Philip A. Cowan

Promoting Healthy Beginnings: A Randomized Controlled Trial of a Preventive Intervention to Preserve Marital Quality During the Transition to Parenthood

Couples expecting their first child were randomly assigned to intervention (n=28) and comparison groups (n=38) to assess the efficacy of a couples intervention and examine marital satisfaction trajectories across the transition to parenthood. The primarily European American sample (M age=30 years) completed assessments of marital satisfaction at 5 points from the final trimester of pregnancy to 66 months postpartum. Growth curve analyses indicated a normative linear decline in marital satisfaction. Intervention participants experienced significantly less decline than comparison participants, providing support for the efficacy of the intervention. Comparable childless couples (n=13) did not show a decline in marital satisfaction. The results suggest that early family transitions that strain couple relationships provide critical opportunities for preventive interventions to strengthen marriage.

Coming home upset: Gender, marital satisfaction, and the daily spillover of workday experience into couple interactions.

This study explored how daily changes in workday pace and end-of-the-workday mood were related to nightly variations in withdrawn and angry marital behavior. For 3 days, 82 husbands and wives from 42 couples completed questionnaires at the end of the workday and at bedtime. More negatively arousing workdays were linked with angrier marital behavior for women and less angry and more withdrawn behavior for men. Daily changes in workday pace predicted fluctuations in womens, but not mens, marital behavior. Several of these workday-marital behavior connections varied by level of marital satisfaction. In contrast to the gender differences in responses to workday stress, no differences were found in typical marital behaviors. These findings suggest that gender differences are enhanced under stress.

Interventions as tests of family systems theories: Marital and family relationships in children's development and psychopathology

This paper addresses the role of family-based studies of preventive and therapeutic interventions in our understanding of normal development and psychopathology. The emphasis is on interventions designed to improve parent-child and/or marital relationships as a way of facilitating development and reducing psychopathology in children and adolescents. Intervention designs provide the gold standard for testing causal hypotheses. We begin by discussing the complexity of validating these hypotheses and the implications of the shift from a traditional emphasis on theories of etiology to developmental psychopathologys newer paradigm describing risks --> pathways --> outcomes. We summarize correlational studies that document the fact that difficult and ineffective parent-child and marital relationships function as risk factors for childrens cognitive, social, and emotional problems in childhood and adolescence. We then review prevention studies and therapy evaluation studies that establish some specific parenting and marital variables as causal risk factors with respect to these outcomes. Our discussion focuses on what intervention studies have revealed so far and suggests an agenda for further research.

Behavior problems and peer rejection in preschool boys and girls

Abstract The authors tested the hypothesis that deviant behaviors within a preschool peer group would be linked with peer rejection, irrespective of child gender. Seventy-six children, aged 3 to 5 years, participated. Teachers rated childrens behavior on the Child Adaptive Behavior Inventory, and children provided sociometric ratings. For a subsample of children (n = 47), observers coded aggressive, noncompliant, and withdrawn behavior using a time-sampling system. For both boys and girls, noncompliance, hyperactivity, and social withdrawal were associated with peer rejection; overt aggression was associated with peer rejection for boys, but not for girls. Analysis revealed that approximately half of the variance in sociometric and teacher ratings of peer rejection was accounted for by aggression and social withdrawal for both boys and girls. The results suggest that the association between behavior problems and peer rejection emerges at a very early age.

Is early attachment security carried forward into relationships with preschool peers

The association between early parent–child attachment security and peer rejection among preschool children was examined. Children in three preschool classrooms (N = 37) participated. Mothers rated their children’s attachment security at age 3 years on the Attachment Q-Set (Waters, 1987). Sociometric ratings were collected from classmates at age 4 years through individual picture interviews. Teachers rated externalizing and internalizing behaviour exhibited at preschool. Lower attachment security was associated with greater subsequent peer rejection and higher externalizing and internalizing behaviour scores. An exploratory path model suggested that the linkage between early insecure attachment and later peer rejection may be mediated by externalizing behaviour. According to attachment theory, internal working models of relationships are developed during early parent–child interactions and subsequently ‘carried forward’ into future relationships (Sroufe & Fleeson, 1986). Because many children have their first experiences with a cohesive peer group when they enter preschool, internal working models developed in early parent–child relations could have a substantial influence on patterns of peer relationships that emerge among preschoolers. Children who expect to have their needs met in close relationships, and who view themselves as worthy of love and support, may engage in social behaviours in preschool that tend to elicit positive responses and friendship from their peers. The quality of early peer relationships may have important implications for children’s psychosocial adjustment later in life (Cowan & Cowan, in press). However, there is little research on the extent to which children’s attachment security is carried forward into preschool friendships. The primary goal of this study was to examine the association between early

A More Optimistic Perspective on Government-Supported Marriage and Relationship Education Programs for Lower Income Couples.

Comments on the original article by Matthew D. Johnson (see record 2012-08242-001). It is important to challenge some of Johnsons points about the effectiveness and reach of interventions to lower income couples and couples of color and his suggested prioritization of basic over applied research. With emerging findings and practical knowledge gained in lower income communities from all across the United States over the past decade, we see evidence to support optimism for the potential utility of marriage and relationship education (MRE) programs to help disadvantaged and minority couples. Accordingly, continued support for these efforts is justified. We anticipate that the potential of these first-generation programs will only increase as the research Johnson called for advances our understanding of low-income and minority couple relationships, as more programs are rigorously evaluated, and as we learn and disseminate best practices from programs now in the field.

Policies That Strengthen Fatherhood and Family Relationships: What Do We Know and What Do We Need to Know?

As described in earlier articles, children whose parents have higher incomes and education levels are more likely to grow up in stable two-parent households than their economically disadvantaged counterparts. The widening gaps in fathers’ involvement in parenting and in the quality and stability of parents’ relationships may reinforce disparities in outcomes for the next generation. This article reviews evidence about the effectiveness of two strategies to strengthen fathers’ involvement and family relationships—fatherhood programs aimed at disadvantaged noncustodial fathers and relationship skills programs for parents who are together. Fatherhood programs have shown some efficacy in increasing child support payments, while some relationship skills approaches have shown benefits for the couples’ relationship quality, coparenting skills, fathers’ engagement in parenting, and children’s well-being. The research suggests that parents’ relationship with each other should be a fundamental consideration in future programs aimed at increasing low-income fathers’ involvement with their children.

Couple relationships: a missing link between adult attachment and children's outcomes

Decades of research have established links between parents’ working models of attachment to their parents and their children’s adaptation. This Special Issue focuses on the question of the mechanisms involved in intergenerational transmission: how to explain the linkage between the quality of parent–child attachment relationships in the family of origin (Generation 1–Generation 2) and the developmental adaptation of a child in the next generation (Generation 3). Four types of theoretical explanations have dominated the literature of the last 50 years. First, it is undoubtedly the case that some of the associations between the quality of family relationships across generations and children’s adjustment are affected by the fact that parents and children share genetic and other biological characteristics that influence family members’ behavior inside and outside the family (Caspi et al., 2002; Plomin, 1994). Second, psychoanalytic formulations focus on the child’s identification with the same-sex parent and the internalization of that parent’s superego, both of which provide guidelines for what constitutes appropriate behavior when the child becomes a parent. This process is repeated from generation to generation (Fraiberg, 1975; Freud, 1938), with variations depending on the sex of the child and the parent (Chodorow, 1978). Third, attachment theory assumes that adults have developed ‘‘working models’’ of parent–child relationships based on experiences with key attachment figures in their families of origin, particularly on their experience of separations and reunions, and those models shape their expectations and reactions during interactions with their own children (Bowlby, 1988; van IJzendoorn, 1992). In turn, interactions between parents and children result in the creation of working models in the children that shape their expectations of whether they are worthy of and can expect to receive support in times of stress or vulnerability (Bartholomew & Horowitz, 1991). These expectations shape the child’s tendency to engage in intimate relationships by reaching out positively, attacking negatively, or avoiding involvement, which helps to determine both internalizing and externalizing behavior patterns (Cummings & Cummings, 2002; Sroufe, Carlson, Levy, & Egeland, 2003). Although both psychoanalytic and attachment theories focus almost entirely on children’s relationships with their mothers, this special issue will show that intergenerational linkages between working models of attachment and children’s outcomes hold for fathers as well. A fourth approach to the explanation of intergenerational transmission of adaptation tends to ignore inner schemas and defense mechanisms, and focuses instead on behavioral transactions. Early versions of this approach, such as social learning theory, looked specifically at whether children were reinforced or punished for their behavior or simply imitated their parents (Bandura, 1977; Patterson, 1975). Later theories advanced by Attachment & Human Development Vol. 11, No. 1, January 2009, 1–4

Imaging vividness and the outcome of in vivo and imagined scene desensitization.

This study reexamined the role of imaging vividness in desensitizati on success. Scores on the Betts Questionnaire on Mental Imagery were used to divide 48 snake-phobic subjects into high, medium, and low vivid groups, who were assigned to imagined scene or in vivo desensitization treatments. Imaging vividness was assessed at scheduled points during therapy. Significant decreases in behavioral and self-reported fear were observed after both treatments, though in vivo desensitization produced significantly greater fear reduction. Intherapy imaging vividness scores were significantly correlated with therapeutic success and were superior to pretherapy ratings as predictors of outcome. Imagination of fear-relevant scenes is central to most systematic desensitization procedures. However, previous investigators have failed to find a positive relation between imaging vividness and desensitization success. To examine this apparent paradox, we refined the method of previous studies and conducted the following experiment. Forty-eight snake phobics were pretested to establish initial fear level. A behavioral avoidance test, self-ratings of fear during this test, a questionnaire on attitudes toward snakes were used to assess fear of snakes, and the Fear Survey Schedule (Wolpe & Lang, 1964) was used to measure general fearfulness. Subjects were then separated into high, medium, and low imaging ability groups on the basis of scores on the Betts Questionnaire on imagery vividness, and were assigned to one of two standardized, individually administered desensitization procedures: imagined scene (conventional) or in vivo desensitization. Subjects in in vivo treatment were asked to enact, rather than imagine, each hierarchy scene. Imaging vividness during therapy was assessed by subject self-ratings at 19 scheduled points. Posttesting was scheduled between 1 and 3 days after completion of the treatment, and the behavioral and self-report measures were repeated. Analyses of variance of Treatment X Pretherapy Imaging Vividness Condition indicated no Requests for reprints and for an extended report of this study should be sent to John M. Dyckman, who is now at the Psychiatry Clinic, Kaiser Medical Center, 975 Sereno Drive, Vallejo, California 94590.

Lessons Learned From the Supporting Father Involvement Study: A Cross-Cultural Preventive Intervention for Low-Income Families With Young Children

ABSTRACT Despite the proliferation of fatherhood programs designed to promote paternal involvement and positive family outcomes, evaluations of these programs are scarce. The Supporting Father Involvement (SFI) study is a randomized clinical trial comprised of 289 low-income Spanish- and English-speaking families living in California. The evaluation design reflects a partnership stance that promotes empowerment of staff and social service agencies. This article examines lessons learned from the programs first 3 years (2002–2004) from the perspectives of both evaluators and program staff. The lessons cover a broad range of areas, including communication procedures, training, staffing, recruitment/retention, clinical needs, intervention content and process, and maintaining cultural sensitivity.