Measurement of Family Affective Structure

Abstract

The Inventory of Family Feelings (IFF), a self-administered measure of interpersonal affect, maps a family's affective structure showing patterns of conflicted relationships and alliances. Three studies demonstrate that IFF scores have high reliability, construct and concurrent validity, and potential utility in family research. Families with identified patients and couples in marital therapy score less positively toward each other than control families, most of the negative affect in such families centers on and emanates from the identified patients, IFF scores are positively correlated with ratings of affect based on audio recordings of marital interaction and with Locke Wallace Short Marital Adjustment Test scores, and IFF scores and MMPI pathology indicies are negatively correlated.

Risk and Protective Factors in Mothers With a History of Incarceration: Do Relationships Buffer the Effects of Trauma Symptoms and Substance Abuse History?

“…The women's perceived quality of relationships with their children was defined by the presence of positive and negative feelings experienced with regard to the target child (Lowman, 1980;Poehlmann, 2005). This relationship was assessed by utilizing the Inventory of Family Feelings (IFF) (Lowman, 1980).…”

“…This relationship was assessed by utilizing the Inventory of Family Feelings (IFF) (Lowman, 1980). Possible scores for this measure range from 0 and 38.…”

“…The IFF (Lowman, 1980) was administered to all participants in this study, to assess the mothers' perceived quality of relationships with a target child. The target child was defined as the child with whom the mother felt the closest.…”

“…Higher scores indicate a more positive affecthigher quality of relationship, and lower scores illustrate a more negative affectflower quality of relationship. Lowman (1980) suggested that scores fall into three categories: low (0-23), middle (24-31), and high (32-38).…”

“…Upon agreement to participate, a Confidential Instrument Package was counter-balanced and distributed. This package included a demographic questionnaire, the TSC-40 (Briere & Runtz, 1989), the SMAST (Selzer, 1971), the Rosenberg SelfEsteem Scale (1965), the RHI (Liang et al, 2002), the CES-D (Radloff, 1977), the MF' DQ , the DAST-10 (Skinner, 1982), and the IFF (Lowman, 1980) Finally, collected surveys were stored in a locked file cabinet that was accessible to only this researcher and this researcher's advisor, Dr. Ben Beitin. All data was stored electronically on a password-protected USB memory key that was kept in the locked file cabinet.…”