Bao, Luoman. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2011. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 56-61). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / INTRODUCTION --- p.1 / LITERATURE REVIEW --- p.7 / Generalized Reciprocity --- p.7 / Altruistic Norm of Filial Piety --- p.9 / Affective Connection in Adult Child-Parent Relationship --- p.11 / Gender Disparity in Caregiving --- p.13 / THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK --- p.15 / METHOD --- p.20 / Data Sources --- p.20 / Dependent Variable --- p.21 / Independent Variables --- p.22 / Controls --- p.26 / Statistical Procedure --- p.28 / RESULTS --- p.34 / Intergenerational support and its gendered pattern in Taiwan families --- p.34 / Financial Support --- p.37 / Phone Contact and Face-to-face Contact --- p.40 / DISCUSSION --- p.48 / REFERENCES --- p.56 / Figure1. Three mechanisms of supporting elderly parents --- p.15 / Figure2. Mechanism of generalized reciprocity --- p.16 / Figure3. Mechanism of altruistic norm of filial piety --- p.18 / Figure4. Mechanism of affective connection --- p.19 / Table 1. Time Point of the Variables been Measured --- p.29 / Table2. Financial Support Provided from Child to Parents --- p.30 / Table3. Contact between Child and Parents --- p.31 / Table4. Distribution of Explanatory Variables --- p.32 / Table5. Children's and Parents' Characteristics in 2006 --- p.33 / Table6. Means and Percentage Distributions of Variable: Gendered Pattern in 2006 --- p.44 / Table7. Determinants of Financial Support from Children to Elderly Parents in 2006 --- p.45 / Table8. Determinants of Phone Contact between Children and Elderly Parents in 2006 --- p.46 / Table9. Determinants of Face-to-face Contact between Children and Elderly Parents in 2006 --- p.47 / Table 10. The Effectiveness of Three Mechanisms in Explaining Elderly Care --- p.48

As the rate of divorce is increasing, the number of children who have to cope with these stressful situations is also growing. Since these divorces come with many problems for the children involved, they are getting more and more attention. The professionnals who are required by the court to give their opinion on who should get the custody or what will be the right of access, have pointed out a particular phenomenon: parental alienation syndrome. The first person who described this syndrome was Gardner (1989, 1992a). He blamed the court system for the syndrome, where, in its adversarial perspective, one side tries to win over the other using alienation as one of their strategies. In our opinion, this view does not account for all the aspects of the parental alienation syndrome and for the emotional turmoil created by the divorce. When, after a divorce, one is trapped in one's emotions, the result is an impass, where parental alienation is but one aspect of this impass. This paper shows how an impass, grows and which form the parental alienation syndrome takes. Cases from our practice will illustrate some situations of parental alienation resulting from a psychological impass and where the children are the victims.

No description available.

This study will attempt to identify the reported problem behavior in children impacted by parental divorce. Further, it will try to determine whether pre-divorce interparental conflict, time spent with the mother, and the mother's adjustment affects the problem behavior reported for children. The following analytic techniques will be used: frequency distributions, t-tests, correlations, and regression.

The influence of parental marital status and parental conflict on the separation-individuation process of college students was investigated in the present study. Past studies have suggested that parental divorce and parental conflict accelerate separation. However, no studies have measured more than one dimension of separation-individuation. In this study the process of separation-individuation was operationalized as involving three dimensions: psychological separation from parents (Psychological Separation Inventory); emotional attachments to parents and peers (Inventory of Parent and Peer Attachment); and the development of an identity (Extended Objective Measure of Ego Identity Status). The sample consisted of 120 male and 120 female undergraduates between the ages of 18 and 22, one-half with parents who were married and one-half with parents who had divorced in the last five years. Subjects completed self-report measures of parental conflict, psychological separation, attachment to parents and to peers, and identity status. Predictions that parental conflict would affect students in intact families differently than their peers with divorced parents were not supported. Instead, parental divorce and conflict were found to have different effects on the components of the separation-individuation process. Subjects reporting higher parental conflict levels described more independent functioning, more negative feelings toward parents, less attachment to parents and to peers, and greater exploration of identity-related issues in comparison to those reporting low levels of conflict. Subjects with parents who had recently divorced reported lower attachment to parents, and greater identity exploration and reluctance to commit to an identity than subjects from intact families. Males reported greater independence from and less attachment to parents, and had committed to an identity without exploration less often than females. Results suggest that parental divorce and conflict may influence adolescent development in different ways. Exploratory analyses suggested that measures of conflict style are more highly related to indices of separation-individuation than measures of the amount of parental conflict. Theoretical and methodological issues are discussed.

published_or_final_version / Social Work / Master / Master of Social Work

In an exploratory study 10 adult children, with at least one identifiable gay or lesbian parent, were interviewed and asked to discuss their childhood experiences growing up in diverse families. Understanding the introspective views of adult children with gay or lesbian parents will allow social workers the ability to tailor services to ensure the needs of these new family constellations are met.

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M.A. (Clinical psychology) / A plethora of psychological research on the topic of divorce exists. The impact of parental divorce on the children, however, is much disputed in this literature. The present study‟s aim was to attempt to clarify this dilemma by describing the unique experiences of four adolescent males whose parents divorced when they were at a very young age. A qualitative research design was followed. Data was collected in the form of face-to-face interviews or „conversations‟ with the four respondents. Verbatim transcriptions of these conversations were then explored systematically from the hermeneutic tradition in order to understand the distinctive experiences of these four boys, from the time of their parents‟ divorce to the present. The findings from this exploration are in the form of various themes that were extrapolated from the transcriptions and clarified with reference to the existing findings in the literature. In addition, consistent with the hermeneutic tradition, co-construction of meaning was enhanced by the symbolic use of selected paintings. In summary, this study offers a description of four adolescent males‟ personal experiences of their parents‟ divorce, with the supplementary use of imagery and art in order to further enrich their subjective and often poignant narratives.

Previous research has failed to identify a strong relationship between parental role involvement and self-esteem of parents despite theoretical and intuitive support for the prediction. An explanatory model of the interaction between role occupancy, psychological centrality of the role, and self-esteem among older parents was presented. Data from the National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH) were used to test a path model examining the effects of the roles of parent, spouse, and worker, as well income, age, sex, and health on self-esteem. The data failed to support the model as presented. Role involvement did not affect self-esteem and psychological centrality had a direct effect instead of the proposed interactive effect. Health was the strongest predictor of self-esteem. In contrast to previous research, age negatively affected self-esteem in this sample. / Ph. D.