ABSTRACT
Parental divorce is a risk factor for romantic relationships in adulthood. By one estimate, the risk of divorce increases by almost 70% if the wife has experienced parental divorce and by almost 190% if both spouses have experienced parental divorce (Amato, 1996). Research also indicates that parental divorce is associated with more hesitancy toward commitment (Booth, Brinkerhoff, & White, 1984), lower trust in partners (Franklin, Janoff-Bulman, & Roberts, 1990), lower satisfaction in relationships (Ross & Mirowsky, 1999), poorer interpersonal skills (Amato, 1996), earlier involvement in relationships (Gabardi & Rosen, 1992), and greater acceptance of divorce (Kinnaird & Gerrard, 1986). A variety of potential divorce-related factors have been proposed to explain these findings, ranging from the socioeconomic decline that often accompanies parental divorce, to negative changes in parent-child relationships, to the observation of one’s parents having a poor marital relationship, to the genetic transmission of problematic personality traits (Amato, 2000; Amato & Booth, 2001). However, we currently lack a broad conceptual model to identify which of these factors may be relevant or how they might exert an influence on romantic relationships. This chapter represents a preliminary attempt at the development of such a model. The cognitive-developmental model proposed here seeks to identify specific characteristics of parental divorce that are likely to exert an influence on romantic relationships and to propose a potential mechanism through which these characteristics exert an influence on romantic relationships. Before moving to the explication of the model, though, I first review in more detail the research introduced here.
