Papers by william fabricius
Supplemental material, Supplemental_Material for Parenting Style, Familism, and Youth Adjustment ... more Supplemental material, Supplemental_Material for Parenting Style, Familism, and Youth Adjustment in Mexican American and European American Families by Nicole E. Mahrer, Lindsay E. Holly, Linda J. Luecken, Sharlene A. Wolchik and William Fabricius in Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology
In this paper, two models, including the information value quantification model and the epidemic ... more In this paper, two models, including the information value quantification model and the epidemic model, are built to explore how social information spreads and works, especially through the networks. The information value is quantitatively determined by means of Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), based on which we compare the information spread process to the virus infection procedure and develop an epidemic model to investigate the relationship between the flow and the value of information. The result shows that the information spread is positively related to its value. A large amount of data in the past applying to the model, together with the comparison of the reality, validates the feasibility and the correctness of the presented model.
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2013
Allocations of child custody post-divorce are currently determined according to the Best Interest... more Allocations of child custody post-divorce are currently determined according to the Best Interest Standard, i.e. what is best for the child. Decisions about what is best for a child necessarily reflect cultural norms, at least in part. It is therefore useful as well as interesting to ask whether current understandings of the best interest standard align with moral intuitions of lay citizens asked to take the role of judge in hypothetical cases. Do factors such as whether one parent had an extramarital affair influence how respondents would award custody? In the current studies, a representative sample of citizens awaiting jury service was first given a neutral scenario portraying an "average" family. Almost 80% favored dividing custodial time equally between the two parents, replicating earlier findings. Then, in Study 1, they were given a second, Test case, vignette in which either the mother or the father was said to have carried on an extramarital affair that "essentially ruined the marriage". In Study 2, either the mother or the father was said to have sought the divorce, opposed by the other, simply because he or she "grew tired" of the marriage. For both Test cases, our respondents awarded the offending parent significantly less parenting time; about half of our respondents in each Study. The findings indicate that many citizens feel both having an affair and growing tired of the marriage is sufficient cause to award decreased parenting time, reasons for which are explored in the discussion.
The Journal of Positive Psychology, 2011
Data were collected when children were 42, 54, and 72 months of age (Ns=210, 191, and 172 for T1,... more Data were collected when children were 42, 54, and 72 months of age (Ns=210, 191, and 172 for T1, T2, and T3, respectively). Children's emotion understanding (EU) and theory of mind (ToM) were examined as predictors of children's prosocial orientation within and across time. EU positively related to children's sympathy across 2.5 years, and T1 EU positively related to parentreported prosocial orientation concurrently and across 1 year (T2). T2 ToM positively related to parents' reports of sympathy and prosocial orientation concurrently and 18 months later (T3); in contrast, T3 ToM did not relate to sympathy or prosocial orientation. T2 ToM accounted for marginally significant variance (p<0.058) in T3 mother-reported prosocial orientation over and above that accounted for by T2 prosocial orientation. Fostering the development of EU and ToM may contribute to children's prosocial orientation.
Review of Philosophy and Psychology, 2011
False belief tasks have enjoyed a monopoly in the research on children's development of a theory ... more False belief tasks have enjoyed a monopoly in the research on children's development of a theory of mind. They have been granted this status because they promise to deliver an unambiguous assessment of children's understanding of the representational nature of mental states. Their poor cousins, true belief tasks, have been relegated to occasional service as control tasks. That this is their only role has been due to the universal assumption that correct answers on true belief tasks are inherently ambiguous regarding the level of the child's understanding of mental states. It has also been due to the universal assumption that nothing in the child's developing theory of mind would lead to systematically incorrect answers on true belief tasks. We review new findings that 4-and 5-year-olds do err, systematically and profoundly, on the true belief versions of all the extant belief tasks. This reveals an intermediate level of understanding in the development of children's theory of mind. Researchers have been unaware of this intermediate level because it produces correct answers in false belief tasks. A simple two-task battery-one true belief task and one false belief task-is sufficient to remove the ambiguity from each task. The new findings show that children do not acquire an understanding of beliefs, and hence a representational theory of mind, until after 6 years of age, or 2 years later than most developmental psychologists have concluded. This raises the question of how to interpret other new findings that infants are able to pass false belief tasks. We review these new infant studies, as well as recent studies on chimpanzees, in light of older children's failure on true belief tasks, and end with some speculation about how all of these new findings might be reconciled. Rev.Phil.Psych.
Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 2011
In a pair of studies, we examine lay people's judgments about how hypothetical cases involving ch... more In a pair of studies, we examine lay people's judgments about how hypothetical cases involving child custody after divorce should be resolved. The respondents were citizens called to jury service in Pima County, AZ. Study 1 found that both male and female respondents, if they were the judge, would most commonly award equally shared custody arrangements, as advocated by most fathers' groups. However, if the predivorce child care had been divided disproportionately between the parents, this preference shifted, slightly but significantly, toward giving more time to the parent who had provided most of that care, consistent with the Approximation Rule advocated by the American Law Institute. Moreover, respondents judged that the arrangements prevailing in today's court and legal environment would award equal custody considerably less often, and would thereby provide much less parenting time to fathers, than the respondents themselves would award. Study 2 found that respondents maintained their strong preference for equally shared custody even when there are very high levels of parental conflict for which the parents were equally to blame, but awarded substantially less time to the culpable parent when only one was the primary instigator of the parental conflict. The striking degree to which the public favors equal custody combined with their view that the current court system under-awards parenting time to fathers could account for past findings that the system is seriously slanted toward mothers, and suggests that family law may have a public relations problem.
New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development, 2012
Adolescents may seek to understand family confl ict by seeking out confi dants. However, little i... more Adolescents may seek to understand family confl ict by seeking out confi dants. However, little is known about whom adolescents seek, whether and how such support helps youth, and the factors that predict which sources are sought. This chapter offers a conceptual model of guided cognitive reframing that emphasizes the behavioral, cognitive, and affective implications of confi dant support as well as individual, family, and cultural factors linked to support seeking. The authors present empirical data from 392 families of seventh graders of Mexican and European ancestry to predict whether adolescents seek mothers, coresident fathers, and other sources and provide directions for subsequent research.
Learning and Individual Differences, 2003
Metacognitive causal explanations reflect a child's understanding about how or why a strategy wor... more Metacognitive causal explanations reflect a child's understanding about how or why a strategy works. Two studies examined the growth of metacognitive causal explanations over time. Study 1 found an increase in the sophistication of early elementary school children's causal explanations over a 3-year period, although the mean intelligence score in the group was relatively high. Study 2 was conducted with children from a wider range of intelligence. Only those children with higher intelligence scores were likely to shift to more sophisticated metacognitive causal explanations over a 2-year period. Results from the two studies together suggest that the relationship between intelligence and metacognitive knowledge is much more than monotonic throughout development [Dev. Rev. 15 (1995) 1]. Indeed, higher levels of intelligence increase the likelihood that children will move from less sophisticated to more sophisticated levels of metacognitive understanding, possibly laying the foundation for more sophisticated later learning.
Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 2003
Objectives: The current study evaluated family process variables associated with markers of physi... more Objectives: The current study evaluated family process variables associated with markers of physical health vulnerability. Methods: Retrospective reports of parental caring, conflict, and divorce-specific factors were examined in reference to hostility, somatic symptoms, and illness reports in young adults from divorced (n = 253) and intact (n = 552) families. Results: Contrary to expectations, participants from divorced and intact families were equivalent on all health-related measures. Within the intact group, parental conflict and low parental caring were associated with hostility, somatic symptoms, and illness reports. Within the divorce group, negative feelings about the divorce were associated with higher hostility, somatic complaints, and illness reports. Conclusions: Results suggest that parental divorce in itself does not increase long-term vulnerability to physical illness; rather it is the negativity of the experience that is associated with vulnerability. Although overall health markers did not differ, the family process variables associated with physical health risk differed for individuals from divorced versus intact families.
Journal of Family Psychology, 2007
The authors tested a biopsychosocial model in which young adults' long-term relationships with fa... more The authors tested a biopsychosocial model in which young adults' long-term relationships with fathers and ongoing distress surrounding their parents' divorces mediated the relationship between disrupted parenting (i.e., exposure to parent conflict before the divorce and up to 5 years after, and amount of time with father postdivorce) and indicators of their physical health. University students whose parents divorced before they were 16 (n ϭ 266) participated. Findings supported the model. The more time children lived with their fathers after divorce, the better their current relationships were with their fathers, independent of parent conflict. The more parent conflict they experienced, the worse their relationships were with their fathers and the more distress they currently felt about their parents' divorce, independent of time with father. Poor fatherchild relationships and more distress in turn predicted poorer health status. There was no interaction between exposure to parent conflict and time with father; thus, more time with father was beneficial in both high-and low-conflict families, and more exposure to parent conflict was detrimental at both high and low levels of time with father.
Journal of Family Psychology, 2003
Relocation cases, in which a divorced parent seeks to move away with the child, are among the kno... more Relocation cases, in which a divorced parent seeks to move away with the child, are among the knottiest problems facing family courts. The recent trend is to permit such moves, largely because of Wallerstein's (1995) controversial amica curiae brief, which a recent court (Baures v. Lewis, 2001) interpreted as supporting the conclusion that "in general, what is good for the custodial parent is good for the child" (p. 222). The current study provides the first direct evidence on relocation by dividing college students into groups on the basis of their divorced parents' move-away status. On most child outcomes, the ones whose parents moved are significantly disadvantaged. This suggests courts should give greater weight to the child's separate interests in deciding such cases. 1 Adults between 20 and 24 moved more frequently (34.2%) than adults in any other age range, with those from 25 to 29 (31%) and 30 to 34 (22%) next most likely. 2 Because about 85% of custodial parents are mothers (Meyer & Garasky, 1993; Nord & Zill, 1997), for convenience, but with some loss of accuracy, we refer to noncustodial parents with masculine pronouns and custodial parents with feminine.
Journal of Family Issues, 2013
Little attention has been paid to how early adolescents make attributions for their fathers’ beha... more Little attention has been paid to how early adolescents make attributions for their fathers’ behavior. Guided by symbolic interaction theory, we examined how adolescent gender, ethnicity, family structure, and depressive symptoms explained attributions for residential father behavior. A total of 382 adolescents, grouped by ethnicity (European American, Mexican American) and family structure (intact, stepfamilies), reported attributions for their fathers’ positive and negative behaviors. Results indicated that for positive events, girls made significantly more stable attributions, whereas boys made more unstable attributions. Mexican American adolescents tended to make more unstable attributions for positive events than European Americans, and adolescents from intact families made more stable attributions for positive events than adolescents from stepfamilies. Implications are discussed for the role of attributions in father–adolescent relationships as prime for intervention in famil...
International Journal of Behavioral Development, 1987
Two studies are reported describing the early development in two-and three-year-old children of a... more Two studies are reported describing the early development in two-and three-year-old children of an ability to consider every one of an array of instances. Children were tested on several tasks unlike either counting or searching tasks. Young children, by about three years of age, attempted to consider each item once and only once. They did so by employing a strategy of sequencing the instances so as to consider each in turn. Employment of this strategy became increasingly skilful over the ages studied, so that with increasing age larger problem sizes and more difficult problems were accomplished successfully. Taken together with recent studies of children's ability to count every item or search all locations for a hidden object, the data reveal early development in preschool children of a fundamental, general problemsolving skill.
Fathering: A Journal of Theory, Research, and Practice about Men as Fathers, 2009
This study examined the relations between perceptions of 133 early adolescents in stepfamilies co... more This study examined the relations between perceptions of 133 early adolescents in stepfamilies concerning how much they mattered to their stepfathers and nonresidential biological fathers and adolescents' mental health problems. Mattering to nonresidential biological fathers significantly negatively predicted mother-, teacher-, and youth-reported internalizing problems. Mattering to stepfathers significantly negatively predicted youth-reported internalizing and stepfather-and youth-reported externalizing problems. For teacher-reported externalizing problems, mattering to stepfathers and nonresidential biological fathers significantly interacted. Mattering to either father predicted low externalizing problems; perceptions of mattering to the second father did not predict a further reduction in problems. Results suggest that mattering is an important aspect of father-adolescent relationships, and highlight the importance of considering adolescents' relationships with both nonresidential fathers and stepfathers.
Fathering: A Journal of Theory, Research, and Practice about Men as Fathers, 2012
A mixed-method study identified profiles of fathers who mentioned key dimensions of their parenti... more A mixed-method study identified profiles of fathers who mentioned key dimensions of their parenting and linked profile membership to adolescents' adjustment using data from 337 European American, Mexican American and Mexican immigrant fathers and their early adolescent children. Father narratives about what fathers do well as parents were thematically coded for the presence of five fathering dimensions: emotional quality (how well father and child get along), involvement (amount of time spent together), provisioning (the amount of resources provided), discipline (the amount and success in parental control), and role modeling (teaching life lessons through example). Next, latent class analysis was used to identify three patterns of the likelihood of mentioning certain fathering dimensions: an emotionally-involved group mentioned emotional quality and involvement; an affective-control group mentioned emotional quality, involvement, discipline and role modeling; and an affective-model group mentioned emotional quality and role modeling. Profiles were significantly associated with subsequent adolescents' reports of adjustment such that adolescents of affective-control fathers reported significantly more externalizing behaviors than adolescents of emotionally-involved fathers.
Fathering: A Journal of Theory, Research, and Practice about Men as Fathers, 2011
The current study investigated how fathering behaviors (acceptance, rejection, monitoring, consis... more The current study investigated how fathering behaviors (acceptance, rejection, monitoring, consistent discipline, and involvement) are related to preadolescent adjustment in Mexican American and European American stepfamilies and intact families. Cross-sectional data from 393 7th graders, their schoolteachers, and parents were used to examine links between different dimensions of fathering and adolescent outcomes. Following an ecological multivariate model, family SES, marital satisfaction, and mothers' parenting were included as controls. In all contexts, fathering had significant effects on adolescent adjustment. Both mothers' parenting and adolescent gender moderated the associations, and we uncovered some provocative nonlinear relations between fathering and adolescent outcomes. The importance of ethnicity and family structure in studies of fathering are highlighted.
Family Court Review, 2005
Family Court Review, 2005
Most states' child support guidelines adopt a "cliff" model in providing credits or adjustments f... more Most states' child support guidelines adopt a "cliff" model in providing credits or adjustments for time spent in the nonresidential parent's home. Such guidelines implicitly or explicitly assume that no appreciable expenditures are made directly by obligors for child rearing expenses at level of contact or visitation beneath some threshold value, typically assumed to be around 30% time. As guideline developers are acutely aware, these assumptions have proceeded in the absence of any data. The present investigation sought to provide preliminary evidence of such expenditures by using the approach of getting information about the provision of certain benchmark items: clothes, toys and games, bicycles, a bedroom, and support for car-related expenses for teenage drivers. The authors generally found a linear, rather than a cliff-like, relationship of expenditures to time in the nonresidential father's home, with unexpectedly high levels of father's provision of these benchmark items even at quite low levels of contact. These findings support more generous and more continuous adjustments for visitation in child support schemes, to offset nonresidential parent's direct expenditures on children, which appear to be unexpectedly high and arise on a noncliff-like pattern.
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Papers by william fabricius