Family Circumplex Model

Family Circumplex Model (David Olsen)

• Flexibility, cohesion, and communication skills serve as the central variables that define family interactions
• Flexibility and cohesion are curvilinear

Flexibility and Cohesion

• Flexibility and cohesion were most important in a cluster analysis of 200 concepts in family therapy
• Flexibility and cohesion predict how relationships in families adapt with time and stress
• Flexibility and cohesion are used as a clinical tool to identify and map family relationships

Dimensions

• Primary dimensions of the Circumplex Model include cohesion, flexibility, and communication
• Balance autonomy and connection by achieving cohesion in family relationships
• Sub-dimensions of cohesion include disengaged, separated, connected, cohesive, and enmeshed

Enmeshment

• Common reasons for enmeshment are jealousy (fear of losing partner/child) and personification
• Personification involves a family member's actions reflecting one's self, leading to controlling behavior

Flexibility

• Flexibility involves adapting to changes in leadership, roles, and rules
• Flexibility involves minimizing demands if they threaten stability
• Flexibility can involve being rigid, structured, flexible, or chaotic
• Most families resist change

Communication

• Active listening, "I" statements, self-disclosure, clarity, empathy, respect, communal coping, and matching social support needs are examples of communication skills
• Communication is enmeshed within flexibility and cohesion

Family Dynamics

• Balanced families function in the middle on all dimensions
• Balanced families are more cohesive and flexible under stress
• Balanced families can conduct healthy family functioning
• Balanced families function effectively across life spans

Mid-Range Families

• Mid-range families may be extreme on one dimension but balanced on the other
• If family expectations or cultural norms support more extreme patterns, it could be functional

Unbalanced Families

• Unbalanced families have extreme levels on both dimensions
• Only 8% of families are healthy
• Rigidity and disengagement of family members can result in unbalancedness

Affection Exchange Theory (Floyd)

• The need and capacity for affection are inborn
• Humans form and maintain their social bonds largely through the provision and receipt of affection
• Affection is adaptive for human viability and fertility
• Humans vary in their tolerance for giving and receiving affection
• Affection generally helps combat stress and is stress-reducing

Affection

• Studies have linked affectionate communication to relational and communication satisfaction
• Studies have linked affectionate communication to love, liking, closeness, and sexual satisfaction, and lower emotional negativity
• Kissing predicts better-perceived stress, relationship satisfaction, and lower serum cholesterol

Family Affection

• Heterosexual sons received more verbal, nonverbal, and supportive affection from their fathers than homosexual sons
• Fathers are more affectionate with biological sons than stepsons or adoptive sons

Expressing Affection

• Giving and receiving affection are stress-reducing and help improve health
• Expressing affection might have stronger effects
• Affectionate writing and increasing hugging are some ways to express affection

Genetic Affection

• Shared affection has stronger effects on health than giving or receiving alone
• 45% of the variance in trait-expressed affectionate communication was heritable & 21% of the variance in trait-received affection was heritable
• Genotype had a stronger influence on trait affectionate communication for those with low attachment security

Closeness and Maturity

• Closeness tends to increase with age and maturity
• Parents tend to view their relationships with their offspring more positively than their children
• Family relationships often involve love/hate relationships

Expressing Affection

• Ways of expressing affection are often intergenerational, especially if close to one's parents
• Closeness between children and their parents enhances children's well-being and communication competence later in life

Multiple Ways of Affection

• There are multiple ways of expressing affection & defining closeness.
• There are multiple ways of expressing affection & defining closeness, including aggression, sarcasm, actions vs words, gender differences, cultural differences, and the need to be told

Communication Standards

• Early research suggested that self-disclosure is health-promoting
• Later work by Parks (1980) and Bochner (1982) promoted the importance of regulating information
• verbal and cognitive rumination can be stopped with social support and reframing
• Self-disclosure is often relational

Beneficial Avoidance

• Topics commonly avoided in parent-adolescent/young adult relationships include sex, relationships, substance use, mental health, failure events, social media activity, and body image
• Parents may avoid talking about risky behaviors due to lack of communication efficacy, belief that it encourage risky behaviors, and lack of knowledge and language
• Communication should be viewed as natural conversations, a process over time, bi-directional, a series of talks, contemporary, and inductive

Family Secrets

• Intra-family secrets (within family) vs. whole family secrets (from outsiders)

Types of Secrets

• Taboo: Stigmatized or condemned by society -E.g., substance abuse, physical abuse, adultery
• Rule violations: Breaking family rules -E.g., cohabitation, partying
• Conventional secrets: Inappropriate for discussion -E.g., dating partners, health problems, grades

Implications of Secrets

• Valence, intimacy, identification, importance of secret, and willingness to reveal are conditions under which secrets are revealed
• Expectations: After a secret is revealed, reported better reaction than expected improves self-esteem
• Avoiding negative reactions makes you less likely to reveal
• Lack of openness and transparency can lead to a power struggle and cycle of concealment in families

Protection

• Reasons for avoidance and secret keeping are self-protection, Relationship-protection, Social inappropriateness, Lack of responsiveness, Lack of closeness/or to foster close bonds, and privacy
• Secret keeping can lead to relationship dissatisfaction and less closeness

Risk Revelation Model (RRM)

• The Risk Revelation Model (RRM) supports against theoretical arguments for maintaining and potentially enhances relationships

Communication Patterns

• Traditional couples do everything together including finishing each other's sentences
• Other communication tendencies may include being highly responsive, not assertive, and report being the most satisfied
• Traditional gender roles involves interdependence.

Independent Couples

• Independent couples stress their individuality
• independent couples believes in sharing and companionship, but sharing should not threaten autonomy
• Independent couples see themselves as very flexible and more adrogynous

Seperate Couples

• Separate Couples may have a relationship based on convenience rather than love or closeness
• Separate Couples Each want their own physical and mental space
• Separate couples Have relatively traditional roles
• Separate couples May see the relationship as part of normal life rather than of love or emotions
• Separate Couples are conflict avoidant and have verbal sharing not valued

Communication

Family Communication Patterns (FCP) is comprised of conversation orientation and conformity orientation

• Conversational Orientation: All family members are encouraged to participate freely in interactions about wide array of topics, Produces less conflict avoidance and more willingness to seek social support, Less depression/dissatisfaction

Conformity

• Conformity Orientation: Create a climate that stresses homogeneity of attitudes, values, and beliefs, Produces greater conflict avoidance and less venting of negative feelings, More depression/dissatisfaction
• Conversation orientation is positively associated with interpersonal skills, parental confirmation, and constructive conflict management skills
• Conformity orientation is inversely associated with variable
• Some level of conformity is good in families

Types of Families

• Consensual: High in conversational and conformity orientation with tension between exploring new ideas
• Pluralistic: High in conversational and low in conformity with open discussions for fostering independence
• Protective: Low is conversational and high in conformity with an emphasis on obedience and an avoidance of high conflict
• Laissez Faire: Low is conversational and low in conformity with few interactions and being “emotionally divorced"

Marriage

• Married people, on average, are happier, healthier, and less stressed than unmarried or cohabiting people
• Unhappy marriages tend to suffer that unmarried, divorced, or widowed individuals
• Marital satisfaction tends to be unstable and follows a U-shaped curve
• Cross-sectional studies that find parents less happily married than nonparents tend to be marked by 3 problems

Measurement

• You must establish cause and effect over time.
• Do not use Nonparental comparison groups
• There is an underrepresentation of women with studies measuring commitment to jobs and more of a shift to the day to day needs
• Transitions to parenthood takes many forms
• There is a high importance of measuring satisfaction at baseline

Challenges

• Single mothers report less happiness and more sadness, stress and fatigue than partnered mothers
• Meta-Analysis found increased conflict, negative communication and problem intensity, stress, and decreased intimacy of first time parents lasts through third year
• It is found that couples where both partners are insecurely attached have most difficulty in affect regulation, communication, and satisfaction
• There is a need to investigate long periods of time and include analysis of both parental satisfaction vs marital satisfaction

Balancing

• Numerous dual-career households have led to conflicts
• Challenges of balancing work and family, concern and guilt about their family arrangement, challenging of renegotiating gender expectations and "Daily" challenges at home and work
• Assume that those who have the luxury to have a decision not to work (middle and upper-class bias?)
• Importance in balancing work and family are valuing time, Partnership, reduce work-to-family spillover stress and burnout, Maintaining work boundaries

Parenting Styles

• Parenting styles can be responsive and demanding
• Authoritative parents are both demanding and responsive
• Authoritative parents Monitor & impart clear standards, assertive, supportive and provide rationales

Permissive Parenting

• Permissive parents are nondirective, nontraditional, lenient, don't require mature behavior and avoid confrontation
• 2 types of permissiveness: Neglectful - low responsiveness and Indulgent - high responsiveness and can be considered best in society

Authoritarian Parenting

• Authoritarian parents are Demanding and directive, but not responsive
• Authoritarian parents tend to be status oriented and expect order to be followed
• Authoritative parenting has inductive messages
• Authoritative parenting enhances children's social skills, less deviance, more acceptance, self-esteem, academic achievement and better relationships

Social Learning Theory

• Consists of direct experience & vicarious experience
• Requirements for social learning to occur, attention, retention, production processes, and motivation
• Modeling vs. Compensation