Suchergebnisse

The AFCC Think Tank on Research, Policy, Practice, and Shared Parenting is quite groundbreaking, had an all‐star cast, and the issues could hardly be more important to our organization. Yet, many will regard the final report from the think tank as disappointing because, simply, it fails to say very much. I argue that the reason is that the think tank gave too little consideration to two interlocking costs to the families. First are the costs associated with individualizing decisions on a case‐by‐case basis. Much as it may be desirable, we may really not know how to properly individualize, tailor, or custom‐fit parenting plans to achieve the best possible outcomes in each case. So, the effort and expense and time and trouble taken in the futile pursuit of case‐specific decisions come with little corresponding benefits. Better to have a starting place that covers the majority of cases and families, with, of course, the ability to deviate when the fit is obviously bad. The general public strongly believes that shared parenting is that starting place and that any other position is biased. The second cost is that vagueness and ambivalence will ultimately be iatrogenic for families by leading to greater conflict. Various proposals under consideration differently incentivize parents to engage in that conflict. Presumptions, of any flavor, generally minimize such incentives. A shared parenting presumption would minimize that incentive most of all.
Key Points for the Family Court Community
We do not know enough to validly individualize custody arrangements.
Vagueness and ambivalence incentivize conflict between the parents, which we do know is deleterious.
A shared parenting presumption is strongly viewed by the public as the correct starting place and that any other position is biased.
The buzz among divorce professionals about what is "the best"—and/or the most judge preferred—arrangement exerts heavy influence on the arrangements most parents eventually settle upon.
The think tank provides an extremely useful agenda for future research.

Information was given subjects in the five experimental conditions about how their opponent-to-be in a forthcoming Prisoner's Dilemma game had played and fared in a game played previously. The information implied that the opponent-to-be had (1) played in a mutually cooperative game; (2) behaved as an exploited martyr; (3) successfully exploited his previous adversary; (4) made an unsuccessful attempt to exploit his previous adversary; or (5) been forced, by his previous adversary, to protect himself by competitive responses. A control condition gave no information about the previous game. Subjects tended to cooperate in conditions 1, 2, and 5, i.e., with opponents who appeared worthy of trust, and to compete in conditions 3, 4, and the control, i.e., with opponents who appeared to be exploitative. The high level of cooperation accorded the martyr was the most interesting result and was interpreted as behavior motivated by the equity norm.

Two studies investigated the effects of the perception of the opponent's motives and incentives to defect on cooperation in a mixed-motive game. Study I varied the perceived goal of the other (by instructions) and the incentive of the other to defect (by payoff values). Study II varied the other's incentive as well as the subject's incentive to defect, both by payoff values. The results indicated that the perceived goal of the other strongly influenced the subject's cooperation. The incentive of the other also affected cooperation, except when the other was assumed to be pursuing a benevolent goal. Finally the subject's incentive did not affect his cooperation nearly as much as did his opponent's incentive.

All couples with minor children who filed for divorce within a specific 6‐week period (N = 191 couples) in one jurisdiction were ordered to attend a divorce education program. The control group included about 20 couples randomly selected from each of six 6‐week intervals before and six 6‐week intervals after the treatment interval (N = 243 couples). Archival records were searched for variables such as legal and residential custody award, visitation percentage, and relitigation. The impact of the program was assessed by evaluating, for each variable, whether the data for program interval departed from the straight (regression) line drawn through all the control group intervals. Only the visitation time award significantly differed: 27.75% for treatment couples and 22.46% for control couples. Analyses show that the father's attendance at the program primarily accounts for the difference.
Key Points for the Family Court Community
There are considerable methodological weaknesses in most of the existing evaluations of divorcing parent education programs.
Stronger, more scientifically rigorous—and thus persuasive—designs are possible in court settings, such as the regression discontinuity quasi‐experimental design we feature here.
Archival records, such as various court filings, are a rich and relatively untapped source of data.
Being mandated to attend a single 2‐hour divorcing parent education class caused an increase in the visitation time award in divorce decrees.
There is a disconnect between being mandated by a judge to attend a program and actual attendance.

Recent publications describing long‐term results of longitudinal investigations of divorced couples have stirred controversies because of substantial differences in findings. The current Special Collection was initiated to clarify some of the issues brought into controversy. Five primary themes are explored by the nine papers in this collection: How severe is the long‐term effect of divorce on children? Why do various research findings on the long‐term effect of divorce tend to disagree so substantially? Why is divorce considered a problem? What do children have to say about their experiences with divorce? And what, if anything, can be done to help the children of divorce?

Most states' child support guidelines adopt a "cliff" model in providing credits or adjustments for time spent in the nonresidential parent's home. Such guidelines implicitly or explicitly assume that no appreciable expenditures are made directly by obligors for child‐rearing expenses at levels of contact or visitation beneath some threshold value, typically assumed to be around 30% time. As guideline developers are acutely aware, these assumptions have proceeded in the absence of any data. The present investigation sought to provide preliminary evidence of such expenditures by using the approach of getting information about the provision of certain benchmark items: clothes, toys and games, bicycles, a bedroom, and support for car‐related expenses for teenage drivers. The authors generally found a linear, rather than a cliff‐like, relationship of expenditures to time in the nonresidential father's home, with unexpectedly high levels of father's provision of these benchmark items even at quite low levels of contact. These findings support more generous and more continuous adjustments for visitation in child support schemes, to offset nonresidential parent's direct expenditures on children, which appear to be unexpectedly high and arise on a non‐cliff‐like pattern.