999). The seven principles for making marriage work. New York, NY: The Rivers Press.

Kamey, B. R., & Bradbury, T. N. (1995). The longitudinal course of marital quality and stability: A review of theory, methods, and research. Psychological Bulletin, 118, 3-34.

Kiecolt, G., Fisher, L., Ogrocki, P., Stout, J., Speicher, C., & Glaser, R. (1987). Marital quality, marital disruption, and immune function. Psychosomatic Medicine, 49, 13-34.

Madden, M. E., & Janoff-Bulman, R. (1981). Blame, control, and marital satisfaction: Wives’ attributions for conflict in marriage. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 43, 63-74.

Markman, H. J., & And, O. (1988). Prevention of marital distress: A longitudinal investigation. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 56, 10-17.

Markman, H. J., Renick, M., & Floyd, F. J. (1993). Preventing marital distress through communication and conflict management training: a 4- and 5-year follow-up. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 6170-77.

Markman, H., Stanley, S., & Blumberg, S. (2001). Fighting for your marriage: positive steps for preventing divorce and preserving a lasting love. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Oggins, J. (2003). Topics of marital disagreement among African-American and Euro-American newlyweds. Psychological Reports, 92, 419-425.

Sarrazin, J., & Cyr, F. (2007). Parental conflicts and their damaging effects on children. Journal of Divorce & Remarriage, 47, 77-93.

Schramm, D. G., & McCaulley, G. (2012). Divorce Education for Parents: A Comparison of Online and In-Person Delivery Methods. Journal Of Divorce & Remarriage, 53, 602-617. doi:10.1080/10502556.2012.721301

Interesting Websites and Blogs


Not sure what to make of these sources, but there may be some useful material at these sites:

eHarmony Labs

The Thoughtful Parent

Child Therapy Chicago

The Intelligent Divorce

Coparenting After Divorce at Psychology Today

RAND studies on Marriage and Divorce

European Network for the Sociological and Demographic Study of Divorce 

Conceptualizing and Measuring “Healthy Marriage”
For Empirical Research and Evaluation Studies   Child Trends