Adjustment Of Members Research Articles

Individual and Family Factors Related to Psychosocial Adjustment in Stepmother Families With Adolescents

This article presents additional data analyses from an earlier study on risk and resilience factors linked with adjustment in stepfamilies with adolescents. The primary objective addressed how individual and family-level factors impacted adjustment in a sample composed of 3 members (biological father, stepmother, and adolescent) from a subsample of 39 stepmother families. Multiple regression results showed that each stepmother family member's adjustment is affected by both shared and nonshared processes. Results also highlighted the role of triangulations and role ambiguity in the psychosocial adjustment of stepmother family members. This study was approved by the Ethics Bureau of the Faculty of Social Sciences of the Université de Montréal, and was supported financially by graduate scholarships from the Fonds Québécois de Recherche sur la Société et la Culture, and the Conseil de Développement de la Recherche sur la Famille du Québec. The author wishes to thank the participants for their interest and collaboration.

Risk and Resilience Factors Linked with the Psychosocial Adjustment of Adolescents, Stepparents and Biological Parents

Using data from three members (adolescent, stepparent and biological parent) of eighty (80) stepfamilies, the effects of individual, interpersonal and systemic factors in each member's psychosocial adjustment were examined. Using a risk and resilience framework, the primary objective addressed whether different factors would influence each type of stepfamily members' adjustment in similar or different ways. Multiple regression results showed that each stepfamily member's adjustment is affected by both factors shared by all three members, such as the quality of communication and the length of cohabitation, and factors unique to their position in the family, such as parent-child alliances, age and sex of respondent. Results also highlighted the role of reciprocity, contradiction and bi-directional effects in the psychosocial adjustment of stepfamily members.

Family Relocation:

Family domestic relocations for the purpose of employment have increased and indications are that this will continue. Although there are various reasons for relocation which affect its influence, recent research on corporate moves suggests that there are unexplored discrepancies in the findings on how the two genders respond to the relocation. This paper will discuss these differences and will describe how professions unwittingly can contribute to mother and/or wife blaming within the context of family relocation. The results are evident in the literature which produces: (1) a focus on women's responsibility and accountability for the family, to the exclusion of men, and (2) a lack of awareness of the societally prescribed contexts of work and family life that can be oppressive to both women and men. This paper also suggests practice principles that will guide work with family member's adjustment to relocation and that will direct future research.

Task-Oriented and Quasi-Therapeutic Role Functions of the Leader in Small Military Groups

Our society expects men to perform many roles either successively or simultaneously. A policeman is a threat to some and a protector to others, and most men play the roles of husband, father, employer and employee all within the same day. Individuals differ in how readily they adapt to these varying role demands. It is also true, however, that certain roles, such as that of career woman and mother, are not easily reconciled and others are inherently incompatible. The present study concerns two roles which the leader of a small task group is commonly asked to assume. His primary job is the maintenance of productivity. In addition, however, the armed services, as well as many industrial organizations, have urged men to take their personal problems to their immediate supervisors. The leader is thus asked to attend not only to his group's effectiveness but also to the psychological adjustment of his men. In fact, some writers have held that the leader must contribute to the group member's adjustment in order to be effective (10). There are some indications that the practice of combining the leader's task-oriented and quasi-therapeutic roles may not be wise. Rogers (14), Traxler (18), and Roethlisberger and Dickson (13) have delineated some of the conflicts which arise when an administrator also serves as a therapist or counselor, and these problems have been discussed extensively by Slater (16). Work by Fiedler (6) and his associates indicates that effective task leadership depends on psychological distance from co-workers, while psychologically close relations are characteristic of good psychotherapists (4, 7). Opposite attitudes may thus be demanded by the roles of leader and therapist, and these roles might then be difficult to combine. This problem is of obvious importance not only as it contributes to our understanding of leadership and group behavior, but also as it affects the