Farr et al. (2010)

Question 1

What are the 3 family structures investigated in this study?

Answer 1

• Lesbian adoptive parents
• Gay adoptive parents
• Heterosexual adoptive parents

Question 2

What are different examples of family structures this study didn’t investigate?

Answer 2

• Lesbian couples with one biological mom and one social mom
• Single-parent families
• Separated parents
• Divorced parents
• Step-families
• Foster families
• Grandparents

Question 3

What are the 3 family processes investigated in the current study?

Answer 3

• Parenting stress
• Dysfunctional parenting techniques (laxness, overreactivity, verbosity)
• Couples’ relationship adjustment (aka: marital satisfaction)

Question 4

What are different examples of family processes this study didn’t investigate?

Answer 4

• Parental discipline (ie. power-assertion, proactive, positive)
• Amount of sensitive responsiveness
• Time spent with children
• 2-way communication
• Boundaries (cohesive or enmeshed)
• Parents’ satisfaction with division of labour
• Amount of role strain or role conflict
• Amount of passive-aggressive communication within a couple

Question 5

What were the 3 objectives of this study?

Answer 5

• Objective 1: Family structure (3 structures) → child development (child behaviour problems)
• Objective 2: Family structure (3 structures) → family processes
• Objective 3: Family processes (3 processes) → child development

Question 6

What predicted the child outcomes better: family structures or family processes? Why?

Answer 6

• Family processes
• • correlational evidence:
• – For family structures → child behaviour problems, 0 out of 3 family structures were significant
• – For family processes → child behaviour problems, 3 out of 3 family processes were significant
• • HLM evidence:
• – for family structures –> child behav. problems, found 0/3
• – for family processes –> child behav. problems, found 1/3 (parenting stress only)

Question 7

Were the average scores/means for child behaviour problems significantly different across the 3 family structures?

Answer 7

No

Question 8

Were the average scores/means for gender role behaviour significantly different across the 3 family structures? What is gender role behaviour?

Answer 8

• No

- Gender role behaviour = conforming to the gender norms of your birth sex

Question 9

When comparing heterosexual and non-heterosexual families (not differentiating btwn gay and lesbian), did they find significant differences across the 2 family structures?

Answer 9

• found a small significant difference

- heterosexual families had kids with more behavioural problems, whereas non-heterosexual families’ kids has less

Question 10

Identify the significant correlations between parenting stress, discipline techniques, and couple relationship adjustment with behaviour problems. Which objective do these findings relate to?

Answer 10

• Parenting stress was significantly positively correlated with behaviour problems
• Discipline techniques was significantly positively correlated with behaviour problems
• Couple relationship adjustment was significantly negatively correlated with behaviour problems
• These relate to objective 3

Question 11

Did HLM analyses find significant differences amongst the 3 family types and kids’ behaviour? What objective does this relate to?

Answer 11

• No

- Objective 1

Question 12

Did HLM analyses find significant differences amongst the 3 family types in family processes? What objective does this relate to?

Answer 12

• No

- Objective 2

Question 13

Did HLM analyses show that family processes significantly predicted child behaviour problems? What objective does this relate to?

Answer 13

• Yes, but for parenting stress only

- Objective 3