Philip Cowan, Professor of Psychology

Research Biography

Philip A. Cowan's research and clinical interests center on family systems and children's development. His research investigates how variations in children's cognitive, social and personality development and in their adaptation to school can be understood in the context of the family: (1) parents' experiences in their families of origin; (2) parents' personality characteristics; (3) the parents' marital relationship quality; (4) the way in which parents interact with their children; and (5) parents' outside-the- family work lives. Although the child's characteristics, both biological and social, also have influences on individual and family development, this research has focused more intensely on family factors affecting children's adaptation.  The overarching theme of the research is that the quality of relationships among family members, not "just" parenting behaviors,  play a central role in both individual and family development.

Along with Carolyn Pape Cowan, Philip Cowan has been involved in two longitudinal studies of families. The first, the Becoming a Family Project -- a longitudinal study of partners becoming parents for the first time -- followed families from late pregnancy until their child completed the first year of elementary school, and addressed three basic questions: What happens to couple relationships after the birth of a first child? Can a preventive intervention designed to strengthen couple relationships during this major life transition positively affect marital satisfaction and marital stability? How does the quality of the couple relationship affect the nature and quality of the child's development and his or her coping with the transition to elementary school?

The Cowans found that despite many changes in individual and couple functioning after childbirth, there is a great deal of continuity and predictability from before the baby arrives; it was possible to identify individuals and couples at risk for distress in the early family years from data obtained in pregnancy. The intervention they designed had positive effects on individuals and family relationships during the first three postpartum years. Family data obtained in the preschool years were highly predictive of teacher ratings of the child's academic and social competence in kindergarten. A large scale replication of this study is now taking place throughout Germany.

Based on the results of this study, the Cowans received a new NIMH grant to follow 100 new families from their first child's pre-kindergarten year through the end of grade 1. This study -- the Schoolchildren and Their Families Project -- examines the impact of maritally-focused and parenting-focused couples groups on the family. Results indicate strong intervention effects on parents and children. Compared with parents randomly assigned to a consultation control condition, parents in the intervention significantly reduced their marital conflict and increased their effectiveness as parents. Their children showed more positive cognitive and social adaptation to kindergarten and first grade. New findings show that the effects of the pre-school intervention are maintained and even increased by the time the child enters fourth grade.

A continuation grant from NIMH beginning in February 2001 will fund a followup of the same families as their first child enters High School. This will be one of the  first studies to examine both individual and marital trajectories of parents as they affect developmental trajectories describing academic achievement, depression and aggression in children as they  move from pre-school to High School.

Graduate students,  postdocs, and colleagues at other universities working on the Schoolchildren and their Families Project are currently developing the Berkeley Puppet Interview (Ablow & Measelle) and the Family Photo Narrative (Johnson) to assess children's perspectives on self and family. Ongoing studies investigate: family factors in the development of moral feelings (Lyon); the role of empathy and guilt in family processes (Rasco), parent and child coping patterns (Busch), autonomy and connectedness in parent-child relationships (Mattanah, Hernandez, Dergicz); parents reactions to their children's dependent behavior (Linenberg Chang); emotion regulation and expression in family processes (Gerber & Carson, Galvin); the contribution of whole-family structure and processes to children's development (Kahen Johnson); working models of marital relationships (Alexandrova); narrative perspectives in marital relationships (Dergicz); the spillover between stress at work and family interaction at home (Schulz). Some lab members have recruited other samples to study couple relationships in unmarried African American men and women (Cohen), and interactions in low-income Colombian families (Mayorga).
 

Representative publications:

Cowan, P. A. (1978). Piaget: With feeling. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.

Cowan, C. P., & Cowan, P. A. (1992). When partners become parents: The big life change for couples. New York: Basic Books. Republished by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Spring, 2000.

Cowan, P. A., Cohn, D., Cowan, C. P., & Pearson, J. L. (1996). Parents' attachment histories and children's internalizing and externalizing behavior: Exploring family systems models of linkage. Special section: Attachment and psychopathology, Part I. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 64, 53-63.

McHale, J. P., & Cowan, P. A. (Eds.) (1996). Understanding how family-level dynamics affect children's development: Studies of two-parent families. New Directions in Development. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Cowan, P. A., Powell, D., & Cowan, C. P. (1997). Parenting interventions: A family systems perspective. In I. E. Sigel & K. A. Renninger (Eds.), Handbook of child psychology: Vol 4. Child psychology in practice (5th ed., pp 3-72). New York: Wiley.

Cowan, P. A., & Cowan, C. P. (1998). New families: Modern couples as new pioneers. In M. A. Mason, A. Skolnik, & S. Sugarman (Eds.), The evolving American family: New policies for new families. Oxford University Press.

Measelle, J. R., Ablow, J. C., Cowan, P. A., & Cowan, C. P. (1998). Assessing young children's views of their academic, social, and emotional lives: An evaluation of the self-perception scales of the Berkeley Puppet Interview. Child Development, 69, 1556-1576.

Johnson, V. K., Cowan, P. A., & Cowan, C. P. (1999). Children’s classroom behavior: the unique contribution of family organization.  Journal of Family Psychology, 13, 1-17.

Cowan, C. P. & Cowan, P.A. (2000). Preventive intervention: a couple perspective on the transmission of attachment patterns. In C. Clulow (Ed.) Adult attachment and couple psychotherapy: The secure base in practice and research. London: Brunner-Routledge

Donohue, K., Weinstein, R.,  Cowan, P.A, & Cowan, C. P. (in press). Patterns of teacher' whole-class perceptions and predictive relationships between teachers and parents' perceptions of individual child competence. Early Childhood Research Quarterly.

Cowan, P. A., & Cowan, C. P. (in press). What an intervention design reveals about how parents affect their children’s academic achievement and behavior problems. In J. G. Borkowski, S. Ramey, & M. Bristol-Powers, (Eds.), Parenting and the child's world: Influences on intellectual, academic, and social-emotional development. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

PHILIP COWAN Research Biography, January 2001