The priming effects of parental divorce on relationship attitudes

Past findings frequently reported that children with divorced parents exhibit negative behaviors at some time following the divorce, however, data have not consistently demonstrated attitudinal effects. In this study, 70 college undergraduates, half with divorced parents and half with intact families, were administered an original survey for recording ratings of relationship attitudes and eight semantic differential scales. Although adult children of divorced parents rated their parents relationships less positively than did those from intact families, there were no differences by parental history in their relationship fears. There were semantic differences in ratings of five constructs (FAMILY, FATHER, MARRIAGE, PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP, DIVORCE): Adult children of divorced parents rated evaluation, potency and/or activity dimensions of the first four constructs more negatively than did raters from intact families. DIVORCE was rated more positively on all three semantic dimensions by subjects with divorced parents. Ratings of FAMILY and WORK exhibited a crossover parental history X construct interaction: The divorce history group rated WORK higher than FAMILY; the intact history group rated FAMILY higher than WORK. Ratings of parental relationship correlated positively with ratings of MOTHER and FATHER for intact family subjects, but parental relationship ratings were unrelated to parent ratings by divorced-parents subjects. It appeared that the experience of parental divorce did produce priming effects on ratings of relationship constructs and work. Awareness of these effects may make assessment and counseling more effective for those with parental divorce histories