Father\'s Perspective of Post-Divorce Conflict

Father's Perspective of Post-Divorce Conflict

In this study a parsimonious set of predictors were employed to explain the observed variance in post-divorce conflict. The researchers sought to answer the question; what predictive factors can be identified to reduce post-divorce conflict. This was a particularly important question because of the number of persons who are affected by divorce. Additionally, after divorce the parties may still be linked together emotionally, financially and in other ways. Consequently the reduction in the conflict between the parents assists all parties to have a more effective transition to the post-divorce state. Conflict reduction is therefore an important aspect of the management of post-divorce adjustment.

Using the public records of divorce courts from two counties in southwestern Virginia the authors produced a sample of 225 individuals. Selection criteria were used to determine who should participate in the study. The study possesses a cooperation rate of 47% since most of the persons to whom the instrument were mailed failed to return the complete document. The instrument used was part of an instrument employed in previous research. The dependent variable was measured using a 5 point Likert scale, based on two questions. The questions assessed the level of conflict between the parties, based on the father's agreement with the wives child rearing decisions.

An interesting feature of the research is that the study only collected data on the view of fathers. Additionally, the fathers were non-custodial. This is interesting because it begs the question what about the views of mothers. The author's rationale was that any changes in one area of the system would redound to changes in all areas. This is consistent with systems theory however the issue of conflict seems to suggest that the view of the second party is critical to the reduction of relationship conflict.

The study was a very interesting study and the author was able to identify clear lacunae in the literature that the work filled. There was also very obvious policy and practical implications of the work. The novelty of the work related directly to both the issue and the population used. The choice of sample design and the method of mailing in the questionnaire present some clear areas of weakness for the work. Mail-in questionnaires have a high non-return rate and this study demonstrates this clearly. The authors however noted that this limitation of the work suggests that the findings should be related to with a measure of caution. It is definitely possible that the persons who failed to respond have an underlying characteristic that may have changed the findings. Despite this clear impediment the work is valuable because it opens a new vista of inquiry for future researchers.

The study also has issues with generalizability. The amount of error in a sample that size may be beyond what is an acceptable limit. No confidence intervals were produced for the descriptive results of the study so that the precision of the work could not be immediately determined. The variability within the sample in some instance was very wide as is the case of months married where the SD was 66.3 months. Additionally, the sample descriptors identified the sample as not representative of the national population in key areas, ethnicity, and SES. Thus the work cannot be applied with great certainty beyond the White, middle class community.