ABSTRACT
This chapter presents initial results from the Developmental Issues in Stepfami-lies (DIS) research project. The DIS project is investigating the relationship of family process, family structure, and adult-child psychosocial factors in stepfather families and nondivorced intact families. Stepfather families who have been together 6 months, 2½ years, and 5 years after remarriage were studied to determine developmental differences in family organization and process during these time periods. The research focuses on the impact of family orgnization and process on the social, emotional, and cognitive development of children ages 6 to 14 in these families. The time periods following remarriage and ages of the children were chosen to control for the length of time in a stepfamily. This is an important variable that has not been fully evaluated in previous research on stepfamilies (Ganong & Coleman, 1984; Hetherington & Camara, 1984). Both boys and girls were studied to determine sex differences in response to specific family relationships, such as mother-son or stepfather-stepson. Only stepfather families were studied because they are the most common type of stepfamily (Glick, 1980) and because of noted differences between various types of stepfamilies (Hetherington, Arnett, & Hollier, 1986; Santrock, Warshak, & Elliott, 1982).
