5.4  Family behaviour

For many individuals, the family is the domain in which they seek to fulfil innate drives and achieve many life goals. Membership of a family is more likely to enhance each individual’s emotional, social and physical well-being when there is secure attachment and affection between family members; individuals have some autonomy; roles and responsibilities are clear; there is flexibility in roles and responsibilities; there is absence of chronic unresolved conflict; there is social support from external sources; and levels of stress on the family from external or internal sources are low.

Family systems comprise the ways families organise themselves and how their members interact with one another. Families typically have rules that determine the way they are organised and which help the family define and perform its functions (Minchin 1974). Family systems theory, also known as Bowen theory, provides a framework for examining family situations and behaviours in terms of past relationships and family histories (Bowen 1985). It offers a theory of family behaviour based on the premise that the family can be viewed as a single emotional unit made up of interlocking relationships existing over many generations (Kerr and Bowen 1988).

A key concept in family systems theory is that the family is an emotional system or an emotional unit. The family members are emotionally interdependent and function in reciprocal relationships with one another. Therefore, the functioning of one member cannot be completely understood if taken " … out of the context of the functioning of the people closely involved with him" (Kerr 1988: 37).

Family systems theory argues that an individual’s behaviour throughout the life course is closely related to the functioning in one’s original family. One strength of family systems theory is that it conceptualises “family” as encompassing a variety of family forms, including the immediate family with whom the individual lives, the extended family of relatives and friends, and the community at large.

5.4.1  Sex/gender roles

Theories of gender/sex roles in psychology can be grouped into three broad categories: psychoanalytic theories, socialisation/social learning theories and cognitive theories.

Classical psychological theories of gender come from the psychoanalytic tradition, and find their roots in the work of Freud. For Freud, gender identity is the product of a child’s resolution of an unconscious emotional conflict (the Oedipal conflict for boys and the Electra complex for girls) and involves the formation of identification with the same-sex parent. These theories emphasise the internal psychological processes of children rather than any external factors.

In contrast, social learning theory argues that children acquire their gender identity and learn gender roles through reinforcement that begins at birth, and observing and modelling parental behaviour (Bandura, 1977). Gender identity is the result of the interpretation, evaluation, and internalisation of socially transmitted messages about appropriate gendered behaviour.

Another body of theories come from the cognitive tradition. They argue that once a child learns that he/she is a boy/girl, the child sorts information about behaviour by gender and acts accordingly, so that “children are almost inevitably led by their own cognitive processing to choose gender as the organizing principle for social rules that govern their own and their peers’ behavior” (Bem 1993: 112). Children acquire gender in three stages. The “gender identity” stage occurs when the child is approximately two years old, and involves consistent labelling by physical characteristics and a categorization of people and behaviours by gender. However, understanding of male and female is limited, to the extent that a boy may believe he could become a girl if he wanted to by playing girls’ games or wearing dresses or growing hair long, and vice versa. The second stage, “gender stability”, occurs around four years old, and involves a child understanding that gender is constant across time (but not across different situations). This period is characterised by experimentation, as a child sets out to find out what the gender-concept means. The final stage, “gender constancy” occurs around six years of age, and involves an understanding of the constancy of gender across the life course (both time and situation). As such, in this stage, a child learns that gender does not change with age or size, or with different clothes or hairstyles. Gender schema theory accounts for children's socialisation into gender-specific roles by arguing that the process is mediated, like many other psychological processes, by cognitions (Bem 1993). The child organises information about what is appropriate for its sex on the basis of what society dictates, thus processing incoming information according to the definition of "male" and "female" behaviour current and active in that society at that time.

5.4.2  Child-rearing/Parenting

Classical psychoanalytic theories such as those of Freud and Erikson, and theories such as attachment theory and object relations theory highlight the importance of the roles of parents, particularly mothers, on infant development and subsequent adult relationships. However, there is also a significant body of more modern research and theory on child rearing and parenting.

Social psychology examines how becoming a parent and engaging in child rearing affects the identities of both men and women. Much of this work argues that becoming a parent involves identity conflicts, particularly for women who engage in paid work. This research has found that many women experience significant conflict between their paid work and family identities, and that as a result, women often use strategies to try to reduce the oppositional nature of these two roles (Garey 1999).

Cowan and Cowan (2000) argue that, in addition to the physical changes of pregnancy, motherhood may bring a change in identity as a woman moves from seeing herself first and foremost as a worker to seeing herself also as a mother. Although having a first baby involves changes in identity for both parents, this change is particularly pertinent for women. Men add “father” to their identity, but preserve the other central parts of themselves. When women add “mother” to their sense of self, other identities, such as “worker” and “lover or partner,” may become less primary (Cowan and Cowan 2000: 82). As “mother” begins to take up a bigger piece of their identity, there is less room for all other identities, including “worker.” Similarly, Bailey (1999) found that for women who constructed employment as an opportunity for expression of the self, pregnancy operated as a potential challenge to their working identity.

Parenting styles appear to influence the development of children’s social and instrumental competence, although specific parenting practices are less important in predicting child well-being than is the broad pattern of parenting (Baumrind 1991, Darling 1999, Darling and Steinberg 1993, Weiss and Schwarz 1996).

A typology of parenting styles includes four different categories: authoritative (high control/high warmth); authoritarian (high control/low warmth); permissive (low control/high warmth); and indifferent (low control/low warmth) (Baumrind 1991, Maccoby and Martin 1983). Parenting style has been found to predict child well-being in the domains of social competence, academic performance, psychosocial development, and problem behaviour (Darling 1999). There is general consensus that authoritative parenting is optimal for facilitating positive child development. In contrast, children and adolescents whose parents were indifferent perform most poorly in all domains (Baumrind 1991, Miller, Cowan, Cowan and Hetherington 1993, Weiss and Schwarz 1996). However, there some debate regarding the culture-specific nature of parenting styles (in some cultures an authoritarian parenting style is the norm and exerts no negative effect). In addition, the appropriateness of parenting practices may vary according to the context in which they occur (eg, greater parental control may be more important in high crime neighbourhoods) and the characteristics and disposition of the individual child.[6]

Another, highly contentious, view is that it is peers, not parents, who are “…responsible for the transmission of culture and for environmental modification of children’s personality characteristics.” (Harris 1995) Harris contends that parents have no lasting effects on the personality, intelligence or mental health of their children, and that it is children’s peers who have the greatest impact on children’s personalities. Children adopt certain behaviours in social situations in order to win acceptance from their peers, and that it is these behaviours that remain constant into adulthood. She states “…children learn how to behave outside the home by becoming members of, and identifying with, a social group…It is within these groups…that the psychological characteristics a child is born with become permanently modified by the environment. …The shared environment that leaves permanent marks on children’s personalities is the environment they share with their peers.” (Harris 1995: 50).

5.5  Family dissolution and reformation

5.5.1  Marital dissolution

Psychology contains a significant body of research on marriage and the nature and predictors of marital quality and stability or divorce. A number of theorists argue that marital quality generally declines over time, particularly in its early years (MacDermid, Huston and McHale 1990, Veroff, Douvan and Hatchett 1995). Kurdek (1998) studied 198 first-time married couples and concluded that marital quality declines steadily over the first four years of marriage, and that the nature of change in marital quality and the predictors of that change were very similar for husbands and wives.

Gottman’s theories explore the causal processes that destroy marriages and lead to marital separation and divorce. The level of fondness, unity and “cognitive room” couples had for each other seems to be predictive of enduring marriage, with the ability to infuse marital interactions, especially conflict, with positive affect particularly important for ensuring the long-term success of the relationship (Carrere and Gottman 1999).

There appears to be a specific trajectory toward marital dissolution that involves a number of predicatory variables (Gottman 1993b). The trajectory suggests that couples who divorce typically remain unhappily married for some time, seriously consider dissolution, then actually separate and then divorce. The balance between positive and negative interactions over time can predict it. Stable couples had up to five times as many positive interactions as negative ones, while unstable couples tended to have equal numbers of positive and negative interactions.

Gottman developed a structural model of the “cascade” of behaviours and experiences leading to marital breakdown (Gottman 1993b, Gottman and Krokoff 1989). Based on these cascades, Gottman argues that there are three kinds of stable couples and two types of unstable couples. Stable couples include “volatile” couples (who display both positive and negative emotions frequently, but are generally warm and loving), “validating” couples (who value the “we-ness” of marriage, and tend to listen to each other’s positions before trying to persuade and negotiate) and “conflict-avoiding” couples (who tend to avoid conflict, and minimise the importance of disagreements, creating a calm and somewhat passive marriage). Unstable marriages were termed “hostile” (characterised by frequent and bitter arguments that involved sarcasm and personal attacks) and “hostile/detached” (where the partners were generally emotionally detached, but experienced periodic interactions of attack and defensiveness) (Gottman 1993a).

5.5.2  The impacts of family conflict and dissolution on children

While some children suffer negative consequences from family conflict and marriage dissolution, most children are fine. The key issue is identifying the risk factors involved. Parental conflict, for example, is a critical risk factor for negative outcomes.

While family dissolution may contribute to children’s difficulties, it is not possible to draw a conclusive causal relationship between divorce and the level of child well-being. International reviews and meta-analyses have shown that there are negative consequences for children experiencing parental separation that endure into adulthood (Amato 2000, 2001, Amato and Keith 1991). However, these effects may be due to disruption in children’s attachments and living arrangements (such as, for instance, loss of social networks and changes in school), that also affect children in multiple successive placements in foster care (Nechyba, McEwan and Older-Aguilar 1999). Similarly, as some children from intact families suffer the same difficulties as some children with divorced parents, Amato suggests that it is not divorce in and of itself that produces negative outcomes (Amato and Keith 1991).

Recent large-scale studies of children in the United States and Britain examined the negative effects of parental divorce on children, arguing that children whose parents had divorced displayed more behaviour problems and had lower school achievement than children from intact families. However, the research found that these problems usually appeared before the parents separated; that is, the problems were not due to the trauma of divorce itself but to conditions within troubled families (Smith 2000a). Parental conflict is a major predictor of poor outcomes for children.

Arguing that the children from intact and divorced families were more alike than different, Amato (1994) evaluated the impact of six characteristics commonly thought to cause difficulties for children whose parents were divorcing: parental loss, economic loss, life stress (such as changes in living situations), poor parental adjustment (psychological functioning), lack of parental competence, and exposure to inter-parental conflict. Amato argues that while five of the six factors were associated with children’s difficulties, economic loss was less predictive of children’s well-being. Furthermore, Amato argues that children from intact families could also be exposed to these factors.

Rodgers and Pryor (1998)find that short-term distress at the time of separation is common, but that this usually fades with time and long-term adverse outcomes typically apply only to a minority of children experiencing the separation of their parents. Parental separation can exacerbate existing risk factors through such effects as household income, parenting behaviour, geographical location and parental psychological distress, and can contribute to adverse outcomes through the relationships between parents and children. On the other hand, in a highly conflicted family, separation may lead to an improvement in children’s outcomes (Booth and Amato 2001).

The literature highlights the importance of distinguishing between transitional problems and chronic problems—the former potentially having less impact on children than the latter. On balance, leaving a damaged marriage can potentially lead to better outcomes for children, even though the adjustment is painful, than if children remain in a poorly functioning family situation for a long period. Many families successfully transition from the loss of their original family to a new set of arrangements (Pryor and Rodgers 1998).

5.5.3  The formation of step-families

Entry into blended families leads to a complex set of new relationships, and adjustment difficulties are common. Children in step-families have been found to experience more behavioural problems, higher rates of accidents, more contact with the police, lower self esteem, and early school leaving than children with two biological parents present (Baker et al 2000). Children whose biological mother is cohabiting with a non-biological father do worse on average than children in sole parent families in terms of cognitive, behavioural and psychological outcomes (McLanahan 1997, Nechyba et al 1999).

A significant factor in positive adjustment following any significant family change (such as divorce or the formation of a step-family) is effective parenting (Nicholson 1998). Parenting roles are central to step-family functioning and the adjustment of individual family members (Hobart 1991, Hoge, Andrews and Robinson 1990). Conflicts between parents over child-rearing and parenting problems more generally occur at a higher rate in blended families (Hoge et al 1990). However, if the biological parent and step-parent adopt a consistent and authoritative style of parenting, and if there are few conflicts with the other biological parent (or other family members) then adjustment difficulties are more likely to be short-lived.

Conflict within blended families is not confined to parenting. Remarried couples report relationship difficulties related to finances more than first-time married couples, and are more likely to say that they would marry a different person if they could re-live their lives However, conflict within blended families differs with the presence of children from previous relationships. The presence of the husband’s from a previous relationship seen as “particularly adversive for the spousal relationship” (Hobart 1991: 83).

Girls tend to have more difficulty getting along with step-parents than boys, particularly with step-mothers. This is particularly the case when a girl’s contact with her father is substantially reduced following his remarriage (particularly if the father does not have custody). In addition, girls are more likely than boys to become entangled in loyalty conflicts between their two mother figures. In general the longer a girl lives in a father-step-mother household, the more positive the interaction with the step-mother becomes (Berk 2001).

However, the formation of a step-family can be positive for children if it brings greater adult attention from the addition of caring and effective step-parents or from the child’s social network. How well children adapt is related to the overall quality of family functioning and child-rearing style, factors more critical than the structure of the new family.