Abstract
College students from divorce families are noted for resilience to adjustment problems yet vulnerability to distress. We studied the impact of parental divorce and two personality characteristics (social responsibility and other-direction) on college students' adjustment problems and distress. Participants ( N=197) were 105 college students with divorced parents and 92 whose parental marriages were intact. The personality characteristics were measured with the Social Responsibility Scale and the Other-Direction subscale of the Personal Behavior Inventory. Adjustment problems and distress were measured with the Symptom Checklist-90-Revised (SCL-90-R). Analyses indicated that all three predictor variables (parental divorce, social responsibility, and other-direction) were significantly associated with adjustment problems and distress. Parental divorce, however, was also related to higher social responsibility and lower other-direction, and this combination of personality characteristics was shown to reduce the relationship of divorce to adjustment problems but not to experienced distress. Results are discussed in the context of response to the social demands of college life.
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