The Correlates of Healthy Family Functioning: The Role of Consensus and Conflict in the Practice of Family Therapy

Abstract

The present study explores the relative importance of individual, dyadic and triadic measures of intrafamily functioning in predicting family health. Using self‐report data from 78 families, it was found that dyadic measures pertaining to marital quality and parent‐child relationships were more powerful predictors than either individual measures of emotional maturity, anxiety, self‐esteem or locus of control, or triadic measures of the families' hierarchical alignments. The study also found that while mothers' and fathers' assessments of intrafamily functioning were more important than the childrens' (except for the childrens' view of parent‐child relationships), the parents differed in that marital quality was more important to the mothers' evaluations of the family unit while parent‐child relationships were more important to the fathers'. Compositely, the findings suggest that family health is a complex multidimensional phenomenon, and that change in a particular dimension of family life may not necessarily be greeted with consensual validation or repudiation by all family members.

Individual and dyadic predictors of family functioning in a chinese context

“…This observation is in sharp contrast to the ndings reported by Green and Kolevzon (1986), in which only children's report of self-esteem was related to children's report of family functioning. The present ndings also suggest that relative to general psychological morbidity, positive mental health in children (life satisfaction, life purpose and hope) might have greater in uence on family functioning as perceived by different members in the family.…”

“…First, despite the fact that there are different views on the relative in uences of individual and dyadic factors on overall family competence and the existing ndings are equivocal, there are few empirical studies of the related issues. Green and Kolevzon (1986) remarked that the related literature is ''sparse' ' (p. 76), and it seems that the validity of this comment remains true a decade later. In a recent review of the relationship between the whole family and the family subsystems, Cox and Paley (1997) pointed out that the related research ndings in this area is limited.…”

“…Second, although there are some attempts to examine the relationships between personal or dyadic functioning and family competence, few researchers have employed multiple measures of individual or dyadic functioning in a single study. In addition, probably with the exception of the study conducted by Green and Kolevzon (1986), few attempts have been carried out to examine the relationships between both individual and dyadic functioning and family functioning in a single study. Obviously, the inclusion of measures of individual and dyadic functioning in a single study is needed if one wishes to assess the relative importance of individual and dyadic functioning factors on family functioning.…”

“…Feldman, Wentzel, Weinberger, and Munson (1990) similarly found that mothers' marital adjustment was related to overall family functioning. Concerning parent-child relationships, Green and Kolevzon (1986) reported that parent-child communication was an important predictor of overall family competence perceived by fathers, mothers, and adolescent children. Other researchers similarly have found that marital quality and communication within the family are important factors affecting overall family competence (e.g., Westley & Epstein, 1970).…”

“…The third limitation of the existing studies is that the related sample sizes are generally small: Green and Kolevzon (1986) employed only 78 families to examine the in uence of 10 individual measures and 14 dyadic and triadic measures in their pioneering study; the ndings reported by Heaven et al (1996) were based on 183 Australian adolescents; Feldman et al (1990) used 50 mothers and 43 fathers with sixth-grade sons to examine the link between marital satisfaction and family functioning. One obvious problem associated with studies with such small samples is power.…”