1. Home
  2. PSYC
  3. PSYC 426: Psychology of Families and Parenting (Rev. C2)

PSYC 426: Psychology of Families and Parenting (Rev. C2) Report a Broken Link

Psychology of Families and Parenting is a senior-level course that explores in-depth issues related to parenting and family relationships. Incorporating both theory and research, this course encourages critical analysis through the exploration of different perspectives and different research findings. Students will discover that the issues surrounding families and their study are complex.

Topics of exploration include the influences of nature, nurture, and culture; arranged marriages, ppolygamy, divorce, families with same-sex parents, adoptive families, religion and spirituality, parental age, and childfree families.

Unit 1 — What is a Familiy?

Reading 1: Bernardes, J. (1999). We must not define `The Family'! Marriage & Family Review, 28(3/4), 21–44
Reading 2: Amato, P. R. (2014). What is a family? National Council on Family Relations.
Reading 3: Harkness, S., & Super, C. M. (2006). Themes and variations: Parental ethnotheories in Western cultures. In K. Rubin (Ed.). Parental beliefs, behaviors, and parent-child relations: A cross-cultural perspective. New York: Psychology Press.
Reading 4: Misca, G., & Smith, J. (2014). Mothers, fathers, families, and child development. In A. Abela and J.Walker (Eds.). Contemporary Issues in Family Studies: Global Perspectives on Partnerships, Parenting and Support in a Changing World, (Chapter 11, pp. 151–165). Chichester, West Sussex: John Wiley & Sons

Unit 2 — Culture and Immigration

Reading 1: Rogoff, B. (2003). Child rearing in families and communities. In B. Rogoff, The cultural nature of human development, Chapter 4,102–149. Oxford: Oxford University Press
Reading 2: Bornstein, M. H.  (2012) Cultural approaches to parenting. Parenting: Science and Practice, 12 (2-3), 212–221

Unit 3 — Families: Genes versus Environment

Reading 1: Rutter, M., Moffitt, T. E., & Caspi, A. (2006). Gene-environment interplay and psychopathology: Multiple varieties but real effects. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 47 (3/4), 226–261 Read sections on the history behind the development of the study of gene-environment correlations and interactions (pp. 226–228) and gene-environment correlations (pp. 238–240).

Note: You can stop reading at the heading, 'Rearing patterns affected by passive and evocative rGE'.
Reading 2: Deater-Deckard, K. (2011). Families and genomes: The next generation. Journal of Marriage and Family, 73 (4), 822–826
Reading 3: Klahr, A. M., & Burt, S. A. (2014). Elucidating the etiology of individual differences in parenting: A meta-analysis of behavioral genetic research. Psychological Bulletin, 140 (2), 544–586

Note: Ignore sections on “Inclusion Criteria” (pp. 564–567 and “Analyses: Theoretical and Methodological Overview” (pp. 567–568).

Unit 4 — Religion and Spirituality

Reading 1: Marks, L. D., & Dollahite, D. C. (2011). Mining the meanings and pulling out the processes from psychology of religion’s correlation mountain. Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, 3 (3), 181–193
Reading 2:  Red Horse, J. (1997). Traditional American Indian family systems. Families, Systems and Health 15 (3), 243–250
Reading 3: Fincham, F. D., (2013). I say a little prayer for you: Do prayers matter in marriage and family life? In, A. Abela and J. Walker (Eds.) Contemporary Issues in Family Studies: Global Perspectives on Partnerships, Parenting and Support in a Changing World. (Chapter 24, pp. 341–354). Oxford, John Wiley & Sons.

Unit 5 — Adjusting to Divorce

Reading 1: Young, C. (2000, October 3). Dr. Bad News. Retrieved from www.salon.com
Reading 2: Wallerstein, J., Lewis, J., & Rosenthal, S. P. (2013). Mothers and their children after divorce: Report from a 25-year longitudinal study, Psychoanalytic Psychology, 30 (2), 167–187

Unit 6 — Families with Same-Sex Parents

Reading 1: Allen, D. W. (2013). High school graduation rates among children of same-sex households. Review of Economics of the Household, 11, 635–658
Reading 2: Spears, T. (2009, June 16). Same-sex couples common throughout animal world. Retrieved from Winnipeg Free Press

Unit 7 — Adoptive Families

Reading 1: Grovetant, H. D. & McDermott, J. M. (2014). Adoption: biological and social processes linked to adaptation. Annual Review of Psychology, 65, 235–265

Unit 8 — Parental Age 1: Adolescent Parents

Reading 1: Patel, P. H., & Sen, B. (2012). Teen motherhood and long-term health consequences. Maternal and Child Health Journal, 16, 1063–1071
Reading 2: Anwar, E., & Stanistreet, D. (2014).  ‘It has not ruined my life; it has made my life better’: a qualitative investigation of the experiences and future aspirations of young mothers from the NorthWest of England. Journal of Public Health, July, 1–8
Reading 3: Duncan, S., Alexander, C., & Edwards, R. (2010). Teenage parenthood: What's the problem? In S. Duncan, R. Edwards & C. Alexander (Eds.) Teenage parenthood: What’s the problem? (Chapter 1, pp.1–23). London, United Kingdom: the Tufnell Press

Unit 9 — Parental Age 2: Older Parents

Reading 1: Caplan, A. l., & Patrizio, P. (2010). Are you ever too old to have a baby? The ethical challenges of older women using infertility services. Seminars in Reproductive Medicine, 28 (4). 281–286
Reading 2: MacDougal, K., Beyene, Y., & Natchtigall, R. D. (2012). ‘Inconvenient biology’: Advantages and disadvantages of first-time parenting after age 40 using in vitro fertilization. Human Reproduction, 27 (4), 1058–1065

Unit 10 — To Have or Not to Have? Childfree Families

Reading 1: Blackstone, A. (2014). Doing family without having kids. Sociology Compass, 8 (1), 52–62
Reading 2: Avison, M., & Furnham, A. (2015). Personality and voluntary childlessness. Journal of Population  Research, 32, 45–67
Reading 3: Rothrauff, T. & Cooney, T. M. (2008). The role of generativity in psychological well-being: Does it differ for childless adults and parents? Journal of Adult Development, 15, 148–159

Unit 11 — Arranged Marriages

Reading 1: Regan, P. C., Lakhanpal, S., & Anguiano, C. (2012). Relationship outcomes in Indian-American love-based and arranged marriages. Psychological Reports, 110 (3), 915–924
Reading 2: Madathil, J., & Benshoff, J. M. (2008). Importance of marital characteristics and marital satisfaction: A comparison of Asian Indians in arranged marriages and Americans in marriages of choice. The Family Journal, 16 (3), 222–230
Reading 3: Hortaçsu, N. (2007). Family- versus couple-initiated marriages in Turkey:Similarities and differences over the family life cycle. Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 10, 103–116

Unit 12 — Polygamy

Reading 1: Campbell, A. (2009). Bountiful voices. Osgoode Hall Law Journal, 47 (2), 183–234
Reading 2: Bamgbade, E. O., & Saloviita, T. (2014). School performance of children from monogamous and polygamous families in Nigeria Journal of Black Studies 45 (7), 620–634
Reading 3: Hamdan, S., Auerbach, J., &  Apter, A. (2009). Polygamy and mental health of adolescents European Child Adolescent Psychiatry, 18, 755–760

Assignment 1 — Biased Assimilation

Budesheim, Thomas Lee, and Arlene R. Lundquist. (1999). Consider the opposite: Opening minds through in-class debates on course-related controversies. Teaching of Psychology, 26 (2), 106–110.
Roberts, L. (2010). Couples who don't have sex before marriage are happier, study claims. Retrieved February 13, 2018, from Couples who don't have sex before marriage are happier, study claims (telegraph.co.uk),.