Marital Quality and Personal Well‐Being: A Meta‐Analysis

This study examines the association between marital quality and personal well‐being using meta‐analytic techniques. Effects from 93 studies were analyzed. The average weighted effect size r was .37 for cross‐sectional and .25 for longitudinal effects. Results indicate that several variables moderate the association between marital quality and personal well‐being, including gender, participants’ marital duration, source of measurement, data collection year, and dependent variable. These results suggest that longitudinal effects are more likely to be uncovered when using standard measurement and that future research should use samples homogenous in marital length. The longitudinal finding that the strength of the association is stronger when personal well‐being is treated as the dependent variable supports previous theorizing.     

The Dyadic Adjustment Scale: A Reliability Generalization Meta‐Analysis

We conducted a reliability generalization meta‐analysis to examine the internal consistency of Dyadic Adjustment Scale (DAS; Spanier, 1976 ) scores across 91 published studies with 128 samples and 25,035 participants. The DAS was found to produce total and Dyadic cohesion, Consensus, and Satisfaction scores of acceptable internal consistency, although lower than those originally reported by Spanier (1976) . Reliability estimates of these scores did not differ by the sexual orientation, gender, marital status, or ethnicity of the sample. The Affective Expression subscale was found to produce scores with poor Cronbach’s alpha across studies. Reliability estimates of Affective Expression scores were highly influenced by sample characteristics. The implications of these results are discussed as they relate to the use of the DAS in research.     

Domestic Violence and Intergenerational Rates of Child Sexual Abuse: A Case Record Analysis

Using case review at a shelter for battered women and their children, this exploratory study investigated the association between physical abuse, exposure to domestic violence and intergenerational occurrence of child sexual abuse. The charts of 570 children were reviewed in an attempt to explore the relationship between the children's experiences with sexual abuse and their nonoffending parent's own history of having been sexually abused. Results indicated that a significant percentage of nonoffending parents who reported a history of child sexual abuse also had children who were sexually abused. Additionally, we found that most (93%) of the children studied had been exposed to domestic violence, and while the base rate of sexual abuse was relatively low (11%), the rate of physical abuse of the children was substantial (41%). Logistic regression results indicated that children of sexually abused nonoffending parents may be at heightened risk for sexual abuse. Implications for treatment and intervention are discussed.     

Gender Differences in Marital Satisfaction: A Meta‐analysis

The purpose of the present meta‐analysis was to empirically test the widely held assumption that women experience lower marital satisfaction than men. A total of 226 independent samples with a combined sum of 101,110 participants were included in the meta‐analysis. Overall results indicated statistically significant yet very small gender differences in marital satisfaction between wives and husbands, with wives slightly less satisfied than husbands; moderator analyses, however, indicated that this difference was due to the inclusion of clinical samples, with wives in marital therapy 51% less likely to be satisfied with their marital relationship than their husbands. The effect size for nonclinical community‐based samples indicated no significant gender differences among couples in the general population. Additional moderator analyses indicated that there were also no gender differences when the levels of marital satisfaction of husbands and wives in the same relationship (i.e., dyadic data) were compared.     

Perceived Parental Acceptance‐Rejection and Psychological Adjustment: A Meta‐Analysis of Cross‐Cultural and Intracultural Studies

Meta‐analytic procedures were used to pool information from 43 studies worldwide to test one of the major postulates of parental acceptance‐rejection theory (PARTheory). Specifically, using child and adult versions of the Parental Acceptance‐Rejection Questionnaire (PARQ) and the Personality Assessment Questionnaire (PAQ), these studies allowed us to assess the claim within PARTheory's personality subtheory that perceived parental acceptance‐rejection is associated universally with a specific form of psychological (mal)adjustment among children and adults, regardless of differences in gender, race, geography, language, or culture. Results of the analysis showed that the predicted relation emerged without exception in all studies. The mean weighted effect sizes across the full range of sociocultural and ethnic groups studied were r= .51 for children and r= .46 for adults. Analysis of fail safe N showed that 3,433 additional studies, all with nonsignificant results, would be required to disconfirm the pancultural association between the PARQ and PAQ among children; 941 such studies would be required to disconfirm this relation among adults.     

Legacy Volunteering: A Test of Two Theories of Intergenerational Transmission

Sociological theory suggests two reasons that volunteering runs in families. The first is that parents act as role models. The second is that parents who volunteer pass on the socioeconomic resources needed to do volunteer work. Panel data from two generations of women (N = 1,848) are analyzed to see how much influence family socioeconomic status and mother's volunteering have on daughter's volunteer careers. More highly educated women and women whose mothers volunteered donate more hours initially, but only family socioeconomic status increases volunteering over the life course.     

Pathways to Intergenerational Adolescent Childbearing in a High‐Risk Sample

Previous research indicates that children of adolescent mothers are more likely to experience an adolescent birth than are children of older mothers. Using a longitudinal sample of 293 high‐risk mothers and their 19‐year‐old children, we investigated mediators of the intergenerational pattern of adolescent childbearing. Results from multigroup path models indicate that the intergenerational effect is (a) significant for children of unmarried mothers above and beyond mother’s prebirth socioeconomic status and education level, (b) fully mediated through early sexual intercourse related to presence of a father figure and early home environment for girls, and (c) partially mediated by early physical development for boys. Relation of findings to current models of early sexual behavior and childbearing is discussed.     

Intergenerational Transmission of Constructive Parenting

Past research on the intergenerational transmission of parenting concentrates on the continuity of harsh or abusive parenting, for the most part relying on retrospective reports of early upbringing. This study investigates the intergenerational transmission of constructive parenting using a 3‐wave longitudinal data set that has spanned 2 decades, obtaining the respondents' contemporaneous reports in early adolescence, early adulthood, and middle adulthood respectively (N= 2,338 ). The results support the hypotheses that interpersonal relations, social participation, and role‐specific modeling explain the intergenerational continuity of constructive parenting.     

Do Child Abuse and Interparental Violence Lead to Adulthood Family Violence?

The cycle of violence posits that victimized children grow up to victimize others. Three forms of the cycle have never been tested: whether exposure to physical victimization and interparental violence additively or interactively increase risk for adulthood (a) child abuse perpetration; (b) partner abuse perpetration; or (c) partner abuse victimization. These hypotheses were tested in a nationally representative data set (1985 National Family Violence Survey) comprising 6,002 participants. Dually exposed, compared to singly exposed, women had significantly increased risk for adulthood family violence. Frequency of family‐of‐origin violence predicted adulthood child and partner abuse through both main and interactive effects.     

A Genetically Informed Study of the Intergenerational Transmission of Marital Instability

Environmental or genetic influences, or both could account for the increased risk of divorce among the offspring of separated parents. Previous studies have used covariates to statistically control for confounds, but the present research is the first genetically informed study of the topic. The investigation used the Children of Twins Design with twins, their spouses, and their young adult offspring (n = 2,310) from the Australian Twin Registry to test whether selection on the basis of genetic or shared environment factors accounted for part of the intergenerational association. The analyses also controlled for measured characteristics of both parents. The results suggest that both environmentally mediated and genetic risk account for the intergenerational transmission, supporting the roles of both selection and causation.     

Timing Preferences for Women’s Family‐Life Transitions: Intergenerational Transmission Among Migrants and Dutch

This study examines the transmission of preferences regarding the timing of family‐life transitions of women among migrant and native Dutch families. We study how and to what extent parental preferences, migrant origin, and family characteristics affect the child’s timing preferences. We use parent and child data (N= 1,290) from the Netherlands Kinship Panel Study (2002, 2003) and the Social Position and Provisions Ethnic Minorities Survey (2002). Regression analyses reveal that parental timing preferences regarding family‐life transitions are strongly associated with the timing preferences of their children. Analyses also show that these preferences strongly vary by migrant origin, educational level, and religious involvement. The process of intergenerational transmission, however, is found to be very similar among migrants and Dutch.     

Childhood Living Arrangements and the Intergenerational Transmission of Divorce

Using detailed data on the childhood living arrangements of children taken from the 1995 National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG), the impact of multiple dimensions of parent histories on the likelihood of offspring divorce is investigated. Although past research is replicated by finding a positive impact of parental divorce on offspring divorce, the author also finds that living apart from both parents, irrespective of the reason, is associated with an increased risk of divorce. In particular, children who were born out of wedlock and who did not experience parental divorce or death experience a very high risk of marital disruption. However, neither the number of transitions in childhood living arrangements nor parental remarriage appear to substantially affect the risk of marital dissolution. Finally, variations in the timing of and circumstances surrounding marriage appear to mediate a substantial proportion of the effect of parent histories on offspring divorce.     

Assortative Mating and the Intergenerational Transmission of Parental Incarceration Risks

Research on the intergenerational transmission of incarceration tends to emphasize the strong association between fathers' involvement with the criminal justice system and sons' behavioral outcomes, such as experiencing incarceration. The father–son association in incarceration risks is, however, not the only mechanism through which these risks may travel across generations. Although female rates of incarceration are generally low (even for women who experienced parental incarceration when they were girls), women could transmit incarceration risks across generations through their choice of partner. This article uses administrative data on three generations in Denmark to show that assortative mating—the nonrandom selection of partners with similar characteristics—indeed make women just as likely as men to transmit incarceration risks across generations.     

Sexual Minority Stress and Same‐Sex Relationship Well‐being: A Meta‐analysis of Research Prior to the U.S. Nationwide Legalization of Same‐Sex Marriage

Meta‐analytic methods were used to analyze 179 effect sizes retrieved from 32 research reports on the implications that sexual minority stress may have for same‐sex relationship well‐being. Sexual minority stress (aggregated across different types of stress) is moderately and negatively associated with same‐sex relationship well‐being (aggregated across different dimensions of relationship well‐being). Internalized homophobia is significantly and negatively associated with same‐sex relationship well‐being, whereas heterosexist discrimination and sexual orientation visibility management are not. Moreover, the effect size for internalized homophobia is significantly larger than those for heterosexist discrimination and sexual orientation visibility management. Sexual minority stress is significantly and negatively associated with same‐sex relationship quality but not associated with closeness or stability. Sexual minority stress is significantly and negatively associated with relationship well‐being among same‐sex female couples but not among same‐sex male couples. The current status of research approaches in this field is also summarized and discussed.     

The Intergenerational Transmission of Financial Stress and Relationship Outcomes

Numerous studies have focused on the intergenerational transmission of poverty, financial stress, and family functioning. Other research has shown how financial stressors can predict various family processes, including parent–child interactions, family conflict, and couple communication, and relationship outcomes, including marital stability and satisfaction. This study shows continued evidence that financial stress from the male and female partner's family of origin may predict marital dissatisfaction using dyadic data techniques. Also, an exploration of indirect paths also found that the presence of current financial stress partially mediates these associations.     

Long‐Term Influences of Intergenerational Ambivalence on Midlife Parents' Psychological Well‐being

We investigated changes in midlife parents' intergenerational ambivalence toward a focal child and its influence on their psychological well‐being over 14 years, as the focal child moved from adolescence into young adulthood. We estimated growth curve models using three waves of data from the National Survey of Families and Households (N = 1,510 parents aged 35–54 years at Time 1). Parental ambivalence declined over time, equally among mothers and fathers. The prediction from ambivalence theory that children's attainment of adult statuses reduces parental ambivalence received only modest support. Only the focal child's marriage reduced parental ambivalence. The focal child's lifestyle–behavioral problems during adolescence still elevated ambivalence 14 years later, albeit less so. For its part, intergenerational ambivalence counteracted trends toward declining depressive symptoms and greater happiness for mothers and fathers alike, and its effects remained constant over time.