NEGATIVE CHILD OF DIVORCE STEREOTYPES 1

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1 A short version of the title appears on the top of every page, in all caps. To edit this, view the headers area in your word processor. NEGATIVE CHILD OF DIVORCE STEREOTYPES 1 Page numbers start with 1 on the title page and appear on the right corner of each page. The Effect of Negative Child of Divorce Stereotypes on Thinking About Future Romantic Relationships Kristina Ciarlo Muhlenberg College Author Note Kristina Ciarlo, Psychology Department, Muhlenberg College Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to: 123 Main Street, Bloomville, NY, kciarlo@college.edu Copyright 2011 by Kristina Ciarlo. A68

2 NEGATIVE CHILD OF DIVORCE STEREOTYPES 2 Abstract This study investigated whether negative stereotypes about children with divorced parents extend to beliefs about their romantic relationships. Specifically, we looked at whether people would use information about the level of conflict of a child s parents, as well as information about the marital status of the child s parents, in predicting a child s future relationship success. Undergraduates read a vignette about a child and his or her family and then predicted the child s future romantic relationships. We found that participants predicted the future relationships of children from divorced families to be more negative than those from married parents, and predicted that the relationships of children from high-conflict families would be more negative than those from low-conflict families. The results suggest that people use both the marital status of a child s parents and the conflict level of the child s parents to predict the child s future success in romantic relationships. The word Abstract is centered and not bold. The abstract begins on page 2. The abstract text is not indented. It is appropriate to use the first person (I, we) in a research report. This student is presenting the results of a group project, so we is appropriate. Avoid sexist language by using both his and her or by using plural rather than singular. The abstract should be about 150 words long; some journals allow an abstract to be as long as 250 words. A69

3 The introduction begins on Page 3. NEGATIVE CHILD OF DIVORCE STEREOTYPES 3 Repeat the title of the manuscript at the top of the introduction. There is no extra space or heading between the title and the introduction text. Citation format for a paper with three or more authors, first citation Citation format for a paper with three or more authors, second citation Citation format for a direct quotation includes quotation marks and the page number Parenthetical citation format for a singleauthored source Signal phrase citation format The Effect of Negative Child of Divorce Stereotypes on Thinking About Future Relationships People use categories to simplify the task of processing the enormous amount of stimuli that confronts us (Gilovich, Keltner, & Nisbett, 2006). In social interactions, categorization may involve stereotypes, which are defined as beliefs about attributes that are thought to be characteristic of particular groups (Gilovich et al., 2006, p. 432). Even though stereotypes are not always accurate, we still knowingly or unknowingly use them as we interact with the social world. Stereotypes can apply to people from different ethnic populations, genders, or social classes, as well as other categories. The present study investigated the stereotype content and effects of one social category: children from divorced parents. Past research has established that people hold stereotypes about children from divorced families, at least at the implicit level (Amato, 1991). In three studies, Amato (1991) assessed people s implicit beliefs about offspring of divorce. The first study demonstrated that people hold implicit negative stereotypes about individuals from divorced families, including the beliefs that they are distrustful, insecure, rebellious, prone to delinquency, shy, unpopular, have trouble relating to the opposite sex, and have nontraditional attitudes about marriage and family life. The results of the second study showed how these stereotypes work: Participants recalled fewer favorable facts about children from divorce than individuals from intact families. That is, participants implicitly ignored information that did not go along with the child of divorce stereotypes. However, when participants were explicitly asked if they thought that divorce caused negative effects for children, most responded that they thought divorce had few effects on children. Amato concluded that negative child of divorce stereotypes are widespread but implicit. They affect people s implicit beliefs even if they do not want them to. A70

4 NEGATIVE CHILD OF DIVORCE STEREOTYPES 4 One stereotype documented by Amato s study is that people perceive children of divorce as having trouble relating to the opposite sex. This particular stereotype is based upon some truth. Segrin, Taylor, and Altman (2005) found that children who come from divorced parents are more reluctant to enter into relationships because of the negative observations they made regarding their parents committed relationship. The researchers also found that these children are less intimate even when they do enter into romantic relationships. The experimenters believe that this is the case because good communication skills were never modeled for them. Although divorce may predict poor romantic relationships at an overall level, the context of the divorce seems to matter, too. The amount of parental conflict before the divorce moderates divorce s consequences for children (Kaslow & Schwartz, 1987). Some studies have shown that sometimes divorce has severe negative effects on children, and sometimes it has minimal effects or no consequences at all (Bartell, 2006). This discrepancy is partly due to the level of parental conflict that occurred prior to the divorce. Parental hostility and conflict have a stronger influence on children than the actual family structure does (Ensign, Scherman, & Clark, 1998). Furthermore, the cognitive-developmental model of the influence of parental divorce on romantic relationships explains that the level of parental conflict and proper modeling of relationships determines if children experience negative effects from the divorce or not (Bartell, 2006). Hence, the context surrounding the divorce matters more than the actual divorce does when considering the effects on future romantic relationships. In the present study, we tested whether undergraduates stereotypes about divorced children would be sensitive to the contextual factor of parental conflict. We predicted that although parental conflict matters in actual divorce cases, people s stereotypes would not be sensitive to this factor. Instead, we Citation format for a two-author source When possible, do not simply discuss past research articles one at a time; integrate them into an argument, as the student has done here. The final paragraph of the introduction describes the method briefly and explains the hypotheses of the study in terms of this method. A71

5 NEGATIVE CHILD OF DIVORCE STEREOTYPES 5 hypothesized that people would ignore the context of the divorce and perceive overall negative effects of divorce across situations, because people fail to notice or tend to discard information that does not confirm their previous stereotypes (Amato, 1991). To test this prediction, we used a factorial design that manipulated both parental conflict and parental marital status in a set of vignettes. Participants read a high- or low-conflict vignette about parents who were married or divorced, and then responded to statements about the future There is no extra space between the introduction and the Method heading. Format for the first-level heading: centered and boldfaced Format for a secondlevel heading: flush left, boldfaced, title case. The text begins on the next indented line. Use numerals, not words, to describe the numbers in a factorial design. Numbers equal to or greater than 10 are presented as numerals. Numbers less than 10 are presented as words. At the start of a sentence, any number should be written as a word. romantic relationships of the couple s child. Due to overall negative stereotypes about individuals whose parents are divorced, we predicted that participants would perceive more harmful outcomes for such individuals romantic relationships than for those who came from intact families (a main effect for marital status). However, we predicted that participants would fail to consider the effect of conflict, predicting that participants would not make any distinction between the low- and high-parental conflict vignettes (no main effect for conflict). We hypothesized that these predictions will hold true for all the participants regardless of their own family situations because of how far-reaching negative child of divorce stereotypes are. Method Design We conducted a 2 2 between-subjects factorial experiment. The independent variables were the level of parental conflict in the vignette, either low conflict or high conflict, and the marital status of the parents in the passage, either married or divorced. Furthermore, the dependent variable of the study was the participants responses to the statements regarding the romantic relationships of the children. Participants Participants were nine male students and 29 female students from upper-level psychology classes at Muhlenberg College. Thirty-three participants A72

6 NEGATIVE CHILD OF DIVORCE STEREOTYPES 6 came from parents who were married, three came from divorced parents, one came from parents who were separated, and one came from a single parent. In terms of class year, one was a first-year student, 20 were sophomores, 12 were juniors, and five were seniors. All the participants participated to fulfill a requirement in their psychology courses. Materials We randomly assigned each participant to read one of four vignettes and answer several dependent-variable questions. Vignettes. We used four different vignettes representing each cell of the 2 2 design, specifically: high-conflict/divorced, high-conflict/ married, low-conflict/divorced, and low-conflict/married (see Appendix). Each scenario described two parents, John and Elizabeth, who were involved in either a high-conflict or a low-conflict relationship. The last line of the passage stated if the couple remain married or had gotten divorced. We confirmed the effectiveness of the vignette manipulation by conducting a pilot test. Subjects answered questions pertaining to a passage thought to portray either high parental conflict or low parental conflict. Participants used a 5-point scale to rate the level of conflict that they felt the vignette represented (1 = very low conflict to 5 = very high conflict). In addition, students were asked to rate how realistic they thought the scenario was using a 5-point scale (1 = extremely unrealistic to 5 = extremely realistic). We found a significant effect for level of conflict, t(9) = 6.43, p <.001. The students rated the high-conflict scenario as containing much more conflict than the low-conflict scenario (see Table 1 for the means). Hence, we determined that the parental conflict manipulation was effective. Furthermore, there was not a significant effect for realism, t(9) = -0.98, p =.35. The participants did not rate the low-conflict scenario as being significantly more realistic than the Format for a third-level heading: indented, boldfaced, sentence case, followed by a period; the text starts on the same line. Refer to appendices in the main text. Place appendices after any figures or tables. It is appropriate to present construct validity results, such as these pilot-tested manipulation checks, in the Method section. Format for presenting a t test Call out all tables in the text. Do not repeat values presented in a table in the text. A73

7 NEGATIVE CHILD OF DIVORCE STEREOTYPES 7 Indicate rating scales and anchors when describing self-report scales. Use numerals for the point numbers and anchors of scales, and italicize scale anchors. Give example items when describing selfreport scales. There is no extra space between the end of the Method section and the Results heading. Call out all figures in the text. Do not repeat values in the text if they also appear in a figure. Format for presenting an F statistic high-conflict scenario. From these results, we concluded that the vignettes were equally realistic. Dependent variables. The vignettes were followed by nine statements that addressed predictions about the future romantic relationships of John and Elizabeth s child. Each statement was assessed using a 5-point scale (1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree). We asked the students to circle the number that most appropriately corresponded with their feelings regarding the statements about the child from the previous passage. Examples of the statements include This child will have difficulty sustaining a long term relationship and Their child will be able to effectively communicate with a significant other. After appropriate recoding, higher scores on the survey indicate a more negative view of the child s future romantic relationships. Possible scores could range from 9 to 45. One survey question reassessed the construct validity of the vignettes, as we did in the pilot testing. Specifically, we asked, What level of parental conflict does this vignette represent? This statement was assessed using a different 5-point scale than the rest of the survey (1 = very low conflict to 5 = very high conflict). The final four questions of the survey evaluated demographic information, including age, class year, sex, and parents marital status. Results A factorial analysis of variance was calculated to determine if level of parental conflict or marital status had an effect on the students perceptions of the children s future romantic relationships. Figure 1 presents the pattern of means. There was a significant main effect for level of conflict, F(1, 34) = 55.88, p <.001. The romantic relationships of children coming from highconflict situations were rated more negatively than relationships of those coming from low-conflict situations. There was also a significant main effect A74

8 NEGATIVE CHILD OF DIVORCE STEREOTYPES 8 for parents marital status, F(1, 34) = 5.95, p =.02. The romantic relationships of individuals coming from divorced parents were rated more negatively than children coming from married parents. Finally, there was not a significant interaction between level of conflict and marital status, F(1, 34) = 0.09, p =.76. Thus, the relationship ratings did not depend on the combined effects of parental conflict and marital status. In addition, there was not a significant effect for the sex of the participant. 1 The female subjects rated the relationships (M = 25.17, SD = 7.06) slightly worse than the males (M = 20.67, SD = 6.28); however, this difference was not statistically significant, t(36) = -1.71, p =.095. To reassess construct validity, as was done in the pilot test, we computed another independent-samples t test to determine if the ratings of conflict level differed between the high- and low-conflict vignettes. The results replicated the findings from the pilot test: There was a statistically significant difference between the two scenarios, t(36) = 8.68, p <.001. Students rated the high-conflict vignette (M = 4.53, SD = 0.61) as containing much more conflict than the low-conflict vignette (M = 2.37, SD = 0.90). Discussion Due to globally negative child of divorce stereotypes, we hypothesized that people would ignore the context of divorce and perceive overall negative effects across situations. Our results supported this hypothesis; students rated the romantic relationships of the children from divorced parents more negatively than the relationships of those coming from married parents. This result replicates past research showing that negative child of divorce stereotypes include negative perceptions about their future romantic relationships (Amato, 1991). We had also hypothesized that participants ratings would not be affected by the conflict level of the parents, but the results showed otherwise. Students rated the Report exact p values between.001 and.99. If p is less than.001, report p <.001. Use a repetitive sentence structure when describing related results. Use a zero before a decimal fraction when the statistic can be greater than 1 (e.g., F and t values). Do not use a zero before a decimal fraction when the statistic cannot be greater than 1 (e.g., correlations, proportions, and p values). Footnotes should be used sparingly. They appear on a new page titled Footnotes after the reference list. There is no extra space between the end of the Results section and the Discussion heading. The first paragraph of the Discussion section summarizes the hypotheses and major results. A75

9 NEGATIVE CHILD OF DIVORCE STEREOTYPES 9 romantic relationships of children coming from high-conflict situations much more negatively than those coming from low-conflict circumstances. Hence, even though negative child of divorce stereotypes were activated, participants also took the context of the situation into account, contrary to predictions. When the results do not support the hypothesis, offer an explanation. The middle paragraphs of the Discussion section evaluate the study s strengths and weaknesses. In our study, the contextual factor of conflict may have mattered because the vignettes were so extreme. The high-conflict passage contained an excessive amount of conflict, including verbal and physical violence, while the low-conflict vignette contained almost no conflict at all. The scenarios were made to represent opposite ends of a conflict spectrum in order to ensure that the manipulation was effective it had good construct validity. However, this may also have increased demand characteristics. Participants may have realized what we were trying to study after reading such extreme situations. Thus, future studies should use vignettes that are more subtle in their differences and maybe even include a greater variety of conflict levels. Our study was designed with good internal validity. We used a betweensubjects design so that participants would not be easily aware of the comparisons we were making between divorced and married parents, or low- and high-conflict families. The vignette paradigm made it easy to keep extraneous variables controlled. On the one hand, our external validity was not strong in this study; we recruited most of the participants from upper-level psychology classes, which means that they have all probably been taught a lot about stereotypes and biases. Additionally, all the subjects were college students and probably know someone whose parents are divorced. These individuals may realize that the effects of divorce depend on the context because of their personal experience. Such students may be better at controlling their implicit beliefs because they are aware of the automatic activation of certain stereotypes. Even so, they showed evidence of stereotypes that favor the children of married parents A76

10 NEGATIVE CHILD OF DIVORCE STEREOTYPES 10 and low-conflict parents. Such stereotypes may, if anything, be even stronger among a non-student population. We originally wanted to look at the difference between the relationship ratings of participants coming from married, divorced, separated, and single parents. However, the sample size was small and most of the students came from an intact family. Consequently, we could not run statistical tests to identify if there was a difference between the participants based on their family structure. However, we examined other sample characteristics, like participant sex, to look for discrepancies. Females rated the relationships more negatively than the males across all the conditions, but this difference was not statistically significant. A future study could examine the possible dissimilarities between the perceptions of people coming from married versus divorced parents. We predict that children of divorce would be even more sensitive to contextual factors because of their own personal experiences that is, we would predict an interaction between the participant s own family status and the experimental factor of parental conflict. At the end of the discussion, point to future research questions, explain what you would expect, and explain why they would be important. A77

11 NEGATIVE CHILD OF DIVORCE STEREOTYPES 11 The reference list begins on a new page. Its heading is not boldfaced. Sources are listed in alphabetical order by first author. Reference format for an empirical journal article with one author Reference format for a chapter in an edited book Reference format for an empirical journal article with more than one author Reference format for a book Within a single source, preserve the order of authorship; do not list authors alphabetically unless they originally appeared that way. References Amato, P. R. (1991). The child of divorce as a person prototype: Bias in the recall of information about children in divorced families. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 53, Bartell, D. (2006). Influence of parental divorce on romantic relationships in young adulthood: A cognitive-developmental perspective. In M. A. Fine & J. H. Harvey (Eds.), Handbook of divorce and relationship dissolution (pp ). London, England: Psychology Press. Ensign, J., Scherman, A., & Clark, J. J. (1998). The relationship of family structure and conflict to levels of intimacy and parental attachment in college students. Adolescence, 33, Gilovich, T., Keltner, D., & Nisbett, R. E. (2006). Social psychology. New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company. Kaslow, F. W., & Schwartz, L. L. (1987). The dynamics of divorce: A life cycle perspective. Philadelphia, PA: Brunner/Mazel. Segrin, C., Taylor, M. E., & Altman, J. (2005). Social cognitive mediators and relational outcomes associated with parental divorce. Journal of Social and Relationships, 22, A78

12 NEGATIVE CHILD OF DIVORCE STEREOTYPES 12 Footnotes 1 We originally intended to test the effect of the participants own family Footnotes heading is not bold. status, but we did not have enough participants in each category for this analysis. A79

13 Tables are numbered consecutively and placed one per page. Table titles are presented in italics and are printed in title case. Do not simply copy output from a statistical program into a table. Retype the data and its labels in the APA format. Tables may be doubleor single-spaced. NEGATIVE CHILD OF DIVORCE STEREOTYPES 13 Table 1 Pilot Testing Data High-conflict vignette Low-conflict vignette Rating M (SD) M (SD) Conflict 4.40 (0.55) 2.33 (0.52) Realism 3.50 (0.55) 3.20 (0.45) Note. n = 10 for all values. Conflict ratings ranged from 1 (very low conflict) to 5 (very high conflict). Realism ratings ranged from 1 (extremely unrealistic) to 5 (extremely realistic). Table format can include horizontal separation lines, but no vertical lines. Use the table note to describe any abbreviations used in the table or explain the nature of measures used in the table. The table note should be doublespaced. A80

14 NEGATIVE CHILD OF DIVORCE STEREOTYPES 14 Prepare figures in a computer program, not by hand. Do not use gridlines (horizontal lines across the figure). Label both the x-axis and the y-axis clearly. Use shades of gray, not color, to represent levels of a variable. Figure 1. Predicted negativity of a child s future romantic relationships as a function of the parents relationship conflict and marital status. Each figure goes on its own page and is numbered consecutively. Figure labels are italicized. Figure captions are double-spaced and appear in plain text below each figure. A81

15 NEGATIVE CHILD OF DIVORCE STEREOTYPES 15 An appendix is appropriate for presenting the full text of research materials, when such information is too long to present in the Method section. If there is more than one appendix, they are called Appendix A, Appendix B, and so on. Appendix Vignettes Used in the Research High Conflict: John and Elizabeth have a child who just graduated from high school and is about to leave for college. Growing up, their child noticed that John and Elizabeth weren t always affectionate towards each other. They rarely hugged or held hands. The parents often fought over what was to be served for dinner, sometimes to the point that dinner was only served at 10:30 at night when they had finally settled on what to have. Their child had seen one parent or the other storm out of the house from time to time after a fight. Sometimes their verbal arguments turned violent, with either John hitting Elizabeth or Elizabeth hitting John. They would eventually apologize to each other only to get into another argument the next day. Their child often heard them yelling after going to bed, and it seemed that John and Elizabeth had more difficulties getting along than other parents. Note. The vignette was followed by either of the following statements: John and Elizabeth divorced about 1 year ago or John and Elizabeth remain married. Low Conflict: John and Elizabeth have a child who just graduated from high school and is about to leave for college. Growing up, their child noticed that John and Elizabeth were often affectionate towards each other. The parents sometimes had disagreements about what was to be served for dinner, but these problems were always resolved and dinner was served at 6:00 every evening. Their child had occasionally seen one parent or the other storm out of the room after a fight. However, they would apologize to each other soon after and the argument would be resolved. The child also noticed that John and Elizabeth could always make each other laugh and knew how to cheer each other up. Note. The vignette was followed by either of the following statements: John and Elizabeth divorced about 1 year ago or John and Elizabeth remain married. A82