Date of Award
5-2000
Honors Thesis Number
010976
Major
Psychology
Faculty Advisor
Sagrestano, Lynda M.
Abstract
This study examined the differences between college students from divorced and intact families with respect to their expectations for marriage, division of household labor, and childcare. A divorced family was defined as one in which the parents have divorced and includes those who remain single after the divorce and those where one or both parents have remarried. An intact family was defined as one in which the parents were currently married to each other and had never been divorced from each other. Participants included 102 Southern Illinois University undergraduate students enrolled in a introductory psychology course who participated for course credit. It was hypothesized that participants from divorced families would have higher expectations for an egalitarian marriage, more negative attitudes toward divorce, higher expectations for the husband's role in performing household labor, and higher expectations for the husband's role in taking care of the children than those participants from intact families. Results suggest that women have higher expectations for an egalitarian marriage and more positive attitudes toward marriage than men do, women expect to do more household tasks than men whereas men expect household tasks to be shared equally, and women from intact families expect husbands to do more childcare than what men expect to do whereas women from divorced families expect husbands to do less than what men expect to do.