Improving Custody Dispute Negotiation: Empirical Testing of the Equality Principle

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

The Equality Principle (EP) is a novel idea to motivate parents litigating in custody disputes to negotiate. The EP is designed for a special but common case in which both parents are individually fit, there are no decisive differences between the two households that the parents live in, but the conflict between the parents is so infected that the children's well‐being is threatened and shared custody must be ruled out. The present paper empirically tested the Equality Principle in its higher bidder version. In this version, both parents are first told that the conditions for the EP are met. Then, both parents are asked how much visitation they would allow the other parent, assuming that they would win sole custody and living. The most generous parent is awarded custody and living, along with a dictum to facilitate the promised amount of visitation. In the present model (PM), the offered amount of visitation has no functional effect on the custody dispute because the judges and jurors award custody as well as the amount of visitation. A within‐subjects vignette experiment measured 52 participants’ levels of visitation generosity in the EP and the PM. Participants showed significantly higher visitation generosity in the EP compared to the PM. The results are discussed in terms of representation of the present model, an equal amount of visitation offered, ecological validity, child perspective, and appellant's rights. In conclusion, the present paper showed that the EP is a promising strategy to resolve seemingly unresolvable custody disputes.
Practitioner's Key Points:
The longer the custody dispute, the more children suffer. The Equality Principle encourages swift resolution which helps children.
The Equality Principle is designed to resolve custody litigations where both parents are fit by making them compete in visitation generosity.
The Equality Principle has at least two versions; randomization and highest bidder of visitation time wins. Highest bidder is probably more plausible for the general public.
Empirical evidence shows that the Equality Principle in the highest bidder wins variant is a promising strategy to quickly resolve high conflict custody disputes with fit parents.