During the first meeting of the class, we'll start out with the usual introductory things (going over the syllabus, taking roll) and then watch a short video to get in the frame of mind for studying family stress. We will then take up the first major topic of the course, the history of family stress research, as summarized immediately below...
One of the historical milestones in family stress research is publication of the 1949 book Families Under Stress: Adjustment to the Crises of War Separation and Reunion, by Reuben Hill (1912-1985; Ph.D., 1938, from right here at the University of Wisconsin).
The book presents a study begun in 1945, using a representative sample of Iowa families with a member going off to World War II (the Selective Service helped to draw the sample).
Participating families completed a large number of questionnaire measures, assessing adjustment to both the initial separation and later reunion. Some of the adjustment-to-separation items completed by wives were as follows (p. 406): "From my husband's letters and furloughs I have been able to understand all the changes the service has made in him" and "Everything would be all right if it weren't for the women [the] men in the service meet, the prostitutes, the foreign women, and even the WACS -- I don't trust them."
Respondents were instructed to check off items if they "appear to describe the situation in your case." Higher scores were assigned for better self-reported adjustment. A "yes" to the first item above was worth 5 points for good adjustment, whereas agreement with the second was assigned 1 point.
The first figure below describes five stages of the separation process, whereas the second figure attempts to depict the frequencies with which different sequences of adjustment to separation were exhibited. These diagrams, some of which look like square-root signs and others of which look like EKG readings, map the falls and rises in adjustment. You can click on any image to enlarge it.
Other diagrams (not shown here) depict nine stages, with events associated with the family's reunion included.
Hill also compared the families along various dimensions (such as social class in the bar graph below) to see which characteristics were linked to good adjustment. In the bar graph, the white bars represent adjustment to separation, whereas the black bars depicted adjustment to reunion.
Here are some other selected results for adjustment to separation and reunion (results follow the same trend for separation and reunion, unless noted otherwise; > indicates one group having better adjustment than another group).
Social class: Upper > Middle > Lower
Wives' Neuroticism/Anxiety: Low > Medium > High
Reasons for marriage (patterns different for adjustment to separation and to reunion)
Adjustment to separation: Social pressure > Companionship and common interest > Escape > Impulse > Other (Hill notes regarding the respondents who claim to have married out of social-pressure,"possibly that separation for them may have constituted a temporary release from a marriage held together primarily by external controls," p. 114)
Adjustment to reunion: Companionship and common interest > Escape > Impulse > Social Pressure > Other
Years of parenting: Virtually no differences in adjustment to separation or reunion based on whether respondents had been parents for 2-5.9 years, 6-9.9, or 10+.
Number of children (patterns different for adjustment to separation and to reunion)
Adjustment to separation: Fewer children (1 minimum) better adjustment
Adjustment to reunion: 1 child > 3-4 > 2 > 5+
Family integration (cohesion): High and medium similar to each other, and both far better off than low
Family adaptability: High > Very High > Moderate > Low
Wife working outside home: Full-time and not working extremely similar, both better off than with part-time employment
Hill's extensive visual depictions of data from the study were, as it turns out, ahead of their time. Fifty years later (1999), an American Psychological Association Task Force on statistics recommended (among other things) greater use of graphical presentations.
The book also contains qualitative case studies of how families reacted to separation and reunion. I will read some of these to you in class.
I'm not expecting the class to memorize each and every finding in detail. Rather, I just wanted to illustrate what some of the early studies of family stress were looking at.
2 comments:
I can't help but notice that no one seemed to consider the stress families were under until they started to fall apart. It's like everything else I suppose, we don't know problems exist until something goes seriously wrong. It seems we're finally at a point where we can apply techniques to prevent more serious problems.
In response to chapter 1, on pg 11, Boss states that ...families' strong sense of spirituality resulted in more positive attitudes, hope, and optimism when the families were confronted with stressful situations.
I think that it is essential to look to God for answers to many of our trials and tribulations that we experience in this life. Usually, those who seek other things, such as, alcohol, drugs and, violence as a way of coping find themselves engaging in unhealthy behavior with the risk of losing everything and everyone that matters to them. I believe that maintaining a relationship with a counselor who provides sound guidance be it pastor, priest, or family therapist, is an ideal solution to coping with day to day stressors and conflicts.
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