Title: Mormon women and parental divorce
Description: More American families now have less traditional structures, such as divorced or unmarried parents (Cohn, Passel, Wang & Livingston, 2011; Edgell & Docka, 2007). Some religious faiths still subscribe, however, to traditional family forms (Edgell & Docka, 2007; Woodberry & Smith, 1998). Following these ideals in modern society can challenge adherents. This qualitative dissertation study examined one such faith, specifically considering experiences of Mormon women with divorced parents. It explored Mormon women's perceptions of core religious concepts, including beliefs regarding eternal marriage/families and gender roles, examining how these women cope with inconsistencies between doctrinal ideals and divorce. It also considered how Mormon women at differing adult development junctures view these matters.

Adult development was explored using Kegan's (1982, 1994) theory, which suggests a developmental shift can occur when adults transition from being socialized, or embedded in values of cultural surrounds, to reflecting upon them. This shift lets adults self-author their lives and develop new relationships to surrounds. Thus, this study looked at how participants who are making this shift may hold distinct perspectives. Study participants completed two semi-structured interviews. The first was the Subject-Object Interview (Lahey, Souvaine, Kegan, Goodman, & Felix, 1988), which assessed each participant's adult development perspective. The second explored perceptions of the aforementioned doctrines and how participants related these to divorce. Emergent themes included expressions of doctrinal support along with complex feelings, which varied according to adult development perspectives. Participants generally fell into three groups; socialized, emergent self-authoring, and mixed socialized/self-authoring. Participants in the socialized group indicated strong loyalty to the cultural surrounds of their religious belief systems. Those in the emergent self-authoring group expressed loyalty concurrently with feelings of tension regarding traditional doctrinal interpretations. Participants with mixed orientations, however, more often comfortably stated disagreement with traditional doctrinal interpretations and expressed desires for church policy changes. Speculations about how life experiences interplay with participants' adult development perspectives were also considered. Findings may help clinicians and educators support individuals whose experiences spur conflicts with religious ideals. Understanding such experiences will help professionals strengthen individuals' belief systems. It will also help them scaffold persons during adult development transitions.
Subjects: Mormon women, Developmental psychology, Divorce, Psychological aspects, Mormon families