your friend has trouble making commitments in relationships. you believe that this is because her parents had a bitter divorce when she was young. your belief that a child who lives through a bitter parental divorce will have trouble making commitments in relationships as an adult would be considered a(n) .

This would be considered a Hypothesis. A hypothesis is an assumption, which has not been proven, of something that we think might explain what we observe or investigate. In this example; based on the evidence, the divorce of the parents, we establish a hypothesis, the divorce caused him to have problems in having commitments, in order to validate or deny the hypothesis, the investigation must be continued.

Darren is taking out a family order task