5 Psychology
Psychology differs from sociology primarily in its focus on the individual. Much of an individual’s behaviour, however, is the result of interactions with others, particularly the influence of primary caregivers during infancy. Psychology is like sociology in that it is an extremely broad discipline encompassing a variety of fully-fledged fields that cover a vast range of issues. Major fields include developmental psychology, abnormal psychology, clinical psychology and psychoanalysis, educational psychology, industrial psychology, and social psychology. Increasingly, psychology involves qualitative as well as quantitative work, especially in the area of families. Because of the size of the field, this section provides a brief survey of the theories in psychology that have relevance for the family, many of which stem from the social and developmental specialities.
Social psychology studies the effects of social and cognitive processes on the way individuals perceive, influence and relate to others, and as such, it places particular importance on how behaviour is affected by the presence or influence of other people. Its method is scientific, involving hypotheses that can be disproved, and its findings are derived from both basic and applied research, including natural experiments and experiments with treatment and control groups.
Developmental psychology is concerned with the cognitive, emotional and social development of individuals. While it does not offer theories specifically of the family, developmental psychology recognises the importance of the family as the context in which the individual develops. Like social psychology, its methods are scientific, utilising cross-sectional (comparing developmental levels at various ages or backgrounds), cross-cultural and longitudinal (measuring various stages of development) methods. In addition, developmental psychologists often use co-twin methodologies.
5.1 Explanatory frameworks
Psychoanalysis, behaviourism and cognitive psychology are three major frameworks within psychology. Psychoanalysis (associated with theorists such as Freud and Erikson) assumes that people have unconscious thoughts and motives as well as conscious ones, and that the unconscious mind retains memories of painful thoughts and experiences that the conscious mind ignores. Psychoanalysis argues that differences between individuals are in part the result of the role the unconscious mind plays in personality development.
In contrast, behaviourism (closely associated with Skinner, Thorndike and Watson) is based on the principle that the inner workings of the mind, being unobservable, do not form legitimate objects of study. Rather, these theories concentrate on behaviour as learned, and how positive, negative or neutral outcomes in the past effect people’s later behaviours.
Theories of cognitive psychology had their roots in Chomsky’s famous critique (1959) of Skinner’s book Verbal Behavior(1957) which highlighted the shortcomings of strict behaviourism and reintroduced the role of mental structures and processes as explanatory concepts in psychology. Cognitivism explains individual differences partly in terms of knowledge. Individual differences are attributed to differences in the way people think, and the ways they remember and use knowledge.
5.2 Family formation
A number of theories in psychology shed light on the nature and drivers of family formation, amongst them object relations theory, attachment theory, and theories of personality.
“Object relations” refers to the emotional bonds between the self and another person or object. It was first developed by Freud, who defined “objects” as anything an infant directs drives towards in seeking satiation (Freud 1914). Subsequently, object relations theories grew out of the writings of major psychological theorists such as Klein, Fairbairn, Winnicott Kernberg and Kohut (see, for example Fairbairn 1953, Kernberg 1976, Klein 1952, Kohut 1985, Winnicott 1971).
Object relations theories argue that family formation is the result of innate drives to form and maintain relationships. However, these fundamental drives are strongly mediated by the way individuals interpret their earliest primary relationships, particularly the mother-infant dyad. It is the interpretation of the relationship between the infant self and primary figures (particularly the mother) that lays the foundation for the development of individual identity and personality, and becomes the basis for later relationships with others in marriage and raising a family. Object relations theories argue that our basic tendency is to seek out others—such as spouses—who will reaffirm our earliest self-object relationships.
Attachment theory also offers insights into the formation and maintenance of family relationships. Like object relations theories, attachment theory argues that the bonds between a child and its care-giver, usually the mother, affects the child’s personality development and subsequent interpersonal relationships (Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters and Wall 1978). Bowlby and Ainsworth (1991) outlined three kinds of attachments that infants had to their mothers: secure attachment, where children had a loving childhood, with mothers who were sensitive and responsive to their needs; avoidant attachment, characterising children who were constantly denied physical contact by their mothers; and anxious/ambivalent attachment, resulting from mothers who were slow and inconsistent in responding to their infant’s cries.
Attachment theories argue that the formation and strengthening of relationships in adulthood parallel attachments styles of infancy, and that there are different kinds of love experiences for people with different strengths of relationship. Adults with secure relationships are confident in both themselves and their relationships, while those with avoidant behaviours tend to be detached from both their own feelings and their relationships. Anxious or ambivalent adults are likely to be apprehensive and distressed both in themselves and in relationships (Morgan and Shaver 1999).
Family formation, age at first marriage, and the structure and quality of romantic and family relationships are influenced by the working models (or mental models) of self and others that were developed during infancy and childhood, and attachments styles in adult relationships parallel those in infancy. Adults with secure attachments find it relatively easy to get close to others, are comfortable depending on others and having others depend on them, and tend to form relationships based on trust, friendship and positive emotions, relationships which they believe can be long-lasting. By contrast, adults with avoidant attachments question the possibility or durability of romantic love. They may have relationships based on fears of closeness, finding it difficult to trust others completely or to allow themselves to depend on others. Finally, adults with anxious/ ambivalent attachments may struggle to find what they consider to be true love. They find that others are reluctant to get as close as they would like, and may worry that their partner does not love them or will not want to stay with them (Hazan and Shaver 1987).
Theories of personality within psychology also offer insights into family formation, arguing that personality characteristics play a central role in the selection of marriage partners (Botwin, Buss and Shackelford 1997). Theories of assortative mating contend that people tend to seek mates who are similar to themselves (Blackwell and Lichter 2000). Also, most individuals tend to want certain personality characteristics such as emotional stability, agreeableness, dependability and openness in a mate (Larsen and Buss 2002).
5.3 Family structure
Many forms of family structure exist in modern Western societies today: the traditional two-parent heterosexual family, sole parent, step- and blended, foster and gay families. However, family functioning appears to be far more important than family structure to the well-being of family members and to children’s development. A universal issue in all families is the presence or absence of secure attachments within the family.
The impact of different family structures has been addressed in a large number of studies (see for example Jacobsen, Mays, Crawford, Annesley, Christoffel, Johnston and Durbin 2002). In general, being raised in a sole parent or step-family (as compared with being raised in a family with both biological parents) or in an “out of family” placement, is correlated with poorer outcomes on a wide range of measures (Baker, Pryor and Shirley 2000, Haveman and Wolfe 1993, Rodgers and Pryor 1998).
Research suggests that the relationship between sole parenthood and adverse outcomes is not primarily a direct causal one, but is explained by other factors associated with, but not exclusive to, sole parenthood (Baker et al 2000, Landy and Kwan Tam 1998). Particular family structures are not themselves a problem—there are many diverse family structures that can function well for parents and children alike—but the instability of relationships, households and families that accompanies change is a great threat to the well-being of children (Pryor and Rogers 2001).
