Sociology 13: Impact of Family Structure on Child Psychology

This report investigates the correlation between family structure, family processes, and the psychological well-being of children. It explores how different family structures, including intact, divorced, never-married, and stepfamilies, influence children's emotional and social development. The study considers factors such as parental conflict, parent-child relationships, and parental psychological well-being. The methodology involves a combination of literature reviews, case studies, and questionnaires administered to both children and mothers. Data is collected through face-to-face interviews and questionnaires, with longitudinal data collection to track changes in family structure and processes over time. The report utilizes both inductive and deductive analysis to identify patterns and themes, focusing on the impact of family dynamics on children's emotional health and well-being. The questionnaires include scales to measure the children's emotional states, maternal psychological well-being, and the quality of parent-child relationships. The study aims to provide insights into how family structure and processes shape the psychological well-being of children and the long-term implications for their adult lives.

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The psychological well-being of the children being impacted by the
family structure and family processes
Name,
Student number,
Name of your tutorial TA,
The date,

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Background Information..................................................................................................................3
Family Structure..........................................................................................................................4
Family Processes.........................................................................................................................5
Methods...........................................................................................................................................6
Sample.........................................................................................................................................7
Data collection technique................................................................................................................8
Ethical consideration.......................................................................................................................9
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................10
References......................................................................................................................................11
Appendices....................................................................................................................................13
Questionnaire.............................................................................................................................13
Protocol......................................................................................................................................15

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Introduction
The proposed study is designed for assessing the influence of the family structure on the youth
and to determine its psychological impact on the lives of children including the family processes
that are believed to have the greatest impact on the psychological well-being of the children
(Acock and Demo 1994, Brown, Susan L. 2004). The relationship between the family structure
and family processes have been studied with the psychological impact on the children’s lives.
The research study has hypothesised the family structure to influence the psychological well-
being of the child, by affecting the family processes like parental conflict, parent-child
relationship, characteristics of individuals like the psychological well-being of the father and
mother and background variables like income. These studies used the reports by mothers on the
psychological well-being of their child on the basis of one measure for well-being. Conger and
Chao (1996) utilised a combination of reports of children and their mother for scaling the
psychological well-being of the child. Therefore suggesting that the family processes and
variables listed above are predicted to assess the impact of composition and structure of family
on the psychological well-being of children. This research study will investigate the impact of
family structure on the psychological well-being child and the level of parental conflict on the
basis of findings on reports of mothers and assess the quality of relationship of the child with
both parents in order to evaluate their psychological well-being.
Background Information
It has been estimated that the depressed mood might impact the performance abilities and social
relations (Compas and Hammen 1994). Sound psychological well-being ensures high chances of
future well-being of the adult as various depressive situations in the child’s life are like to be
recurrent and highly chronic in the future course of life. (Scheier, M. F., Carver, C. S., &

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Bridges, M. W. 2001). Similarly, it has been examined by Gotlib et al. (2010) that the depressive
moods are the indicator of the high probability of developing severe depressive disorders in adult
phase. These factors will be considered throughout the study.
Various researches have been conducted depicting that the children coming from intact families
have the greatest level of psychological well-being (Amato, P. R. 2005; Conger and Chao 1996;
Acock and Demo 1994; Burroughs, J. E., & Rindfleisch, A. 2002). The same researchers claimed
that the children belonging from never-married families seem to possess high emotional well-
being as compared to those from the step or divorced families. According to Amato, P. R. 2000,
the children from divorced families are seen to possess the lowest level of emotional well-being.
The differences in the psychological well-being of the children across the family structure are not
clear. This has depicted the reduction in the impact of family composition and structure on the
psychological well-being of the child (Hetherington 1989; Furstenberg 1991).
Family Structure
In intact families, the children have both their biological parents leading to higher parental
involvement and fewer disagreements between parents and children. (Burroughs, J. E., &
Rindfleisch, A. 2002; Amato, P. R. 2005). However, these families also experience parental
conflict and emotional presence is not guaranteed due to the constant physical presence (Mackay,
Ross 2005). In other words, more time together does not necessarily mean high-quality time
together (Acock and Demo, 1994).
In the case of divorced families, the parents go through intense conflict before the divorce
(Emery, 1982; Mechanic and Hansell, 1989). A study by Oppawsky, J. (2000) depicted that the
divorcing spouses engage in verbal fighting and even reported physical abuse. The study
depicted that over 50% of the children reported the case of verbal fighting in their home during

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the divorce. The divorced parents are less likely to be affectionate as they are absorbed in their
own problems and communicate poorly with their children (Kelly, J. B 2007). Riggio, H. R.
(2004) and Acock and Demo (1994) depicted the lower level of child-parent interaction in the
divorced families and suggested that these families are likely to engage in inept parenting where
there are less monitoring, inconsistent and harsh punishment and more hostility towards the
children. However, some researchers have suggested that the well-being of the child is not
affected in case of diminished parental involvement. (Furstenberg & Nord, 1985; Clingempeel,
& Segal, 1986).
In the case of never-married family structure, similar difficulties like the inconsistent discipline
of children, lower levels of parental involvement, lower levels of psychological well-being are
encountered but in a greater extent (McLanahan, S., & Sandefur, G. 2009, Nelson, S. K.,
Kushlev, K., & Lyubomirsky, S. 2014).
Finally, in the case of stepparents, their attitude and expectations decide the child-parent
relationships. Some children are seen to welcome step parent whereas others are not. (Schrodt,
P., et. al. 2006). Acock and Demo (1994) in their research depicted that the psychological well-
being of stepparents is comparatively higher when compared with the single mothers and
divorced parents. In some cases, the stepfathers are likely to fill the parenting role.
Family Processes
The family processes that are seen to impact the psychological well-being of the child are the
parent-child relationship and parent’s relationship with each other (Ginsburg, K. R. 2007). The
psychological well-being of the children is seen to be developed from the parental interaction.
Role playing and interaction is the foundation of the psychological well-being of the children.
(Ginsburg, K. R. 2007). Additionally, the fathers are seen to have a lower level of involvement

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as compared to the mother in all the family structure (McBride, B. A., Schoppe, S. J., & Rane, T.
R. 2002; Carlson, M. J. 2006.). The low paternal involvement leads to making mother-child bond
to be highly influential impacting the psychological well-being of the child.
Parental conflict is one of the critical factor impacting the psychological wellbeing of children
(Amato, P. R., & Sobolewski, J. M. 2001, Brown, S. L. 2004). According to L. D., Scaramella,
L. V., & Fagot, B. I. (2001) and Amato, P. R. (2000), martial happiness leads to higher level of
psychological well-being for children. Conflicts are seen to impact children badly due to the
reason that the children feel an intense urge of seeing their parents getting along (Buehler, C., &
Gerard, J. M. 2002, Brown, S. L. 2004). Therefore, the parental conflicts are seen to put physical
as well as emotional stress on children. All these factors and findings are highly associated with
the child development as the psychological well-being of the children are highly impacted due to
the family structure and various family processes.
Methods
The research paper is academic and applied in nature and reviews various literature reviews and
case studies for analysing and supporting the argument made in the paper along with the
questionnaires conducted. The paper will stress on the situational constraints that were present
while shaping the inquiry along with emphasising on the numerical analysis of the collected data
using questionnaires.
The data used in the paper will be longitudinal, and the change in marital status during the course
of the research paper will be collected every month enabling the information on the family
structure to be accurate. The data is large as the total of four family structures (intact, divorced,
single or never married and step) are included in the analysis with 20 cases on the respective
family structure.

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The central concept is to inculcate the child’s view along with taking reports from the mother
regarding the family structure and family process for analysing the psychological well-being of
the child. The parental conflict can be evaluated from the mothers’ reports and the relationship
between the parents will be evaluated from the children’ reports.
The research paper performs inductive and deductive analysis at different points of analysing the
data. The inductive analysis is performed in the initial stage for discovering important patterns
and themes by exploring various findings, literature reviews and care studies. Later on, the
deductive analysis is performed for analysing the data collected.
The paper uses idiographic approach and focuses on the individual. The quantitative data from
individual family members is collected and then investigated using unstructured interviews and
questionnaires
Sample
The National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (NLSCY) will select a total of 80
families and conduct face-to-face interviews with the selected representative sample of over 220
men and women and their children. The interview will be conducted first, and then the children
will be interviewed. Another interview will be scheduled after six months for assessing the
current situation on the family structure and family process. Following the face-to-face
interview, the respondents will be asked to fill out the questionnaires. All the children and their
siblings will be interviewed and questions, however, more focus will be given to the older
children. The fathers will not be interviewed, but the reports of mothers and children will
conduct an analysis of the attitude and behaviour of the father.

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Data collection technique
A plethora of questions will be asked by the National Longitudinal Survey of Children
and Youth (NLSCY) for studying the research paper. The dependent variable is the
psychological well-being of the children. A self-administered questionnaire will be given to the
children over the age of nine, and the questionnaire will include a nine-item scale for evaluating
the psychological well-being. The children will be presented with the questions that will reflect
their emotions. The children will be asked how often they felt: sad, happy, tense, lonely bored,
busy, tired, pressured and excited. The choices for responses will often be, never and sometimes.
While interviewing the mother, various socioeconomic variables will be collected for analysing
the situation with better vision. The total years of education, total household income, the level of
psychological well-being and marital status will be asked. The residence of biological father,
possibility of life in partner, marital status will be asked for categorising the families into the
four family structure. The four family structures used in the study are intact families, divorced
families, never-married families and stepfamilies.
Two separate scales will be used for measuring the maternal psychological well-being. The
Pearlin Mastery Scale will be used for measuring the extent of control felt by the mother over
their personal life. A response range of strongly agree and strongly disagree will be asked from
the mothers. A total of six statements will be included in the questionnaire.
The second scale for evaluating the psychological well-being of the mothers will have twenty
items for measuring the behaviour and feelings of the mothers. Some of the items included will
be being restless, shaking the blues, feeling lonely and fearful, etc.
The analysis of the two selected family process namely, the quality of the parent-child
relationship and the relationship between the partners, will be performed. For the first family

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process, the measures will be collected only from the cohabiting or the married women.
Therefore, this information will be measured from women from intact marriage, remarriage and
single mothers. The second family process will be assessed from the children’s reports asking
questions on how close they are to their parents. The response choices will be ranging from
extremely close to not at all. Further while interviewing the children, the question regarding the
father being referred (biological, stepfather or somebody else) will be asked. On the basis of this
response, the children will be asked to produce an essay on how they feel about their father-
figure and how he is related to them.
Similarly, the children will be asked the same questions regarding their mothers and the mothers
will be asked to report various stages and aspects of the life of the children. They will be asked
regarding the quality of the child-mother relationship. The response choices provided will be
ranging from excellent to not to close.
Ethical consideration
For completing the research, suitable research guidelines ethics will be followed. While
considering the ethical aspect of the research, considerable time will be provided to the
respondents for depicting true views during the face-to-face interview and other questions.
Primary and secondary data will be utilised for the study. The respondents will be asked for their
consent, and appropriate permission will be taken for using the information and data provided by
them. The identity of the respondents who are not willing to disclose their identity will not be
exhibited. Further, the usage of secondary data will be acknowledged and cited appropriately.
Therefore the ethical approach of the paper will be followed strictly.

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Conclusion
The proposed paper will help in making the considerable contribution to the theoretical
understanding of the family factors like family structure ad family processes as they impact the
psychological well-being of the children and will help in providing needed information to the
sociologists interested in this field. The children are impacted greatly by the way their family
behaves with them. The children are impacted greatly by the structure of their family and their
relationship with their mother and father along with the relationship between mother and father
equally, impacts the psychological well-being of the children. These students are seen to be
academically weaker and are seen to develop depressive disorders in the later phase of life. Such
children are more likely to be prone to recurrent and highly chronic depressive situation in the
future course of life. The educational qualification, total household income, level of
psychological well-being and marital status of the parents are equally important in maintaining
the development of the children.
The proposed research paper will help in affording an understanding of how the various family
structure will affect child's psychological well-being. Most importantly, it will be helpful in
providing guidelines for identifying the children with low- psychological well-being and are at
risk of developing depression which leads to emotional distress, low achievement and academic
aspects.

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References
Acock, Alan C and David H Demo. 1994. Family Diversity And Well-Being. 1st ed. Thousand
Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Brown, Susan L. 2004. "Family Structure And Child Well-Being: The Significance Of Parental
Cohabitation". Journal of Marriage and Family 66(2):351-367.
Fomby, P. and A. J. Cherlin. 2007. "Family Instability And Child Well-Being". American
Sociological Review 72(2):181-204.
Scheier, M. F., Carver, C. S., & Bridges, M. W. 2001. “Optimism, pessimism, and psychological
well-being”. Optimism and pessimism: Implications for theory, research, and practice, 1, 189-
216.
Gotlib, I.H. and Joormann, J. 2010. “Cognition and depression: current status and future
directions.” Annual review of clinical psychology, 6, p.285.
Amato, P. R. 2005. “The impact of family formation change on the cognitive, social, and
emotional well-being of the next generation”. The future of children, 75-96.
Burroughs, J. E., & Rindfleisch, A. 2002. “Materialism and well-being: A conflicting values
perspective”. Journal of Consumer research, 29(3), 348-370.
Amato, P. R. 2000. “The consequences of divorce for adults and children”. Journal of marriage
and family, 62(4), 1269-1287.
Mackay, Ross. 2005. "The Impact Of Family Structure And Family Change On Child Outcomes:
A Personal Reading Of The Research Literature". The Impact of Family Structure and Family
change on Child Outcomes: A Personal Reading of the Research Literature. Retrieved
November 29, 2016 (https://www.msd.govt.nz/about-msd-and-our-work/publications-resources/
journals-and-magazines/social-policy-journal/spj24/24-impact-of-family-structure-and-family-
change-on-child-outcome-p111-133.html).
Oppawsky, J. 2000. “Parental bickering, screaming, and fighting: Etiology of the most negative
effects of divorce on children from the view of the children.” Journal of Divorce &
Remarriage, 32(3-4), 141-147.
Kelly, J. B. 2007. “Children's living arrangements following separation and divorce: Insights
from empirical and clinical research.” Family process, 46(1), 35-52.
Riggio, H. R. 2004. “Parental marital conflict and divorce, parent‐child relationships, social
support, and relationship anxiety in young adulthood.” Personal Relationships, 11(1), 99-114.

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McLanahan, S., & Sandefur, G. 2009. “Growing up with a single parent: What hurts, what
helps.” Harvard University Press.
Nelson, S. K., Kushlev, K., & Lyubomirsky, S. 2014. “The pains and pleasures of parenting:
When, why, and how is parenthood associated with more or less well-being?” Psychological
Bulletin, 140(3), 846.
Schrodt, P., Baxter, L. A., McBride, M. C., Braithwaite, D. O., & Fine, M. A. 2006. “The
divorce decree, communication, and the structuration of coparenting relationships in
stepfamilies”. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 23(5), 741-759.
Ginsburg, K. R. 2007. “The importance of play in promoting healthy child development and
maintaining strong parent-child bonds.” Pediatrics, 119(1), 182-191.
McBride, B. A., Schoppe, S. J., & Rane, T. R. 2002. “Child characteristics, parenting stress, and
parental involvement: Fathers versus mothers.” Journal of Marriage and Family, 64(4), 998-
1011.
Carlson, M. J. 2006. “Family structure, father involvement, and adolescent behavioral
outcomes.” Journal of Marriage and Family, 68(1), 137-154.
Amato, P. R., & Sobolewski, J. M. 2001. “The effects of divorce and marital discord on adult
children's psychological well-being.” American Sociological Review, 900-921.
Brown, S. L. 2004. “Family structure and child well‐being: the significance of parental
cohabitation.” Journal of Marriage and Family, 66(2), 351-367.
Buehler, C., & Gerard, J. M. 2002. “Marital conflict, ineffective parenting, and children's and
adolescents' maladjustment.” Journal of Marriage and Family, 64(1), 78-92.
Leve, L. D., Scaramella, L. V., & Fagot, B. I. 2001. “Infant temperament, pleasure in parenting,
and marital happiness in adoptive families.” Infant Mental Health Journal, 22(5), 545-558.

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Appendices
Questionnaire
A. Scale for evaluating the psychological well-being of the mother
B. The scale for sense of control of the mother over life

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C. Scale for parental conflict

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Protocol
• Risk Matrix: Group vulnerability and research risk
Research risk
Group
vulnerability
Low Medium High
Low Del. Del. Full
Medium Del. Full Full
High Full Full full
• Background, purpose, and objectives
The thesis proposal will first be approved by the thesis committee. The model protocol will be
followed, and the work will be performed closely with the supervisor. Each section and kept
clear, consistent, brief and focused entirely on ethics.
• Methods and data
The methods used and the data collection will be performed as honestly as possible, and care
must be taken to avoid data mishandling.
• Participants, informants, or data subjects
The participants will be selected irrespective of their race, caste, creed, sexual orientation and
only the ones important for conduction of the study will be preferred.
• Recruitment
The recruitment of the participants will be consistent with respect to the protocol, and no
preferences will be given to anyone. The recruitment will be performed in a fair distribution
basis.
• Risks
The magnitude and probability of harms, participates are exposed to like the health issues,
legal or socio-economic ramifications like loss of employments, criminal investigation or
deportation and cognitive or emotional factor during the data collection will be evaluated.
• Consent process

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The quality of relationship will be maintained from the beginning to the end. The emphasis
will be placed on the project and on jargon or legalistic issues. Appropriate and plain
language will be used in front of the participants, and their confidentiality will be maintained.
For the children, age-appropriate assent will be provided.
• Privacy and confidentiality
The name of the participants and personal information will be not be disclosed. Any kind of
abuse, homicidally, suicidality or criminality has to be reported on duty. The standard of
discipline has to be maintained.