Divorce is a common phenomenon in the United States that constitutes as a crisis for many families (Esmaeili & Yaacob, 2011; Heatherington, 1979). Kelly (2003) estimates that about 8 to 15 percent of parents continue high conflict anywhere from 2 to 3 years post-divorce. Post-divorce parental conflict has been found to be more important in influencing the functioning of adolescents than parental divorce (Amato, 2001). The purpose of this study is to investigate if adult children will generally tend to join in coalition with a same sex primary custodial parent regardless of their parent’s role in character assassination. Eastern Washington University undergraduate students were recruited from the Psychology department to complete a survey made available to them through SONA Systems Department Recruiting system. Data was analyzed using a paired-sample t-test and an independent-sample t-test. The results indicated that female adult children from divorced families tended to assign significantly more positive attributes to their mothers and more negative attributes to their fathers even though they reported witnessing their mothers engaging in character assassination more often.
","abstract_html":"<p>Divorce is a common phenomenon in the United States that constitutes as a crisis for many families (Esmaeili & Yaacob, 2011; Heatherington, 1979). Kelly (2003) estimates that about 8 to 15 percent of parents continue high conflict anywhere from 2 to 3 years post-divorce. Post-divorce parental conflict has been found to be more important in influencing the functioning of adolescents than parental divorce (Amato, 2001). The purpose of this study is to investigate if adult children will generally tend to join in coalition with a same sex primary custodial parent regardless of their parent’s role in character assassination. Eastern Washington University undergraduate students were recruited from the Psychology department to complete a survey made available to them through SONA Systems Department Recruiting system. Data was analyzed using a paired-sample t-test and an independent-sample t-test. The results indicated that female adult children from divorced families tended to assign significantly more positive attributes to their mothers and more negative attributes to their fathers even though they reported witnessing their mothers engaging in character assassination more often.</p>","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Keller, Holly"],"institution":null,"degree_name":"Master of Science (MS) in Psychology: Clinical","degree_level":"Thesis","degree_discipline":"Psychology","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":[],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2017,"date_issued":"2017-01-01T08:00:00Z","date_published":"2017-01-01T08:00:00Z","updated_at":"2026-07-24T02:13:29Z","subjects":["Psychology"],"languages":[],"rights":["Access is available to all users"],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"https://dc.ewu.edu/theses/443","outbound_label":"Repository record","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Keller, Holly"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["Psychology"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Thesis"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["Master of Science (MS) in Psychology: Clinical"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["Psychology"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["Access is available to all users"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["https://dc.ewu.edu/theses/443"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description.abstract","label":"Abstract","values":["Divorce is a common phenomenon in the United States that constitutes as a crisis for many families (Esmaeili & Yaacob, 2011; Heatherington, 1979). Kelly (2003) estimates that about 8 to 15 percent of parents continue high conflict anywhere from 2 to 3 years post-divorce. Post-divorce parental conflict has been found to be more important in influencing the functioning of adolescents than parental divorce (Amato, 2001). The purpose of this study is to investigate if adult children will generally tend to join in coalition with a same sex primary custodial parent regardless of their parent’s role in character assassination. Eastern Washington University undergraduate students were recruited from the Psychology department to complete a survey made available to them through SONA Systems Department Recruiting system. Data was analyzed using a paired-sample t-test and an independent-sample t-test. The results indicated that female adult children from divorced families tended to assign significantly more positive attributes to their mothers and more negative attributes to their fathers even though they reported witnessing their mothers engaging in character assassination more often.
"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["Impact of inter-parental character assassination on children post-divorce"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:creator":["Keller, Holly"],"dc:description.abstract":["Divorce is a common phenomenon in the United States that constitutes as a crisis for many families (Esmaeili & Yaacob, 2011; Heatherington, 1979). Kelly (2003) estimates that about 8 to 15 percent of parents continue high conflict anywhere from 2 to 3 years post-divorce. Post-divorce parental conflict has been found to be more important in influencing the functioning of adolescents than parental divorce (Amato, 2001). The purpose of this study is to investigate if adult children will generally tend to join in coalition with a same sex primary custodial parent regardless of their parent’s role in character assassination. Eastern Washington University undergraduate students were recruited from the Psychology department to complete a survey made available to them through SONA Systems Department Recruiting system. Data was analyzed using a paired-sample t-test and an independent-sample t-test. The results indicated that female adult children from divorced families tended to assign significantly more positive attributes to their mothers and more negative attributes to their fathers even though they reported witnessing their mothers engaging in character assassination more often.
"],"dc:identifier":["https://dc.ewu.edu/theses/443"],"dc:rights":["Access is available to all users"],"dc:subject":["Psychology"],"dc:title":["Impact of inter-parental character assassination on children post-divorce"],"thesis:degree_discipline":["Psychology"],"thesis:degree_level":["Thesis"],"thesis:degree_name":["Master of Science (MS) in Psychology: Clinical"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-24T02:13:29Z"}