ABSTRACT
Reanalyzing three decades of data from the New York Longitudinal Study of Chess et al. (1983), Shaw et al. (1993) conducted a prospective examination of parental functioning and children’s adjustment before divorce, and found no consistent dierences between children from to-be-divorced and always-married families. However, they did nd a consistent predictor of the children’s poor adjustment following divorce was parental conict prior to divorce. Boys showed more post-divorce behavioral di- culties than girls, which was consistent with prior research (e.g., Zaslow 1988; Wallerstein 1991). e authors suggested this might involve the boys’ loss of daily contact with their fathers. Wallerstein (1991) suggested the observed gender dierence may involve a “sleeper eect” for girls, who go on to experience interpersonal problems in young adulthood. Emery et al. (2005), citing a meta-analysis in 1999 by Amato and Gilbreth, suggested the amount of contact between child and nonresident father is a poor predictor of the child’s psychological well-being, and a father’s payment of child support has greater impact. Lahey et al. (1988) reported a signicantly higher incidence of parental Antisocial Personality Disorder in divorced families with boys who developed conduct disorder, giving rise to the consideration of a genetic vulnerability contributing to both parental marital discord as well as post-divorce maladjustment in the child. is viewpoint was supported in subsequent research (Jocklin et al. 1996).
