Family Communication Theory Research Articles

Konsep Keluarga Sakinah pada Pasangan yang tidak Memiliki Keturunan di Desa Malimpung Kecamatan Patampanua Kabupaten Pinrang

Forming a sakinah family is basically the awareness of the couple. This research aims to examine the concept of the sakinah family in married couples who do not have children in Malimpung Village, Patampanua District, Pinrang Regency, which is specifically reflected in two problem formulations, namely How do couples who do not have children understand the concept of the sakinah family in Patampanua District, Pinrang Regency and How does a childless couple in Malimpung Village try to form the Sakinah Family? This research uses field research with a descriptive qualitative approach. Data collection was carried out by means of observation, interviews and documentation of seven couples in Malimpung Village, which were analyzed by reducing data, presenting data as well as verifying and drawing conclusions. The theories used are functional structural theory and family communication theory. The results of this research show that every couple considers that children have very important value in the family, because children are also the hope of every couple in the family. Married couples who do not yet have children understand the concept of a sakinah family, namely a family that is able to maintain family harmony, be peaceful, comfortable, live in harmony with the family, communicate with each other, practice religious teachings, understand each other, and understand each other's strengths and weaknesses.

The Association between Aspect of Family Communication Dimentions Beforehand, To, and Throughout The COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in the Indonesian government implementing work-from-home and Distance Learning (PJJ) regulations that affect how people communicate with others, how close they feel to each other, and how they resolve family problems. This research aims to analyze the different types of communication within the family that influence the level of closeness and differences of opinion before, during, and after the COVID-19 pandemic. This research uses quantitative research methods, collecting data through survey questionnaires and using Statistical Structural Equation Modeling(SEM) as the primary technique for data analysis. The results of this study show substantial changes in communication and conflict patterns in families before and after the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, no significant differences were found before and during the pandemic in the relationship between family communication patterns and family intimacy, as well as between family intimacy and family conflict. Family intimacy is essential in mediating the relationship between family communication patterns and conflict. This study shows that increasing levels of family communication, characterized by a lack of understanding of the roles of individual family members and a focus on dialogical communication and equality, can give rise to disputes that weaken unity and harmony within the family unit. This research contributes to the field of family communication theory by showing the impact of external circumstances, such as a pandemic, on internal family dynamics.

The “Bossman” Factor Influence on Family Communication: The Perception of Married Women

The “bossman” factor, the “headship role of men” in Africa, is entrenched in the social fabric of Africa. Nonetheless, there is little attention to how this headship role of men in the family influences family communication. The present study explored the influence of the headship role of men in family communication. The researchers selected 10 participants from the Cape Coast Metropolis and elicited data through interviews. Using family communication theory as a guide, the researchers analyzed the transcribed data and came out with the following findings. Firstly, the headship role of men serves as a barrier to family communication because men serve as the final authority in decision-making, conflict resolution, and children’s openness. Secondly, the researchers discovered that married women adopt coping strategies such as effective listening, sex appeals, and third-party counselling. Finally, the study revealed that sociocultural variables such as ethnicity, religion, and gender greatly influence the perpetuation of men’s headship role, thus the’ bossman role’ in family communication. The researchers recommend that counsellors should consider guiding husbands to be considerate in dealing with family communication issues because men overstretching their headship role affect effective family communication.

Communication of Parent-Child among Gen Z: A Preliminary Study

Family communication patterns expose family members, especially teenagers, to various types of behavior. A good and effective communication strategy will encourage good behavior among teenagers. vice versa, if family communication is not good, it can affect their behavior. Therefore, it is important for a family to know their communication patterns in order to form a happy family. This study is done in order to find out the communication of parent-child among Generation in Malaysia. Conversation and conformity orientation and the four variables (Consensual, Pluralistic, Protective and Laissez-Faire) are included to assist in our study. This study used family communication theory as the foundation for this study. 67 out of 70 respondents were selected after a thorough check of the targeted audience. A survey has been made for Generation Z in Malaysia ages from 12 to 30 to identify the types of families they are in. Surprisingly, this study found out that respondents belong to a pluralistic family group.

Parental Mediation of Cell Phone Use and Adolescent Autonomy

Adolescents’ cell phone use occurs during significant developmental shifts in parent–adolescent relationships, as adolescents’ drives for independence can conflict with parents’ desires for connection. This study examines parental mediation of cell phone use within an interpersonal and family communication framework. Previous mediation research has not examined connections with social penetration theory, uncertainty reduction theory, relational dialectics theory, and communication privacy management, each of which has conceptual links to parental mediation. Cell phone mediation reflects the broader phenomenon of disclosure in interpersonal relationships. The extent to which individuals disclose information is influenced by personal desires for autonomy and connection, privacy and intimacy, which are components of interpersonal and family communication theories. This study explores the notion that families develop norms and expectations about cell phones that might influence parental mediation. Results indicate that perceptions of parent–child relationships and family expectations for cell phone use both significantly influence mediation.

Contracts and communication among family members: Business succession from a contractual view

ABSTRACT During family business succession, much information has to be exchanged among the family members involved, contacts have to be transferred, and expectations must be negotiated among the family members. How this exchange of information occurs remains unclear but can be a key success factor during the postsuccession period as information is critical for decision making. By conducting 14 in-depth case studies and considering institutional contract theory and family communication theory, we find that situations arise in which involved members of the entrepreneurial family have different levels of information and different expectations of one another. This study contributes to the family business succession literature through an intrafamily business succession model in which two types of contracts organize information exchange among the involved family members—(psychological implicit) family contracts and (explicit) business contracts. Both contracts serve the purpose of exchanging information in the family and business systems and aligning expectations such that the family and the family business remain capable of operating.

Performative and subversive negotiations of face in parent–child communication about childbearing choice across generations

ABSTRACTSome women who previously told others they never wanted to have children ultimately do become mothers. These women negotiate their own and their children’s childbearing identities. Using performative face theory, a critical poststructural interpersonal and family communication theory of identity and difference, this study analyzed intergenerational shifts in parent–child communication between families-of-origin (when participants were children) and families-of-creation (when participants were parents). Most participants described how their parents articulated either pronatalist face threats or antinatalist face support, which constrained possibilities for their childbearing identities. Participants, however, stressed that they have talked or plan to talk to their own children in a different, more neutral-natalist way by sharing their stories, emphasizing childbearing agency, and quietly desiring grandchildren. Negotiations of childbearing face are therefore informed by—and in turn sustain, resist, or sometimes subvert—discursive articulations of power/knowledge that circulate throughout culture about (never) having children.

From “I’m Never Having Children” to Motherhood: A Critical Analysis of Silence and Voice in Negotiations of Childbearing Face

ABSTRACTWomen who once communicated themselves as permanently childless/childfree by choice but then became mothers must negotiate a drastic shift in childbearing identity. To study this identity work, the present study adopts performative face theory, a critical interpersonal and family communication theory that places Goffman’s theory of face in conversation with Butler’s theory of performativity. In this theorization, negotiations of face sediment oppositional identities through the reiterative power of discursive and bodily acts. Critical-qualitative analysis of in-depth interviews with mothers who once told others they never wanted to have children demonstrates how the facework strategies of voice and silence allow women to perform the “sincerely childfree” face and then the “good (future) mother” face. These negotiations of face are enabled and constrained by relations of power that define identity categories. Although these negotiations of face are often relationally harmonious, they also reify power/knowledge about motherhood as intensive and positive.

Critical Theorizing in Family Communication Studies: (Re)Reading Relational Dialectics Theory 2.0

Despite modest growth in interpretive research, the study of family communication remains predominantly situated within postpositivism to the relative neglect of critical approaches. We argue that this inattention derives partly from the limited number of critically inflected family communication theories. In this article, we seek to encourage critical family communication theorizing. We do so by explicating the critical underpinnings of the recent rearticulation of relational dialectics theory, RDT version 2.0 (Baxter, 2011). We frame our (re)reading in terms of critical family communication considerations of power; connection of private familial spheres to larger public discourses and structures; and inherent openness to critique, resistance, and transformation of the status quo (Suter, 2016).

Performative face theory: A critical perspective on interpersonal identity work

ABSTRACTPower operates not only through ideological and institutional control, but also through everyday interpersonal communication practices that sediment what is and ought to be. However, critical theorizing about power remains scarce within the sub-fields of interpersonal and family communication. To answer questions about operations of power in interpersonal identity work, performative face theory is set forth, which places Erving Goffman’s theorization of face in conversation with Judith Butler’s theory of performativity. Performative face theory suggests that discursive acts cited or repeated in negotiations of face constitute and sometimes subvert naturalized identity categories. Four theoretical principles are provided and an empirical example of childbearing identity is presented. Finally, implications of this novel critical interpersonal and family communication theory are discussed.

A longitudinal study of parental anti-substance-use socialization for early adolescents’ substance-use behaviors

ABSTRACTThe present study examines the role of communication in shaping norms and behaviors with significant personal and societal consequences. Based on primary socialization theory and the general theory of family communication, parental anti-substance-use socialization processes were hypothesized to influence early adolescents’ substance-use norms and behaviors. Using longitudinal data (N = 1059), the results revealed that parent-adolescent prevention communication about substance use in the media and parental anti-substance-use injunctive norms were positively associated with early adolescents’ personal anti-substance-use norms, which, in turn, led to decreases in recent alcohol, cigarette, and marijuana use. It was also found that family expressiveness and structural traditionalism positively related to the hypothesized association between parental socialization processes and early adolescents’ norms and behaviors.

A Theoretical Comparison of Relational Maintenance and Closeness as Mediators of Family Communication Patterns in Parent-Child Relationships

This investigation sought to elaborate Koerner and Fitzpatrick’s theory of family communication by testing two theoretical models of family communication patterns (FCP), child-to-parent inclusion of the other in the self (IOS), and relational maintenance. Participants included 374 young adults recruited from two universities in different regions of the United States. Results best supported a model positioning maintenance as a mediator of the association between FCP and IOS, as compared to an alternative model with IOS as a mediator of the association between FCP and maintenance. These findings extend Koerner and Fitzpatrick’s theory by highlighting communication as the means by which overarching family schemas influence relationship-specific schemas; additionally, they commend the self-expansion model as a useful theoretical approach to relational maintenance behavior in family contexts.

Family Communication Patterns and Communication Competence as Predictors of Online Communication Attitude: Evaluating a Dual Pathway Model

This manuscript reports an empirical study investigating the extent to which family communication patterns predict attitudes toward online communication within interpersonal relationships. Grounded in both Koerner and Fitzpatrick's (2002a) generalized family communication theory and Bandura's (1977) social cognitive theory, structural equation modeling tests a model whereby family communication patterns act as both direct and indirect (i.e., via communication competence) predictors. Results find support for both theoretical perspectives, albeit more strongly for Koerner and Fitzpatrick's approach. Practical application of these results suggests that high conversation and moderate conformity orientations most likely produce healthy attitudes toward online communication in young adult children.

Family Strength and Satisfaction as Functions of Family Communication Environments

Using Koerner and Fitzpatrick's general theory of family communication, this study examined the extent to which three dimensions of family communication environments (i.e., expressiveness, structural traditionalism, and conflict avoidance) were associated with family strengths and satisfaction. Participants included 426 young adults from first-marriage families. Results indicated that family expressiveness was positively associated with family strength and satisfaction, whereas structural traditionalism and conflict avoidance were inversely associated with both outcomes. Collectively, all three dimensions accounted for 43% of the variance in family strength, although expressiveness and structural traditionalism emerged as the only significant predictors in the model. Likewise, family expressiveness, structural traditionalism, and an interaction effect of expressiveness and traditionalism accounted for 43% of the variance in family satisfaction.

Exploring the Communication of Evangelical Families: The Association Between Evangelical Gender Role Ideology and Family Communication Patterns

This study examines the relationship between the Evangelical gender role ideologies termed Complementarianism and Egalitarianism and conversation- and conformity-orientation communication patterns stemming from the general theory of family communication. A nonrandom group (N = 124) of Evangelical parents were surveyed using a cross-sectional, self-report survey design. Specific differences were discovered in the perceptions of communication in families for individuals holding conservative Complementarian and progressive Egalitarian gender role ideologies. Evangelical parents who endorsed a more Egalitarian family gender role ideology reported greater use of conversation-oriented communication patterns in their families whereas respondents holding a more Complementarian family gender role ideology reported more use of conformity-oriented communication patterns in their families.

The Family communication sourcebook

Preface - Lynn H. Turner and Richard West Introduction: A Reflective View on the Development of Family Communication - L. Edna Rogers Part I: Defining and Interpreting the Family 1. Diversity's Impact on Defining the Family: Discourse-Dependence and Identity - Kathleen M. Galvin 2. Defining the Family Through Relationships - Kory Floyd, Alan C. Mikkelson, and Jeff Judd Part II: Theoretical and Methodological Considerations 3. Theories and Methatheories to Explain Family Communication: An Overview - Teresa C. Sabourin 4. Established and Promising Models for Family Communication Research - Deborah S. Ballard-Reisch and Daniel J. Weigel 5. Methodological Approaches to the Study of Family Communication - Sandra Metts and Emily Lamb Part III: Internal Family Dynamics Storytelling 6. Family Storytelling as Communication Practice - Kristin M. Langellier and Eric E. Peterson 7. Cover Stories as Family Communication Practice - Theresa L. Hest, Judy C. Pearson, and Jeffrey T. Child Conflict 8. Mulling About Family Conflict and Communication: What We Know and What We Need to Know - Michael E. Roloff and Courtney Waite Miller 9. Family Conflict and Adolescents - Patricia Noller, Sharon Atkin, Judith A. Feeney, and Candida Peterson Intimacy 10. That Dear Octopus: A Family-Based Model of Intimacy - Megan K. Foley and Steve Duck 11. When Friendly Advice Becomes a Privacy Dilemma for Pregnant Couples: Applying Communication Privacy Management Theory - Sandra Petronio and Susanne M. Jones 12. Orchestrating and Directing Domestic Potential Through Communication: Toward a Positive Reframing of Discipline - Thomas J. Socha 13. Parental Physical Negative Touch and Child Noncompliance in Abusive, Neglectful, and Comparison Families: A Meta-Analysis of Observational Studies - Steven R. Wilson, Xiaowei Shi, Lisa Tirmenstein, Alda Norris, and Jessica J. Rack Rituals 14. Family Rituals - Leslie A. Baxter and Dawn O. Braithwaite 15. Ritual (In)Activity in Postbereaved Stepfamilies - Leah E. Bryant Part IV: External Structural Frameworks Media-Family Interface 16. Implications of Living in a Wired Family: New Directions in Family and Media Research - J. Alison Bryant and Jennings Bryant 17. Cyberkids: The Influence of Mediation and Motivation on Children's Use of and Attitudes Toward the Internet - Alison Alexander, Seok Kang, and Yeora Kim Work-Family Interface 18. Employees Without Families: Discourses of Family as an External Constraint to Work-Life Balance - Kristen Lucas and Patrice M. Buzzanell 19. Communicating Contradictions: (Re)Producing Dialectical Tensions Through Work, Family, and Balance Socialization Messages - Caryn E. Medved and Elizabeth E. Graham Religion-Family Interface 20. Relational Dynamics in Interfaith Marriage - Patrick C. Hughes and Fran C. Dickson 21. Women Belong in the...Pulpit: Family and Professional Tensions in the Lives of Southern Baptist Women Pastors - Helen Sterk and Rebecca Kallemeyn School-Family Interface 22. Family-School Relationships: Theoretical Perspectives and Concerns - Pamela Cooper 23. The Impact of Parents' Use of Hurtful Messages on Adult Children's Self-Esteem and Educational Motivation - Scott A. Myers, Paul Schrodt, and Christine E. Rittenour Health Care-Family Interface 24. Interrelations Between Family Communication and Health Communication - Loretta L. Pecchioni, Teresa L. Thompson, and Dustin J. Anderson 25. Dialectical Tensions in Families Experiencing Acute Health Issues: Stroke Survivors' Perceptions - Donna R. Pawlowski Epilogue: The Future of Family Communication Theory and Research - Mary Anne Fitzpatrick Author Index Subject Index About the Editors About the Contributors

Family Communication Schemata and the Circumplex Model of Family Functioning

Using Koerner and Fitzpatrick’s general theory of family communication, this study extends Olson’s circumplex model of family functioning by examining the degree to which three dimensions of family communication schemata (i.e., expressiveness, structural traditionalism, and conflict avoidance) facilitate family cohesion and adaptability. Participants included 426 young adults from first‐marriage families who completed a series of survey measures. Results indicated that family expressiveness was positively associated with family cohesion and adaptability, whereas structural traditionalism and conflict avoidance were inversely associated with both dimensions of family functioning. Collectively, all three dimensions of family schemata accounted for 51% of the variance in family cohesion, though expressiveness and avoidance emerged as the only significant predictors in the model. Likewise, all three dimensions of family schemata accounted for 53% of the variance in family adaptability, including an interaction effect of expressiveness and structural traditionalism. Finally, discriminant analyses revealed that family expressiveness was primarily responsible for distinguishing among different types of family systems.

Introduction: Advancing Family Communication Theories and Methods

Introduction: Advancing Family Communication Theories and Methods

Section Editor's Note: Re-Invisioning Family Communication Theory Building

(2004). Section Editor's Note: Re-Invisioning Family Communication Theory Building. Journal of Family Communication: Vol. 4, No. 3-4, pp. 153-155.

Section Editor's Note: Re-Invisioning Family Communication Theory Building

Section Editor's Note: Re-Invisioning Family Communication Theory Building