Are Children to Divorced Parents Worse at Managing Stress? Task-Switching Performance and Induced Stress for Adult Children of Marriage and Divorce

Sammanfattning: Prior research shows that adult children of divorce (ACD) exhibit higher levels of perceived stress than adult children of marriage (ACM), and thus, potentially lower tolerance to stress. The comparison of ACD/ACM in Sweden has not been sufficiently studied. Hence, the present study aims to examine stress management among ACD and ACM, in terms of cognitive performance under different levels of induced stress, and how it correlates to self-ratings of stress. The final sample consisted of 101 adult participants (39 ACD and 62 ACM), and the mean age was 28 years old (41 males and 60 females). The result showed no difference in stress management between ACD and ACM, and their cognitive performance was not positively correlated with self-ratings of stress. However, ACD had a faster response time (RT) in all tests, even though this difference was not significant. At this time, ACD and ACM experience equally high levels of stress, as the Covid-19 pandemic might have influenced the outcome. Future research should collect more data of ACD in Sweden of other measurements of stress.