Family processes and structure: Longitudinal influences on adolescent disruptive and internalizing behaviors

• Published date: 01 February 2023
• Author: Shannon M. Savell,Ravjot Saini,Mayra Ramos,Melvin N. Wilson,Kathryn Lemery‐Chalfant,Daniel S. Shaw
• Date: 01 February 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/fare.12728

RESEARCH

Family processes and structure: Longitudinal

influences on adolescent disruptive and internalizing

behaviors

Shannon M. Savell

1

|Ravjot Saini

1

|Mayra Ramos

1

|

Melvin N. Wilson

1

|Kathryn Lemery-Chalfant

2

|Daniel S. Shaw

3

1

Department of Psychology, University of

Virginia, Charlottesville, VA

2

Department of Psychology, Arizona State

University, Tempe, AZ

3

Department of Psychology, University of

Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA

Correspondence

Shannon M. Savell, Department of

Psychology, University of Virginia, Gilmer

Hall Office 301, 485 McCormick Rd.,

Charlottesville, VA 22904 USA.

Email: sms4dg@virginia.edu

Funding information

Support for this research was provided by the

National Institute on Drug Abuse to the

fourth, fifth, and sixth authors (R01

DA023245, R01 DA022773).

Abstract

Objective: The present study revisits the assumption in

American culture, based in “family privilege,”that chil-

dren fare better in two-parent households by longitudinally

examining associations between family structure, process,

and adolescent behavior.

Background: Societal assumptions and cross-sectional

research suggest that there is a difference in child adjust-

ment across varying family structures. Relatedly, the fam-

ily process literature emphasizes the importance of parent–

child relationship quality in addition to family structure on

child adjustment.

Method: We utilized a longitudinal, prospective design

that assessed family structures on nine occasions covering

a 12-year period beginning when the target child was

2 years of age for a large (N=714), ethnically and racially

diverse sample of low-income families. We examined the

relation between self-reported, teacher-reported, and pri-

mary caregiver-reported adolescent disruptive and inter-

nalizing problem behavior across family structures and

parent–child relationship quality.

Results: Across seven identified family structures, adoles-

cent behavior did not differ after accounting for middle-

childhood adjustment and relevant contextual factors.

However, consistent with family process models of child

adjustment, positive parent–child relationship quality

predicted lower rates of adolescent maladaptive behavior.

Author note: We also wish to extend our appreciation to the staff and research participants of the Early Steps Multisite Study and

Evelina Dubrowsky for her assistance with coding.

Received: 21 May 2021Revised: 21 September 2021Accepted: 2 April 2022

DOI: 10.1111/fare.12728

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and

reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

© 2022 The Authors. Family Relations published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of National Council on Family Relations.

Family Relations. 2023;72:361–382. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/fare 361

Conclusion: These findings serve to combat stigma related

to family structures that deviate from married parents rais-

ing their children and highlight the need for interventions

designed to foster positive parent–child relationships.

Implications: Policy makers and practitioners should aim

to support efforts to foster positive parent–child relation-

ships across types of family structures and refrain from

promoting or discouraging the formations of specific fam-

ily structure types.

KEYWORDS

adolescent disruptive behavior, adolescent internalizing problem

behavior, family process, family structure, longitudinal prospective design

Based on the diversity in family structures present in American society today, it is important to

interrogate assumptions about the impact on child behavior that varying types of family struc-

tures may have. A vast majority of the previous literature has compared children of married

biological parents with those of divorced parents (Amato, 2010). Decades of research on the

impact of divorce on child behavior (for review, see Shaw, 1991; Ganong & Coleman, 2018)

would lead one to assume there would be significant differences across different family struc-

tures in child adjustment, including among low-income families that disproportionately include

larger percentages of single-parent families that often do not have the additional income and

resources that two-parent households offer (Musick & Meier, 2010).

Many scholars have recently called attention to the power and privilege afforded to certain

family structures (e.g., nuclear families; Ganong et al., 2015; Letiecq, 2019). To that end, Rus-

sell et al. (2018) argued that family structure may be a social determinant of health based on the

social stratification across family structure types. The influence of “family privilege,”as noted

by Letiecq (2019), has been evident in social science research, particularly in research on family

structure in which generalizations about the impact of various family structures on many

aspects of child development have been drawn from relatively little evidence or without proper

acknowledgement of study limitations (Ganong & Coleman, 2018). Privileging and centering

certain family structures is evident not just in research practices but also in public policy. For

example, over the past few decades, the United States policy agenda has encouraged two-parent

households by promoting increases in marriage rates as a tool for improving child outcomes

(Nock, 2005). The present study interrogates assumptions steeped in family privilege about

diverse family structures and examines whether adolescent internalizing and disruptive behav-

iors are similar across manifold family structures over the course of 12 years of child develop-

ment in a large (N=714), racially diverse sample of low-income families.

The family context and child adjustment: Family structure

The family context is considered one of the most influential environments for child development

(Bronfenbrenner, 1986). Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory (1986) highlights the

importance of family context on child behavior and development as a microsystem level influ-

ence. Structure and processes, both facets of the family context, influence children’s behavior

and development in different ways. Traditionally in the literature, research on the impact of

family structure on child prosocial and problem behavior has been conducted by comparing

child adjustment across different types of family structure (e.g., married biological parents ver-

sus single-parent families; see Beckmeyer & Russell, 2018; Krueger et al., 2015). Developmental

362 FAMILY RELATIONS