Family Relationships and Dynamics

Family Relationships

• Primary family refers to a relationship between two principal parties, such as a husband and wife, lovers, or domestic partners.

Characteristics of Families

• Families have defined roles.
• Heterosexual relationships traditionally divide roles.
• Higher education/socioeconomic class causes changes in traditional gender roles.
• Gay/lesbian couples exhibit flexible role assignments.
• Recognition of responsibilities involves having obligations to one another.
• Shared history and future enable individuals to know, understand, and love each other.
• Shared living spaces, even in long-distance relationships, maintain satisfaction, commitment, and intimacy.

Couple Types

• Traditional couples blend two persons into a single couple.
• Independent couples emphasize individuality.
• Separate couples consider their relationship a matter of convenience.

Family Types

• Conformity orientation includes families with similar attitudes, beliefs, and values, which avoids conflict.
• Low conformity orientation includes divergent attitudes and beliefs where conflict frequently engages.
• Consensual conversation orientation includes high conversation and conformity.
• Protective conversation orientation includes high conformity and low conversation.
• Pluralistic conversation orientation includes low conformity and high conversation.
• Laissez-faire conversation orientation includes low conformity and low conversation.

Family and Communication

• Equality pattern is when each person shares equally in communication transactions.
  • This includes honesty, directness, and freedom of power.
• Balanced split pattern maintains equality, but has authority over different domains, and conflicts are non-threatening.
• Unbalanced split pattern is where one person dominates.
• Monopoly pattern is where one person is seen as the authority, communicating mostly by lecturing.

Families, Culture, Gender, and Technology

• Culture and families engage when voluntarily choosing relationship partners.
• Cultural differences include how relationships dissolve and survive breakups.
  • Catholic marriages may not consider divorce or remarriage.

Gender and Families

• Heterosexual relationships: both partners can initiate and dissolve the relationship.
• Gay/lesbian relationships: accepted in some places and condemned in others.

Technology and Families

• Positive - closer touch
• Negative - little time for family

Revisiting the Filipino Family: A Psychological Perspective

• Maria Caridad H. Tarroja from De La Salle University discussed this topic
• The current definition of Filipino families include changing structures and composition that are brought by urban/global migration, the changing role of women, and other societal issues.

Defining Filipino Family

• Perspective of the State:
  • Article II, Section 12 describes the sanctity of family life and how it is a basic autonomous social institution.
  • Article XV, Section 1 states that family is the foundation of the nation and describes total development.
  • Article 149 Family Code
  • Article 150 describes family relations by blood.
• Sociological Perspective:
  • Filipino families value blood, marriage, and reciprocity, even to distant relatives.
  • They have a hierarchical structure of authority.
  • There is an increase in non-traditional families that are not bound by legal marriage, blood, or adoption.
• Psychological Perspective:
  • They have a concept of "tagasalo" in times of difficulty, which highlights resiliency.
  • There are parent and child-related issues.
  • There is family context and societal issues.

Non-Traditional Families

• Single working mothers
  • Have moderate adversity quotients
• Adoptive families
  • Have more acceptance and support
• Traditional Conceptualization is from studies on non-normative families.

What Matters Most Among Filipino Families

• Physical togetherness/connection, emotional connection, parental involvement, communication, family resiliency, care and support, and intimacy.

Workplace Communication

• Lateral Communication involves messages between equals in the same department.
• Upward Communication occurs from lower levels to higher levels of a hierarchy for job-related activities.
• Downward Communication occurs from higher levels to lower levels in the form of orders.
• Grapevine Messages are messages with no formal lines of communication being established.

Communication Guidelines

• Be respectful of a colleague’s time and territory.
• Follow the rules for effective electronic communication.
• Discard Facebook grammar, spelling, acronyms, and smileys.
• Use an appropriate medium for sending messages.
• Avoid touching (ex: shaking hands).
• Be willing to communicate.
• Understand the variety of purposes the grapevine serves.
• Be mindful of all organizational communications.
• Treat everyone politely.

Networking Relationships

• Using other people helps to solve/offer insights to your problems.
  • Informal networking: find oneself in a new situation or unable to answer questions.
  • Formal networking: systematic and strategic.
• Establishing mutually beneficial relationships.

Mentoring Relationships

• Mentoring helps someone who is less experienced to learn how to achieve their goals.
  • Provides an ideal learning environment.

Romantic Relationships at Work

• Advantages:
  • Interest in the same field, similar training and ambitions, and spending considerable time together.
  • Greater work satisfaction.
• Disadvantages:
  • May generate gossip.
  • Cause problems for management and put pressure on the individuals.

Exploration of primary relationships within families, including characteristics and dynamics, such as defined roles, responsibilities, and shared history. Examination of different couple types, including traditional, independent, and separate couples and family constructs. Analyzing the impact of education and socioeconomic status on family roles.