Philip A Cowan
Biographic Data
| ID | 129224 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Philip A Cowan |
| GIVEN NAMES | Philip A |
| FAMILY NAME | Cowan |
| SIGNATURE | COWAN P A |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of California, Berkeley |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-1409-1698 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 47 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 357 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 46 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1965 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 9 |
Searching for who benefits most and least: An analysis of moderators of the TRUE Dads fatherhood intervention
Evaluations of interventions to promote fathers' involvement in family life typically focus on whether or not the intervention has a positive impact. Some evaluations also attempt to describe mediators that explain how the intervention is linked to specific outcomes. An evaluation of TRUE Dads, a Randomized Clinical Trial of a couples‐based fatherhood intervention for low‐income families, reported results that addressed these two issues. Reportin…
Navigating the Gap Between Correlational and Intervention Studies of Fatherhood and Children’s Development: A Family Systems Ecological Perspective
TRUE Dads: The impact of a couples‐based fatherhood intervention on family relationships, child outcomes, and economic self‐sufficiency
TRUE Dads, a federally funded Responsible Fatherhood intervention, aims to strengthen three of men's key roles in the family: (1) as fathers, building and maintaining positive engagement with their child; (2) as partners, maintaining a positive relationship with their co‐parent; and (3) as providers, through fostering employment and economic self‐sufficiency. A feature of the program is that low‐income fathers and their co‐parenting partners part…
Attachment security, divorce, parental estrangement, and reconciliation
While most studies have attempted to identify the causes and consequences of adult children's estrangement from their parents, this study focuses on a relatively unexplored topic -- factors associated with family relationships in which the adult child and parents reconcile after a period of estrangement. An online survey of 1360 parents who had experienced an estrangement from their adult child provided data concerning three constructs: (a) wheth…
Post-Carroll: Functional Elements of the Moving Image
Analyzing moving images is one of the fundamental practices in our attempt to understand the medium. Building on Noël Carroll’s functional theory of film style, this article attempts to define a taxonomy of functional elements of shot composition in order to establish a clear methodology for the analysis of a moving image. Carroll criticizes forms of stylistic analysis that limit themselves to a few pre-selected aspects of the moving image, for e…
Earner Status, Marital Satisfaction, and Division of Childcare among Mexican American and Caucasian Couples
This study explores marital satisfaction, division of child tasks, and satisfaction with the division of childcare outcomes among low-income Caucasian and Mexican American (MA) couples with young children. Participants were 521 California couples, nearly three-fourths MA. Using a series of regression models to examine how ethnicity/nativity status, earner status (dual or single) and gender were related to each outcome variable; results showed tha…
The Role of Parental Relationships in Children’s Well-Being: A Modest Set of Proposals for Improving the Lives of Children
A Systems Approach to Theory, Measurement, and Intervention in the Study of Family Conflict
Using an Initial Clinical Interview to Assess the Coparenting Relationship: Preliminary Examples From the Supporting Father Involvement Program
The current study uses an initial intake interview as an assessment tool in the Supporting Father Involvement (SFI) intervention and considers it from a family systems theoretical perspective. SFI includes a 32-hour group for parents with young children that aims to reduce child abuse and promote family well-being through a curriculum focused on enhancing positive father involvement and coparenting. For this study, the initial clinical interview …
Enhancing Parenting Effectiveness, Fathers' Involvement, Couple Relationship Quality, and Children's Development: Breaking Down Silos in Family Policy Making and Service Delivery
In this article, we examine family‐based interventions designed to increase parenting effectiveness, fathers' positive involvement, and couple relationship quality, all with the goal of enhancing children's development. We focus on the fact that government funding policies, service delivery systems, and research evaluations of interventions to benefit children and families typically operate in separate silos. We provide a theoretical model, along…
The democracy of colour
The evolution of the technical reproduction of colour in film has been categorised and studied in great detail. The aesthetic use of expressive colour has not had as much attention historical. Vacche and Price's Color: The Film Reader seemed to spark a critical interest in this area. In this article, writing as a practising cinematographer, I outline a brief history of the discussions of the use of colour in film, examine two significant attempts…
Family, Self, and Society: Toward a New Agenda for Family Research
Any agenda for family research in the 1990s must take seriously a contextual approach to the study of family relationships. The editors and contributors to this volume believe that the richness in family studies over the next decade will come from considering the diversity of family forms -- different ethnic groups and cultures, different stages of family life, as well as different historical cohorts. Their goal is to make more explicit how we th…
Controversies in couple relationship education (CRE): Overlooked evidence and implications for research and policy
Government interest in strengthening families in the United States and Great Britain has contributed to a rapid growth in couple relationship education (CRE) interventions, with a recent increase in programs for low-income families. We describe the policy contexts that initially led to increased support for CRE in both countries but now threaten its continuation. We summarize meta-analytic research and discussions of single studies by authors who…
Underexposed: The neglected art of the cinematographer
The artistic contribution that Directors of Photography make to the films that they shoot, in narrative mainstream cinema, has been historically ignored in favour of the director-centred auteur theory. In order to address this imbalance a new approach to attributing authorship in film needs to be implemented, which acknowledges co-authorship in collaborative film-making. By taking established auteur methodologies Philip Cowan, himself a practisin…
Pathways From A Us Co-Parenting Intervention To Legal Outcomes
Although divorce intervention research has demonstrated positive effects on children's and parents' adaptation following divorce, surprisingly few studies have examined intervention effects on legal system involvement. This study explored effects of a court-affiliated intervention for separating/divorcing parents with children age 6 or younger on legal system outcomes. The study employed a randomised controlled design; the intervention was a hybr…
Policies That Strengthen Fatherhood and Family Relationships: What Do We Know and What Do We Need to Know
As described in earlier articles, children whose parents have higher incomes and education levels are more likely to grow up in stable two-parent households than their economically disadvantaged counterparts. The widening gaps in fathers' involvement in parenting and in the quality and stability of parents' relationships may reinforce disparities in outcomes for the next generation. This article reviews evidence about the effectiveness of two str…
Attachment, marital satisfaction, and divorce during the first fifteen years of parenthood
This study examines 2 overlapping longitudinal samples of U.S. couples with children, covering a period of 15 years after the first child's birth. The first sample extended from the pregnancy with a first child until that child was 5.5 years old and the second from ages 4.5 to 14.5. Growth curve analyses revealed that marital satisfaction declined over 15 years for both husbands and wives. Attachment security measured in the second sample was ass…
Lessons Learned From the Supporting Father Involvement Study: A Cross-Cultural Preventive Intervention for Low-Income Families With Young Children
Despite the proliferation of fatherhood programs designed to promote paternal involvement and positive family outcomes, evaluations of these programs are scarce. The Supporting Father Involvement (SFI) study is a randomized clinical trial comprised of 289 low-income Spanish- and English-speaking families living in California. The evaluation design reflects a partnership stance that promotes empowerment of staff and social service agencies. This a…
Promoting Fathers' Engagement With Children: Preventive Interventions for Low-Income Families
Few programs to enhance fathers' engagement with children have been systematically evaluated, especially for low-income minority populations. In this study, 289 couples from primarily low-income Mexican American and European American families were randomly assigned to one of three conditions and followed for 18 months: 16-week groups for fathers, 16-week groups for couples, or a 1-time informational meeting. Compared with families in the low-dose…
Diverging family policies to promote children's well‐being in the UK and US: Some relevant data from family research and intervention studies
In response to what are perceived as the negative consequences for children of family change over the past century, governments in the UK and the US have devoted substantial funds to programmes to strengthen families, but the focus of intervention in the two countries has moved in opposite directions. In the UK, financial support has shifted away from couple strengthening to parenting programmes, while in the US financial support has shifted subs…
Can Children Provide Coherent, Stable, and Valid Self-Reports on the Big Five Dimensions? A Longitudinal Study From Ages 5 to 7
Research on early childhood personality has been scarce. Self-reports of Big Five personality traits were measured longitudinally with the Berkeley Puppet Interview when children were 5, 6, and 7 years of age. For comparative purposes, Big Five self-reports were collected in a sample of college students. The children's self-reports showed levels of consistency and differentiation that approached those of the college age sample. Children's persona…
Coming Home Upset: Gender, Marital Satisfaction, and the Daily Spillover of Workday Experience Into Couple Interactions.
This study explored how daily changes in workday pace and end-of-the-workday mood were related to nightly variations in withdrawn and angry marital behavior. For 3 days, 82 husbands and wives from 42 couples completed questionnaires at the end of the workday and at bedtime. More negatively arousing workdays were linked with angrier marital behavior for women and less angry and more withdrawn behavior for men. Daily changes in workday pace predict…
Attachment Security in Couple Relationships: A Systemic Model and Its Implications for Family Dynamics
Theory and research on adult attachment style emphasize the crucial role that the sense of attachment security plays in the formation and maintenance of couple relationships. In the present article, we review studies that have examined the contribution of adult attachment style to relational cognitions, emotions, and behaviors as well as to the formation, quality, and stability of dating and marital relationships. We discuss some of the measureme…
Ordinary physical punishment: Is it harmful? Comment on Gershoff (2002)
E. T. Gershoff (2002) reviewed processes that might mediate and contexts that might moderate the associations between corporal punishment (CP) and child behaviors and provided an account of the methodological weaknesses of the research reviewed in her meta-analyses. In this examination of Gershoff, the authors argue that the biases and confounds in the meta-analyses further limit any causal inferences that can be drawn concerning the detrimental …
Patterns of teachers’ whole-class perceptions and predictive relationships between teachers’ and parents’ perceptions of individual child competence
Transitions to Parenthood: His, Hers, and Theirs
This study explores marital processes that may underlie the apparent decline in satisfaction with marriage in partners becoming parents for the first time. We assessed 47 couples expecting a first child and 15 couples not yet decided about having children at pretest, post 1 (6 months postpartum or 9 months after pretest) and post 2 (18 months postpartum or 21 months after pretest). Questionnaires examined (1) psychological sense of self; (2) part…
Marital quality and gender differences in parent-child interaction
This microanalytic study of family interaction establishes links among marital quality, gender, and parent-child relationships. Dyadic conversational exchanges between 38 mothers and fathers and their 3.5 year-old first-born son or daughter were analyzed. Marital quality was related to gender differences in both parent and child behavior, with less maritally adjusted fathers of daughters showing the most negativity toward their children. Sequenti…
Promoting Fathers' Engagement With Children: Preventive Interventions for Low-Income Families
Few programs to enhance fathers' engagement with children have been systematically evaluated, especially for low-income minority populations. In this study, 289 couples from primarily low-income Mexican American and European American families were randomly assigned to one of three conditions and followed for 18 months: 16-week groups for fathers, 16-week groups for couples, or a 1-time informational meeting. Compared with families in the low-dose…
Mothers and fathers teaching 3-year-olds: Authoritative parenting and adult scaffolding of young children's learning
In this study we investigated variations in parental tutoring of children on the basis of Vygotsky's (1978) theorizing and the concept of parental scaffolding of children's learning. Twenty-four couples and their 3-year-old children participated. Mothers and fathers worked separately with the child on three difficult tasks: a block construction task, a matrix classification task, and a story retelling task. Parental interventions were classified …
Working Models of Childhood Attachment and Couple Relationships
Previous research has documented connections between adults' working models of childhood attachment relationships and the quality of parent-child relationships, but less attention has been devoted to examining such links for intimate adult relationships. Twenty-seven married couples were given George, Kaplan, and Main's Adult Attachment Interview and each person was rated as either secure or insecure with respect to attachment. Self-report measur…
Externalizing in preschoolers and early adolescents: A cross-study replication of a family model
All in-text\treferences\tunderlined\tin\tblue\tare\tlinked\tto\tpublications\ton\tResearchGate, letting you\taccess\tand\tread\tthem\timmediately
Who Does What When Partners Become Parents: Implications for Men, Women, and Marriage
Forty-seven couples who were first-time parents were assessed in late pregnancy and again at 6 and 18 months postpartum. Fifteen couples not yet decided about having a baby were assessed at equivalent times. Actual involvement in household, decision-making, and childcare roles was determined by responses to a 36-item "Who Does What?" questionnaire. Psychological involvement in parent, partner, and worker roles was also determined, as was each par…
Ordinary physical punishment: Is it harmful? Comment on Gershoff (2002)
E. T. Gershoff (2002) reviewed processes that might mediate and contexts that might moderate the associations between corporal punishment (CP) and child behaviors and provided an account of the methodological weaknesses of the research reviewed in her meta-analyses. In this examination of Gershoff, the authors argue that the biases and confounds in the meta-analyses further limit any causal inferences that can be drawn concerning the detrimental …
Social learning and Piaget's cognitive theory of moral development
Policies That Strengthen Fatherhood and Family Relationships: What Do We Know and What Do We Need to Know
As described in earlier articles, children whose parents have higher incomes and education levels are more likely to grow up in stable two-parent households than their economically disadvantaged counterparts. The widening gaps in fathers' involvement in parenting and in the quality and stability of parents' relationships may reinforce disparities in outcomes for the next generation. This article reviews evidence about the effectiveness of two str…
Can Children Provide Coherent, Stable, and Valid Self-Reports on the Big Five Dimensions? A Longitudinal Study From Ages 5 to 7
Research on early childhood personality has been scarce. Self-reports of Big Five personality traits were measured longitudinally with the Berkeley Puppet Interview when children were 5, 6, and 7 years of age. For comparative purposes, Big Five self-reports were collected in a sample of college students. The children's self-reports showed levels of consistency and differentiation that approached those of the college age sample. Children's persona…
Enhancing Parenting Effectiveness, Fathers' Involvement, Couple Relationship Quality, and Children's Development: Breaking Down Silos in Family Policy Making and Service Delivery
In this article, we examine family‐based interventions designed to increase parenting effectiveness, fathers' positive involvement, and couple relationship quality, all with the goal of enhancing children's development. We focus on the fact that government funding policies, service delivery systems, and research evaluations of interventions to benefit children and families typically operate in separate silos. We provide a theoretical model, along…
Controversies in couple relationship education (CRE): Overlooked evidence and implications for research and policy
Government interest in strengthening families in the United States and Great Britain has contributed to a rapid growth in couple relationship education (CRE) interventions, with a recent increase in programs for low-income families. We describe the policy contexts that initially led to increased support for CRE in both countries but now threaten its continuation. We summarize meta-analytic research and discussions of single studies by authors who…
Marital quality and gender differences in parent^child interaction
Changing Parent and Spouse Relations in the First Years of Remarriage of Divorced Fathers
Lessons Learned From the Supporting Father Involvement Study: A Cross-Cultural Preventive Intervention for Low-Income Families With Young Children
Despite the proliferation of fatherhood programs designed to promote paternal involvement and positive family outcomes, evaluations of these programs are scarce. The Supporting Father Involvement (SFI) study is a randomized clinical trial comprised of 289 low-income Spanish- and English-speaking families living in California. The evaluation design reflects a partnership stance that promotes empowerment of staff and social service agencies. This a…
Diverging family policies to promote children's well‐being in the UK and US: Some relevant data from family research and intervention studies
In response to what are perceived as the negative consequences for children of family change over the past century, governments in the UK and the US have devoted substantial funds to programmes to strengthen families, but the focus of intervention in the two countries has moved in opposite directions. In the UK, financial support has shifted away from couple strengthening to parenting programmes, while in the US financial support has shifted subs…
The Sky Is Falling, but Popenoe's Analysis Won't Help Us Do Anything About It
Attachment security, divorce, parental estrangement, and reconciliation
While most studies have attempted to identify the causes and consequences of adult children's estrangement from their parents, this study focuses on a relatively unexplored topic -- factors associated with family relationships in which the adult child and parents reconcile after a period of estrangement. An online survey of 1360 parents who had experienced an estrangement from their adult child provided data concerning three constructs: (a) wheth…
Pathways From A Us Co-Parenting Intervention To Legal Outcomes
Although divorce intervention research has demonstrated positive effects on children's and parents' adaptation following divorce, surprisingly few studies have examined intervention effects on legal system involvement. This study explored effects of a court-affiliated intervention for separating/divorcing parents with children age 6 or younger on legal system outcomes. The study employed a randomised controlled design; the intervention was a hybr…
Patterns of teachers’ whole-class perceptions and predictive relationships between teachers’ and parents’ perceptions of individual child competence
Navigating the Gap Between Correlational and Intervention Studies of Fatherhood and Children’s Development: A Family Systems Ecological Perspective
Earner Status, Marital Satisfaction, and Division of Childcare among Mexican American and Caucasian Couples
This study explores marital satisfaction, division of child tasks, and satisfaction with the division of childcare outcomes among low-income Caucasian and Mexican American (MA) couples with young children. Participants were 521 California couples, nearly three-fourths MA. Using a series of regression models to examine how ethnicity/nativity status, earner status (dual or single) and gender were related to each outcome variable; results showed tha…
When Partners Become Parents: The Big Life Change for Couples
Note on “Disinhibition”
Use of the term “disinhibition” by social learning theorists is criticized on several grounds. (1) Use of a descriptive term as an explanatory concept is circular. (2) Since the term carries specific explanatory meaning stemming from traditional learning theory, adding another meaning to a single term is likely to cause unnecessary confusion. Altering the name of the term, e.g., “de-inhibition” might help clarify the literature. (3) Where the sam…
Social learning and Piaget's cognitive theory of moral development
Teacher cognitive characteristics, social system variables, and the use of consultation
Children's conceptions of birth and sexuality
“If daddy put his egg in you, I must be a chicken,” three-year-old Seth told his mother. “To get a baby, you go to the store and buy a duck,” explained four-year-old Susan. Children's ideas about sex and birth are not for the birds; however, they follow a Piagetian developmental sequence
The relationship between emotional and cognitive development
Some theorists think thinking dominates feeling. Some feel that feeling shapes thought. How do feeling and thinking fit together? A developmental approach may provide a new view of the connection
To have and to hold: Marriage, the first baby and preparing couples for parenthood
Transitions to Parenthood: His, Hers, and Theirs
This study explores marital processes that may underlie the apparent decline in satisfaction with marriage in partners becoming parents for the first time. We assessed 47 couples expecting a first child and 15 couples not yet decided about having children at pretest, post 1 (6 months postpartum or 9 months after pretest) and post 2 (18 months postpartum or 21 months after pretest). Questionnaires examined (1) psychological sense of self; (2) part…
Who Does What When Partners Become Parents: Implications for Men, Women, and Marriage
Forty-seven couples who were first-time parents were assessed in late pregnancy and again at 6 and 18 months postpartum. Fifteen couples not yet decided about having a baby were assessed at equivalent times. Actual involvement in household, decision-making, and childcare roles was determined by responses to a 36-item "Who Does What?" questionnaire. Psychological involvement in parent, partner, and worker roles was also determined, as was each par…
Mothers and fathers teaching 3-year-olds: Authoritative parenting and adult scaffolding of young children's learning
In this study we investigated variations in parental tutoring of children on the basis of Vygotsky's (1978) theorizing and the concept of parental scaffolding of children's learning. Twenty-four couples and their 3-year-old children participated. Mothers and fathers worked separately with the child on three difficult tasks: a block construction task, a matrix classification task, and a story retelling task. Parental interventions were classified …
Changing Parent and Spouse Relations in the First Years of Remarriage of Divorced Fathers
Family Transitions
Satisfaction with child care arrangements: Effects on adaptation to parenthood
The relationships between parents' satisfaction with their child care arrangements and factors from four domains of a family systems model were examined for effects on adaptation to parenthood. Results suggest the desirability of including both mothers and fathers in child care interventions, public policy debates, and future research
When Partners Become Parents: The Big Life Change for Couples
Working Models of Childhood Attachment and Couple Relationships
Previous research has documented connections between adults' working models of childhood attachment relationships and the quality of parent-child relationships, but less attention has been devoted to examining such links for intimate adult relationships. Twenty-seven married couples were given George, Kaplan, and Main's Adult Attachment Interview and each person was rated as either secure or insecure with respect to attachment. Self-report measur…
Externalizing in preschoolers and early adolescents: A cross-study replication of a family model
All in-text\treferences\tunderlined\tin\tblue\tare\tlinked\tto\tpublications\ton\tResearchGate, letting you\taccess\tand\tread\tthem\timmediately
Marital quality and gender differences in parent^child interaction
Marital quality and gender differences in parent-child interaction
This microanalytic study of family interaction establishes links among marital quality, gender, and parent-child relationships. Dyadic conversational exchanges between 38 mothers and fathers and their 3.5 year-old first-born son or daughter were analyzed. Marital quality was related to gender differences in both parent and child behavior, with less maritally adjusted fathers of daughters showing the most negativity toward their children. Sequenti…
Adult attachment and adult child-older parent relationships
Adult attachment status, concurrent and early relationships with parents, and depressive symptoms were assessed in 53 adults. Individuals with consistent reports of relationships--positive or negative--were most coherent in their narratives. Depressive symptoms were associated with negativity in both recalled and current relationships with parents, but were not correlated with coherence of narratives. Clinical implications of the findings are dis…
The Sky Is Falling, but Popenoe's Analysis Won't Help Us Do Anything About It
Family, Self, and Society: Toward a New Agenda for Family Research
Interventions to Ease the Transition to Parenthood: Why They Are Needed and What They Can Do
Carolyn Pape Cowan, Philip A. Cowan, Interventions to Ease the Transition to Parenthood: Why They Are Needed and What They Can Do, Family Relations, Vol. 44, No. 4, Helping Contemporary Families (Oct., 1995), pp. 412-423
Coparenting in a family context: Emerging achievements, current dilemmas, and future directions
A look at how far the study of the whole family has advanced and how far it yet has to go
Patterns of teachers’ whole-class perceptions and predictive relationships between teachers’ and parents’ perceptions of individual child competence
Attachment Security in Couple Relationships: A Systemic Model and Its Implications for Family Dynamics
Theory and research on adult attachment style emphasize the crucial role that the sense of attachment security plays in the formation and maintenance of couple relationships. In the present article, we review studies that have examined the contribution of adult attachment style to relational cognitions, emotions, and behaviors as well as to the formation, quality, and stability of dating and marital relationships. We discuss some of the measureme…
Ordinary physical punishment: Is it harmful? Comment on Gershoff (2002)
E. T. Gershoff (2002) reviewed processes that might mediate and contexts that might moderate the associations between corporal punishment (CP) and child behaviors and provided an account of the methodological weaknesses of the research reviewed in her meta-analyses. In this examination of Gershoff, the authors argue that the biases and confounds in the meta-analyses further limit any causal inferences that can be drawn concerning the detrimental …
Psychology (43 works) · Developmental psychology (36 works) · Family Dynamics and Relationships (27 works) · Social Psychology (26 works) · Attachment and Relationship Dynamics (18 works) · Intergenerational Family Dynamics and Caregiving (16 works) · Sociology (15 works) · Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development (14 works) · Social Psychology (13 works) · Psychiatry (12 works)