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Married couples, using the Relational Dimensions Instrument, can reliably and unambiguously classify their relationships into one of three basic types: Traditional, Independent or Separate. These types differ in their levels of interdependence, the ideological bases for their relationships as well as their typical communication patterns. The purpose of this investigation was to see if the perceptions of college-age young adults concerning the marriages of their parents also fell into one of the three categories. The results indicated that these respondents did perceive the same three basic relational types. The majority perceived their parents as having an Independent relationship. Additionally, they perceived the Independent relationship as the best they could hope to achieve for themselves. When asked to rate the desirability of the relational types, the respondents indicated that the Traditional relationship was the most preferable and the Separate relationship, the least preferabie of the types.

sec. 1. Centrality of communication in the familty: 1. Defining the family and communication ; 2. Models of family functioning -- sec. 2. Theory and methods in the study of the family: 3. Theoretical perspectives on the family ; 4. Research methods in camily communications -- sec. 3. Basic family processes: 5. Affection and intimacy ; 6. Conflict ; 7. Power and control ; 8. Decision-making in the family -- sec. 4. Communication in family subsystems: 9. Communication and marital satisfaction ; 10. Communication in different types of marriages ; 11. Communication in parent-child relationships ; 12. Communication in sibling relationships -- sec. 5. Communication in different types of families: 13. Communication in nontraditional family forms ; 14. Communication in troubled families ; 15. Communication in the aging family -- sec. 6. Seeking help: 16. Strengthening and repairing family relationships

Using talk-time measures of spouse and stranger interaction styles, this article tests the spillover, situationist, and dynamic interactionist models of communication. In groups of four, twenty couples came into our laboratory on three separate occasions. Each person spoke with every other person in the group and these conversational orders were randomized. This multivariate round-robin analysis of variance design allows us to examine actor, partner, and relationship effects through time; it compares married to stranger dyads; it allows a direct test of the effect of a number of individual difference variables; and it examines the relationship among the dependent variables at the same point in time and across time periods. The results indicate that a spillover model best represents the talk-time data. Biological sex appears to have no effect on speaking with either a spouse or a stranger, although self-assessment that one is masculine does. Few personality variables predict talk time although relationship dimensions, such as sharing and satisfaction, differentially predict talk time.

Mass communication researchers interested in family communication have traditionally assumed that family norms are shared by all family members, and apparent disagreement about family norms has been ascribed to instrument unreliability. A survey of 308 adolescent children and their parents, using a revised Family Communication Pattern (RFCP) instrument, yields evidence of systematic patterns of agreement and disagreement between mothers and fathers as well as between parents and children. Seventh-grade children are more likely to share their mothers' views on concept-orientation and their father's views on socio-orientation; by the 11th grade the opposité pattern holds. These results suggest that future work on family communication cannot ignore the influence of intrafamilial patterns of agreement and disagreement on communication norms defining the family.

It is probably a gross understatement to say that the inner workings of marital and family life hold a fascination for most people. Given this intrinsic interest in the topic, it is not surprising that the study of marital and family interaction cuts across disciplinary boundaries, with researchers housed in a variety of disciplines including communication, psychiatry, social work, sociology, and social, clinical, and developmental psychology. Each discipline approaches the study of family interaction in a somewhat unique fashion. Part of this uniqueness comes from the different weightings each discipline places on the various levels of analysis from which an examination of the family can proceed, including the study of processes within individuals; interactions between individuals; properties of the component relationships, themselves; the family group, as a whole; and the influences of the broader community on the family. The central premise behind the theme of this special issue is our belief that a more complete understanding of communication in the family results from the consideration of more than one level of analysis within the same research endeavor. Our choice of a topic for this special issue was to focus on two levels of analysis that we find particularly intriguing: the intrapersonal and the interpersonal.

AbstractMuch of the literature on the transition to parenthood suggests that pregnancy and childbirth arc associated with decreases in marital satisfaction. Recent developments, however, demonstrate that this decrease in couples' satisfaction may be complicated by a number of factors. Among other things, the way couples interact may play a central role in their adjustment to the changes typically associated with pregnancy and childbirth. The purpose of this study was to examine whether couples who espouse varying patterns of interaction also have differing experiences of changes in marital needs and concerns during pregnancy. Couples (N= 190) enrolled in childbirth classes completed a series of questionnaires including Fitzpatrick's Relational Dimensions Instrument and a measure assessing perceived changes in their marital needs and concerns. Results indicated that husbands and wives differed in terms of the amount of nurturance they felt they gave and received, their tendency to worry since pregnancy, and their views concerning their sexual relationship. When changes in needs and concerns were compared across the various couple types, a number of patterns emerged. Wives in Traditional, Separate/Traditional, and Separate/Independent marriages felt they received significantly more nurturance since pregnancy than did wives in Independent marriages. Husbands in Separate/Traditional relationships noted greater increases in worrying than did other husbands. Finally, although couples varied in the frequency of conflict reported, they did not differ with regard to changes in conflict or the influence of such changes on their marriages.

In mass media research there has been a repeated call for (1) abandoning simple two-variable stimulus-response models of television effects, and (2) efforts to integrate research from different fields. This article offers such a perspective, bringing together research on relationship-relevant television content, viewing effects and interpersonal relationships. A total of 51 couples participated in a study to determine if television viewing is related to discussions of the relationship-relevant issues between spouses. As hypothesized, the contingent condition of marital definitions held by spouses predicted the amount of discussion between marital partners about family and relational issues. Such a condition presupposes that the way individuals define their relationships affects how they process the information on interpersonal relationships portrayed on television. Specifically, those who are emotionally distant from their spouses were more likely to discuss relational and family issues as a consequence of television viewing.

The family communication environments of school-age children in Grades 1, 4, 6, and 7 were measured using "talking picture books" containing dialogues representing various types of family communication. Children listened to the dialogues and examined cartoon pictures depicting different families. Using this information, children identified their families as either (a) pluralistic (high conversation and low conformity), (b) consensual (high conversation and high conformity), (c) protective (low conversation and high conformity), or (d) laissez-faire (low conversation and low conformity). Children completed the revised Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test and teachers rated each child's social self-restraint and social withdrawal. Results revealed an interaction among family type, sex, and grade level for both social withdrawal and social self-restraint, suggesting that family communication environments may be differentially beneficial for boys and girls at particular points of development.