Evaluation of a Couple- and Family-Based Intervention: Implications for the Fathering Vulnerability Hypothesis

SYNOPSIS

Objective. This study evaluated a preventive intervention to reduce destructive interparental conflict, increase constructive communication, and improve emotional security in interparental, parent-child, and family-wide relationships. Emotional Security Theory provided the theoretical bases for this program. The present focus was on an evaluation of the fathering vulnerability hypothesis, which posits that fathers and their family relationships are particularly susceptible to the effects of destructive interparental conflict. Thus, fathers may benefit especially from an intervention to improve marital and family conflict. Design. Two hundred twenty-five families with an adolescent (112 females; 11 to 17 years old, M = 13.23 years; SD = 1.57) participated, randomly assigned to a parent-adolescent condition (PA; n = 75), a parent-only condition (PO; n = 75), or a control condition (n = 75). Dyadic growth curve modeling evaluated the intervention’s effects on changes in the father-child relationship and fathers’ reports of marital quality over the course of a year. Results. Consistent with the fathering vulnerability hypothesis that fathers would benefit more from couple- and family-focused interventions, positive effects of the intervention on marital quality and attachment were identified for fathers but not mothers. Additionally, further tests directly comparing the strength of each condition’s impact on fathers and mothers revealed that the intervention had stronger positive effects on father-adolescent attachment than mother-adolescent attachment. Conclusions. These results provide a broader understanding of the beneficial effects of the present intervention and offer evidence in the context of a randomized-controlled design in support of the fathering vulnerability hypothesis.

AFFILIATIONS AND ADDRESSES

Sarah Hoegler, Department of Psychology at the University of Notre Dame, E343B Corbett Family Hall, Notre Dame, IN 46556. Email: [email protected]. Savannah Vetterly and E. Mark Cummings are also at the University of Notre Dame.

ARTICLE INFORMATION

Conflict of Interest Disclosures

Each author signed a form for disclosure of potential conflicts of interest. No authors reported any financial or other conflicts of interest in relation to the work described.

Ethical Principles

The study received approval from the University of Notre Dame’s Institutional Review Board (protocol number 08–156). The authors affirm having followed professional ethical guidelines in preparing this work. These guidelines include obtaining informed consent from human all participating families, maintaining ethical treatment and respect for the rights of participating families, and ensuring the privacy of participants and their data, such as ensuring that individual participants cannot be identified in reported results or from publicly available original or archival data. The data from this study is not able to be made publicly available, as the IRB protocol did not involve asking participants’ consent that their data be shared publicly. Information regarding the materials and code used in this study can be obtained from the corresponding author, however.

Funding

Funding for this research was supported by grant [ID #8827] awarded to E. Mark Cummings from the William T. Grant Foundation.

Role of the Funders

The funder of this research had no role in the design and conduct of the study; collection, management, analysis, and interpretation of data; preparation, review, or approval of the manuscript; or decision to submit the manuscript for publication.

Acknowledgments

Many thanks to all of the families who participated in this project, as well as to the students and staff at the University of Notre Dame who supported this study. The ideas and opinions expressed herein are those of the authors alone, and endorsement by the grant funding organization or the authors’ institution is not intended and should not be inferred.