Adolescent Responsibility 1
Running head: ADOLESCENT RESPONSIBILITY AND DEVELOPMENT PROBLEMS
Adolescent Responsibility in Divorced Families:
Internalizing Problems and Self-Esteem
Shawna M. Andersen
The University of Puget Sound
Introduction
With ahighrate of divorce in the United States, as well as in other countries, recent psychological research has focused on the multiple differences and similarities between divorced and intact families. The societal views on divorceseem to be changing from that of a negative occurrence to that of a more normative occurrence. One of the major underlying questions of psychologists when studying divorce is how such an occurrencemay either positively or negatively impact a child or family. Research is shifting from the search for how a specific family structure may impact a child to the search for the underlying processes occurring in relation to diverse families. In recent research on the changing societal views of divorce, Amato (2001) found that even when taking into account theimprovement of society’s views on divorce, children of divorce continue to show numerous negative outcomes. Amato discusses the changes in outcomes of children from divorced families as compared to those from intact families. After taking into account the more normative views of divorce during recent times, the study shows a persistence of more negative outcomes among children of divorced parents in the 1990s than those of earlier decades. Lower levels of success at school, poorer behavior, more emotional problems, lower self-esteem, and more difficulties with interpersonal relationships are some of the negative outcomes found in children of divorce from recent times. If societal views are not responsible for differences between divorced and intact families,this brings to question what specific factors may be contributing to thedifferences seen.
Researchers of divorce have not only assessed the negative outcomes of children in divorced families, but there has been research looking at the possible beneficial outcomes in children of divorce as well. Weiss (1979) was one of the first researchers to assess how responsibility levels of children from single-parent households may differ than those of dual-parent households. He proposed the idea that those in divorced, single-parent households tend to take on a higher level of responsibility than the children of two parents. Weiss foundsome positive outcomes in children from divorced families, including higher self-esteem, greater independence, and increased feelings of competence, in relation to a child’s increased levels of responsibility and power within the family. This model illustratesthat when children are held at a higher level of accountability they may tend to “grow up faster” than those who are held at lower levels. The positive outcomes found in this study were limited, and some children showed them in combination with negative outcomes, including emotional stress and behavioral problems. However, this idea of growing up faster led to many further studies on responsibility and children of divorce.
Additional evidenceshows support fora relationship between children of divorce who are given more responsibility and a heightened sense of self-esteem (Barber & Eccles, 1992). Along with a number of other outcomes,findings demonstrate that increased household responsibility may berelated to positive outcomes in children of divorce, such as rating themselves as self-sufficient,skilled, and responsible. This study is limited in its implications for generalizing because it did not directly examinea child’s level of responsibility in relation to particular outcomes. However, inconsistencyin the findings between whether divorce impacts a child positively or negatively points to the specific areas of study that require a deeper assessment. With such a large number of factors playing into divorced families, it is difficult to determine whether divorce per se is negative or positive for a child’s outcome. The investigation of specific factors, such as responsibility levels, which are relatedto divorced families,will lead to more knowledge about the circumstances that may be beneficial or detrimental to a child’s development.
Hetherington (1989) discusses numerous discrepant findings about the effects of divorce on children’s development. Interestingly, she alsofoundevidence to support a relationship between high levels of responsibility and positive outcomes in children of divorce. Within a longitudinal study of the effects of divorce on child outcomes, Hetherington found a small sample of girls from divorced families showing positive outcomes. This sample was composed of girls around the age of ten who played an especially responsible role within a divorced household and showed higher levels of independence. These girls displayed low externalizing and high prosocial behaviors. However, it is important to take into account the longitudinal nature of this study began with four-year-olds and followed up at the age of ten. Thus, the idea of higher responsibility as related to positive outcomes is limited in this study to girls in early and middle childhood.
Hetherington and Stanley-Hagan (1999) discuss important follow-up research with the same sample of girls who showed positive outcomes in the context of heightened levels of responsibility. They found evidence supporting a relationship between long-term responsibility levels and the tendency to have internalizing problemsand low self-worth in late adolescence. The girls who displayed these negative outcomes were not only overburdened with household responsibility, but also the emotional support of their divorced, single-parent mothers during adolescence. Many studies may not have recognized this pattern of outcomes due to their largely internal nature (e.g., internalized emotions and levels of self-worth). This study, along with the earlier studies by Hetherington (1989)and Barber and Eccles (1992), bring up an interesting question about the impact of both household responsibility levels and emotional responsibility levels of adolescents from divorced families.
Levels of responsibility for children of divorce have been studied in terms of household chores (e.g., Barber & Eccles,1992) but also as the emotional support of a parent (e.g., Hetherington & Stanley-Hagan, 1999). It is important to assess both the emotional as well as the physical responsibilities of a child from a divorced family. There have been morerecent studies regarding the effects of increased maternal disclosure to children after a divorce. Silverberg, Wallace, Lehman, and Raymond (2002) investigated some of the risk factors in child outcomes in relation to divorced,single-mothers whoshowed an increased level of disclosure to their daughters about sensitive topics. The results of this study providedevidence to support that aheightened level of mother-to-daughter disclosure about difficult topics is related to an increased level of the daughter’s worrying about these issues and psychological distress.
Another study about maternal disclosure examined both male and female adolescents from divorced, single-mother households (Silverberg, Wallace, & Lee, 2004). Silverberg et al.suggest that there may be initial short-term positive outcomes in children who experience increased maternal disclosure, such as feelings of importance. Disclosure may also help with development of coping strategies post-divorce. However, the researchersdescribemany long-term negative outcomesof especially high levels of disclosure to adolescents, such as mother-child role-reversal and adolescents showing psychological distress or anxiety. These findings, in concordance with the findings about increased household responsibility in divorce, point to the same underlying question regarding the specific long-term effects of overall responsibility on children from divorced families. Specifically, there is a lack of research that looks directly at the effects ofdifferent levels of both emotional and physical responsibilities of children from divorced families. An overburden of responsibilities of children in divorced families may indicate that these children are being treated as adults.
To add to the previous research, the proposed study will evaluatethe level of responsibility as a specific factor that may influence the outcome of a child from a divorced family. However, the proposed study will analyze responsibility under different terms than much of the previous research. The proposed study suggeststhe necessity of assessing overall responsibility, in both physical and emotional terms. Increased maternal disclosure about sensitive topics has been described as an adolescent’s increased emotional support of their mother, in studies by Silverberg et al. (2002, 2004). Therefore, emotional responsibility will be examined through parental disclosure to an adolescent. Furthermore, general household responsibilitywill be included in order to assess the more physical aspects of responsibility. In combining both household responsibility and parental disclosure, the proposed study will be able to tap into the same underlying construct. These aspects of responsibility are conceptually similarand will be combined to assess a type of global responsibility for children of divorce.
The proposed studywill assess the relations of long-termlevels of overall responsibility, including household responsibility and parental disclosure, tointernalizing problems and self-esteem levels in adolescents of divorced, single parents. The levels of each measure will be taken in terms of the adolescent’s perceptions. Results are expected to reveal a curvilinear relationship, such that heightened levels of both household responsibility and parental disclosure to adolescents about sensitive topics will be related to more internalizing problems and lower self-esteem, moderate levels will be related to fewer internalizing problems and higher self-esteem, and very low levels of responsibility and disclosure will be related to more internalizing problems and lower self-esteem. Of particular interest are the effects of very high and very low levels of responsibility and disclosure over a period of time. These curvilinear results are expected for a number of reasons.
As previously discussed studies by Weiss (1979) and Barber and Eccles (1992) show, some level of householdresponsibility may be beneficial in fostering a positive image of one’s self and feelings of self-worth within a family structure. It may be important to give children a certain level of responsibility in order to help them to learn about being responsible and developing feelings of independence. The proposed study suggests that the ideal level of household responsibility that is most beneficial for children of divorce is one that is moderate. Too much responsibility may overburden a child and show negative outcomes of more internalizing problems and lower self-esteem.
Since the proposed study suggests that household responsibility and parental disclosure tap into the same concept of overall responsibility, there may also be an ideal moderate level of parental disclosure. As research by Silverberg et al. (2002, 2004) indicates, too much maternal disclosure can be detrimental. However, these researchers also discuss the importance of some recognition of the existence of sensitive divorce issues and the necessity to discuss these issues. If there is a moderate level of discussion about divorce and sensitive issues, the child may not show negative outcomes of low self-esteem and more internalizing problems.
Of particular interest is how adolescents respond to excessive levels of responsibility, in terms of household responsibility and parental disclosure about these issues over a period of time. The expectation is to find that extremely low or high levels of overall responsibility will show a negative impact on the adolescent. According to the previous discussion of research, including Silverberg et al. (2002, 2004) and Weiss (1979),very low levels are expected to possibly prohibit an adolescent from developing normally. Under these circumstances, a divorced parent may be shielding an adolescent and treating him or her as a child. The proposed study anticipates these adolescents to show lower self-esteem and more internalizing problems. Extremely high levels of overall responsibility are expected to be related to similar outcomes. An adolescent with very high levels of responsibility may develop low self-esteem and more internalizing problems through being held accountable for a burdensome load of responsibility. The proposed study suggests that when divorced parents treatan adolescent as an adult, through expecting extremely high levels of responsibility, there may be negative outcomes in the adolescent. These issues are important to assess for a number of reasons.
Unlike much of the previous research, the proposed study will look at both male and female adolescents in maternal and paternal single-parent households. With our changing society, there is reason to believe that there may be an increasing number of single fathers. This is why it is important to assess both fathers and mothers in single-parent households. As Silverberg et al. (2004) illustrates, boys may also be affected by parental disclosure, therefore, indicating why the proposed study includes both male and female adolescents. Since studies by Hetherington (1989, 1999) show that responsibility may have different effects on the outcomes of children than on late adolescents, the proposed study will assess late adolescents. The proposed studywill attempt to find not merely an initial impact of divorce, but the longer-term effects.
In order to assess overall responsibility as it relates to the long-term development of adolescents, the proposed study will only take into account adolescents who have been living with their divorced, single-parent for at least two years. If researchconcerning adolescents’ responsibility were to be taken too soon after divorce,there would be apossibility forthe results indicating initial levels of self-esteem and internalizing problems. The participants will be asked to fill out surveys in order to assess their levels of household responsibility, their parent’s disclosure to them, their internalizing problems, and their self-esteem. It is expected that the evidence from this study will supporta statistically significant curvilinear relationship betweenoverall responsibility and internalizing problems, and between overall responsibility and self-esteem. This evidence will help to identify another important factor as to why there are so manydifferences in outcomes of adolescents from divorced families. It will add to the research on divorce and show how the structure of a family may not affect a child as much as the underlying factors of divorced families.
Method
Participants
This study will include data froma sample of200adolescents in divorced, single-parent households. The participants will range in age from 16 through 18 years old. The participants will be used in the study only if they have been living in a divorced, single-parent household for at least two years. The study willbe between-family in nature, byonly assessing one child from a given family. However, descriptive data will be collected on the total number of children in the family. The number of male and female children will be approximately equal. The number of father-child versus mother-child dyads will be as equivalent as possible, given that the number of divorced, single-mother-child dyads in the United States is much greater than that of father-child dyads. The sample of adolescents will be a random, nationally representative sample of divorced, single-parent households in terms of parental education, ethnicity, household income, and family size.
Procedure
The participants will be contacted by telephone and asked to participant in the proposed study. After agreeing to participate in this study, each participant will be mailed a packet of all four surveys. The participants will be asked to complete each survey thoughtfully and fully. With the parent’s consent, each adolescent will be asked to have no help or outside influence on completing the surveys. An envelope with postage will be included for the participants to return the completed surveys by mail.
Measures
Participants will first be asked a set of descriptive questions. These will include questions about the participant’s gender, age, amount of time living in a single-parent household, gender of single-parent, and number of siblings. Four constructs are of primary interest in the proposed study: (a) the level of parental disclosure as perceived by theadolescent; (b) theadolescent’s level of perceived household responsibility; (c) the adolescent’s level of internalizing problems; and (d) the adolescent’s level of self-esteem.
Parental disclosure. The instrument that will be used to measure the level of parental disclosure to the adolescentwill assess various sensitive issues surrounding divorce. This instrument is a revised version of the scale used to measure mother-to-adolescent disclosurein the study by Silverberg et al. (2004). This scale was originally taken from the Parents’ Disclosure Questionnaire and Parent Disclosure Survey, and adapted to focus only on items that would relate to sensitive issues discussed in divorced families. The topic areas of parental disclosure in this survey are finances, ex-husband, job ups-and-downs, parenting challenges, and personal concerns. The scale lists 26 items and response choices are as follows: 0= “My mother never says anything to me about this topic”; 1= “This topic has accidentally ‘popped out’ a couple of times, when my mother didn’t really mean it to”; 2= “My mother has talked with me about this topic, but without giving any details”; 3= “My mother has talked with me about this topic, giving a few details”; 4= “My mother has talked with me about this topic, going into quite a bit of detail”; and a choice that the topic does not apply to the participant. This scale will be revised for the proposed study, in order to address father-disclosure as well. Since the topics are relatively gender neutral, the revisions made will be minimal, in exchanging “mother/father” for “mother” and “ex-husband/ex-wife” for “ex-husband”. After completion, the items that do not apply to the participant will first be removed. The ratings from the rest of the 26 items will be averaged in order to have a single score for parental disclosure. Higher scores indicate a higher level of parental disclosure about these topics.