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Psychological effects of custody disputes on children
Author(s) -
Wolman Richard,
Taylor Keith
Publication year - 1991
Publication title -
behavioral sciences and the law
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.649
H-Index - 74
eISSN - 1099-0798
pISSN - 0735-3936
DOI - 10.1002/bsl.2370090405
Subject(s) - normative , anxiety , psychology , locus of control , child custody , test (biology) , clinical psychology , developmental psychology , baseline (sea) , psychological testing , psychiatry , political science , paleontology , criminology , law , biology
This two‐group, repeated measures examination of the psychological impact of child custody contests on children reports a subset of data from an ongoing longitudinal study of 95 children and their parents from 43 divorcing families. The authors report clinical observations concerning children's experience of custody litigation, as well as comparisons of baseline and post‐test responses of contested and uncontested groups on measures of locus of control, separation anxiety and family concept. Contested children exhibited significantly greater internality of control orientation than the normative sample. Contested children's test scores also suggested significantly less separation anxiety and significantly more positive family concept than the uncontested group at post‐test. The implications of these unanticipated findings are discussed.