Types Of Kin Research Articles

Impact of cadaveric organ donation on Taiwanese donor families during the first 6 months after donation.

Organ donation is a complex decision for family members of Asian donors. The impact of cadaveric organ donation on both Chinese and Western donor families has not been well investigated within a cultural framework. The purposes of this study were to follow Chinese family members' appraisal of their decision to donate organs, to explore the possible negative and positive impacts of organ donation on their family life, and to determine what help they expected from healthcare providers during the first 6 months after donation. Twenty-two family members (10 men and 12 women) of cadaveric organ donors who signed consent forms at an organ transplant medical center in Taiwan participated in this project and completed in-depth interviews during the sixth month after donation. Participants were 25 to 56 years old (mean = 48.15 +/- 8.31 years). The type of kinship of the participants included the donor's parents, older sister, and spouse. Subjects reported several negative impacts: worry about the donor's afterlife (86%), stress due to controversy among family members over the decision to donate (77%), and stress due to others' devaluation of the donation (45%). Positive impacts reported by the subjects included having a sense of reward for helping others (36%), having an increased appreciation of life (32%), having closer family relationships (23%), and planning to shift life goals to the study of medicine (9%). Subjects expected the transplant team to provide information about organ recipients (73%), to submit the necessary documents so that family members could receive healthcare payments from the insurance company (68%), to help resolve legal proceedings and settlements associated with accidents (64%), and to not overly publicize their decision to donate (64%). Although all of the subjects reported that organ donation was the right decision, the decision to donate did not protect Taiwanese donor families from negative psychocognitive bereavement. The impacts of organ donation were affected by the subject's social cultural, spiritual, and legal context and the nature of their bereavement.

Estimation of Single-Generation Sibling Relationships Based on DNA Markers

An algorithm for infering joint sibling relationships for a single generation sample of organisms based on DNA marker data is presented. The technique is based primarily on the exclusion principle, i.e., the process of systematically eliminating hypothetical kinship types between individuals in the basis of DNA incompatibility. The result is an enumeration of all genetically compatible sibling groupings, which is maximal in the sense that no other individual can be added to the sibling group. The technique is computationally feasible for large samples given enough variablility in the DNA markers used. From this, we construct a partition of the individuals into sibling groups based on a score. In addition, we derive some statistical properties of sibling compatibility events as well as various types of error probabilities associated with sibling identification. The techniques are illustrated using fisheries data.

"Because They're My Parents": An Intergenerational Study of Felt Obligation and Parental Caregiving

Using an intergenerational sample of 460 young adults and their middle-aged parents, the study examined adults' views of parental obligation and caregiving. Both generations of women generally reported higher levels of felt obligation to their parents than did both generations of men. Regardless of gender, adults with one living parent generally reported feeling more obligation to provide assistance than did adults with two living parents. Overall, young adult children expressed higher levels of felt obligation to their parents than did middle-aged parents to their parents. Felt obligation accounted for a significant amount of additional variance in young and middle-aged adults' reports of parental caregiving beyond that of gender, self-reports of parental affection, and filial responsibility. Key Words: adult development, felt obligation, parental caregiving. Sociologists estimate that adults may now spend about half a century relating to their parents (Gee, 1987). For the first time in history, an individual is likely to spend more years as an adult child with living parents than as a parent of a child under the age of 20 (Hagestad, 1990). Despite such dramatic shifts in family roles, researchers have paid relatively little attention to the obligations that accompany parent-child relationships throughout adulthood. The study presented here uses an intergenerational sample of 460 young and middle-aged men and women to examine the role of parental obligation in adults' reports of parental caregiving. The merits of felt obligation, a relational approach to the study of parental obligation, are contrasted with those of filial responsibility, a popular attitudinal approach. Adults' views of felt obligation are investigated as a function of gender, generation (young, middle-aged), and parental status (one or both parents living). The research examines the role of felt obligation in accounting for adults' reports of parental caregiving beyond that of gender and other established family variables. APPROACHES TO PARENTAL OBLIGATION Empirical studies of family obligation have primarily investigated the presence of obligation as a general attitude or societal norm. Rossi and Rossi (1990) asked adults to respond to vignettes about circumstances that might elicit obligation in different social roles. Respondents reported higher levels of general obligation for the family roles of parents and children than for other types of kin. Early empirical studies suggest that both genders endorse norms of obligation for family and view adults as obligated to perform activities consistent with traditional sex roles (Adams, 1968; Bahr, 1976). Adults typically endorse contact and assistance as strong social expectations of kinship and report negative sanctions for nonperformance of family obligations. More recent research on obligation has focused on adults' duties as caregivers to older parents. Filial responsibility is conceptualized as a societal attitude toward adult children's duty to meet the needs of aging parents (Blieszner & Mancini, 1987; Seelbach, 1981; Walker, Pratt, Shinn, & Jones, 1990). Studies suggest that both parents and adult children acknowledge the existence of filial responsibility as a societal expectation (Hamon & Blieszner, 1990). Although findings regarding gender differences in reports of filial responsibility have been mixed (Finley, Roberts, & Banahan, 1988), reports of filial responsibility have been found to differ as a function of geographical distance from parents (Finley et al., 1988), residential location (rural or urban), and ethnicity (Hanson, Sauer, & Seelbach, 1983). As an attitudinal approach to the study of obligation, filial responsibility emphasizes the larger social context in which duties between adults and their parents may unfold. Yet, filial responsibility says little about specific expectations of behavior that adults develop in their ongoing relationships with their own parents. …

Confessions of a Microsimulator

The author discusses problems involved in modeling the effects of demographic factors on historical kinship patterns with a focus on microsimulation models. Since microsimulations of kinship ignore the correlations in demographic behavior within kin groups they ordinarily understate the variance of kinship distributions; for many kin types they also underestimate the expected number of kin. The author concludes that those who design demographic models of kinship should be sensitive to the potential for systematic error. (EXCERPT)

Kin Expectations and Kin Support Among Rural Older Adults1

Abstract Relatively little attention has been given to the kin ties of rural older adults. To partially fill this gap in knowledge, kin selection theory was used as a conceptual framework to explore two questions on the extent rural older adults expect and receive assistance from the range of affinal and consanquineal kin and the factors that best explain the current level of support provided by each of the kin types in the family system. Analysis was based on interviews conducted in 1985–1986 with 368 rural older adults in the Piedmont region of North Carolina. Expectations of kin assistance were much higher than the actual level of support that was provided. Both expected and actual levels of assistance declined as the level of consanguineous kin and associated affinal ties decreased. The level of support provided by kin groups was mainly a function of geographic distance to kin and norms of obligation.

Eine historisch-typologische Analyse der Konstruktion ime motër/sestra mi/soră-mea

Summary The present work represents a historical-typological investigation of the constructional type ime motër/cecmpa Mu/soră-mea, named “the kinship type”, especially including the relations of the type to the superior type motra ime/Moama cccmpa/sora mea: The phonetical, morphosyntactial, lexical and sentential characteristic features of this subtype in the Balkan languages Albanian, Bulgarian, and Rumanian together with Italian are discussed. The Albanian construction e motra is explicated as a typological parallel to a certain type of ezafe construction in Iranian, and a theory is advanced on the preposing of the Albanian copulative article (which is interpreted us a marker of relativisation on par with the ezafe article) under an ellipsis of presupposition.

Corporate authority, exchange, and personal opposition in Bobo marriages

This article explores the bases of corporate authority and personal autonomy in marriage decisions among the Bobo, a West African people with a double‐descent system. Elder men and women allocate young women within the uterine descent group, thereby constraining the choices of partners and creating patterns that are consistent with the desire to maintain control over dependents. These practices, however, are continuously challenged by young people who advocate divergent perspectives and whose opposition is facilitated by the support of other types of kin. The emergence of wealth differences and the effect of administration and missionary activity contributed to dissension against the men and women who have positions of authority within lineage segments, at the same time as it reduced the solidarity among them. [kinship, social organization, double descent, rural transformation, West Africa]

Social preferences by pigtailed macaques: Familiarity versus degree and type of kinship

Social preferences by pigtailed macaques: Familiarity versus degree and type of kinship

Variations in the Duration of Reign of Monarchs

This article analyzes cross-national variations and longitudinal changes in the duration of the reigns of monarchs. Data cover 439 monarchs from 10 selected nations for the period from 877 to 1972. Using multiple classification analysis, we examine the effects of kinship type of succession, cause of removal of predecessor, age at ascent, duration of life, nation, and year of ascent on the duration of monarchical reigns. The results of our analysis indicate that about 43% of successions to the throne have been by the eldest sons, and the monarchs whose successions have been on the principles of the primogeniture system have tended to have longer durations of reign than those who have gained their monarchical power through other types of succession systems. The five independent variables jointly account for up to 37% of the variance in the duration of the reigns of monarchs. Significant cross-national and European-Asian variations in the characteristics of monarchs are observed. However, no consistent historical trends in causal relationships are apparent from observed interrelationships between variables.

An Algebraic Account of the American Kinship Terminology [and Comments and Reply

Although componential and transformational analyses are the generally recognized domains for the study of kinship terminology structure, neither procedure completely elucidates the structure formed by kin terms as a system of terms. Both procedures ignore that kin terms, via a kin terms product, form a structure separate from the structure imposed on a genealogical space through definition of kin terms as sets of kin types. Separation of these levels shows that the structure of kin terms is an inherently algebraic form and suggests universal algebras, whose subject matter is the properties of formal structures, as the appropriate domain for the representation and analysis of kin term structure. The American (English) kinship terminology is analyzed using this framework, and it is shown that the system of terms that constitutes it has structure that can be isomorphically represented in algebraic terms. More specifically, it is shown that the structure for the set of kin terms, including properties heretofore seen as problematic, has exact explication within the algebraic representation. The set of kin terms distinguished and their structural relations are shown to result from a consanguineal structure which has the form of an algebra known as an inverse semigroup, with affinal terms imbedded via the product of two consanguineal structures-one centered around Self and the other centered around Spouse-with sex distinctions made on the basis of Spouse relations. The algebraic argument shows what properties suffice to generate the complete kin term structure for the American kinship terminology and suggests the possibility of structural comparison of kinship terminologies at the level of properties defining the generation of structure.

Adult Kinship Networks: The Selective Formation of Intimate Ties with Kin

An important dimension of kinship networks is the existence of closer, more affective, bonds with kin. This study examines various factors commonly assumed to be related to the likelihood of certain kin being viewed as intimates, or confidants. The results show that spouses are about thirty times as likely to be selected as a confidant than an extended relative or a young child, about seven times as likely to be chosen as a parent, ten times as likely as an adult child, and fifteen times as likely as a sibling. Structural variables such as age, category of kin, stage in the life cycle, frequency of contact, and gender are central to explaining the intimate and confidant kin chosen. Women are both more likely to be cited as confidants and to have confidant ties with kin. Age is significant both in excluding very young kin from being viewed as confidants, and in the higher likelihood of all types of kin being confidants for respondents 75 or older. Frequency of interaction and status homogeneity (on age and gender) are not related to the probability of being a confidant.

Mechanism of interferon action: Interferon inhibits the synthesis of viral proteins and induces protein P 1 phosphorylation in both adenylate cyclase-deficient and cAMP-dependent protein kinase-deficient variants of Mouse lymphoma cells

The effect of interferon (IFN) treatment on the intracellular level of cyclic AMP, the synthesis of viral proteins and the induction of protein phosphorylation was examined in wild-type, adenylate cyclase-deficient (cyc −), and cAMP-dependent protein kinase-deficient (kin −) variants of mouse lymphoma S49 cells. Treatment with IFN or cholera toxin elevated the intracellular level of CAMP in wild-type but not in cyc − cells. However, the synthesis of vesicular stomatitis virus polypeptides was inhibited to comparable extents by IFN treatment in all three types of S49 cells, wild-type, cyc −, and kin − Likewise, the phosphorylation of ribosome-associated protein P 1 was enhanced to a similar level in extracts prepared from IFN-treated wild-type, cyc −, and kin cells. The results of this genetic analysis suggest that IFN may indeed elevate cAMP levels, but that the induction of an antiviral state and the P 1 protein kinase by IFN in cell culture is not mediated by cAMP.

The Africans: An Ethnological Account

This book treats all of African social interaction as economic in this larger sense (including the various types of marriage, descent, kinship, and political organizations that characterize the continent), and develops a theory of the separation of culture and society that helps bring order to interpretation in ways never done before.

A Note on Alternative Designations of Kin Types in Navajo Society

Alternative designations of kin categories are typical of Navajo society. Fenton (1974) took a first step toward analyzing this variation of terminology in a formal account. The present paper is designed as a partial alternative formulation and as an extension of Fenton's study.

Interactions with Family and Friends

Standardized indices were used to compare frequency of interaction outside the household with various types of kin and with friends for 131 married, widowed, or never-married older women who had retired from professional or clerical employment. Widows from both occupational backgrounds had the highest levels of interaction with friends and with primary relatives (parents, siblings, and children). These results call into question earlier studies reporting on the social isolation of widows. Compared to clerical women, professional women generally interacted more with primary relatives and friends, but less with extended kin. Never-married professional women were relatively high in interaction with extended kin while never-married clerical women had low interaction with extended kin. Other comparisons are discussed, and several implications for further research are introduced.

The Extensionist Hypothesis and Marking Rules in the Formal Analysis of Kinship Terminology

A number of kinds of formal analysis of kinship terminology have appeared in the anthropological literature. This paper supports the validity of extension rule analysis as an approach to this domain. Data are presented from a kin term system that includes culturally appropriate variability to show that, via semantic marking rules, the frequency with which informants associate kin types with particular kin terms parallels the order in which an extensionist analysis of those terms would merge those kin types into a kernal, or focal, kin type for each term.

Another View of American Kinship

A cursory review of models which have been used in the analysis of the American kinship system is given. Then a new analysis phrased in terms of Lounsbury's formal model is presented. The American system is seen to be based upon three simple principles, which may be explained in terms of the structure of the familistic side of American society. Finally, these logical rules are used to determine the status of certain indeterminate kin types.

The Universality of the Family: A Conceptual Analysis

George P. Murdock's conception of the universal aspects of the family is examined by reference to the ethnographic literature. The results indicate that the nuclear family is not universal and that only the nurturant socialization function is universal. A revised conception of the family is offered which views the family institution as a small kinship structured group with the key function of nurturant socialization of the newborn. Nuturant socialization of the newborn is conceptualized as a functional prerequisite of human society, and some type of small kinship structured group is viewed as a structural prerequisite of human society for the fulfillment of this function. Three types of evidence are brought to bear on the universality of this definition: (1) cross-cultural evidence, (2) studies of nonhuman primates, and (3) studies of mother separation in human societies. The evidence tends to support the universality of the family definition proposed in this paper.

Semantic Distinctions in Huichol (Uto‐Aztecan) Kinship

TERMINOLOGICAL systems group the kin types defined by links of procreation and cohabitation and by differences of sex into a relatively small number of kin classes according to culturally prescribed semantic features. These semantic features are in themselves of interest to the ethnolinguist, and, insofar as they provide a framework for understanding differences in nonverbal behavior, to the anthropologist. The study of culturally defined kin classes in terms of common features in a semantic field owes its stimulus to the methodological work of Lounsbury (1956) and Goodenough (1956). Romney and Epling's paper on Kariera (1958) is also valuable; in it not only are kin classes distinguished by common semantic features, following Lounsbury, but larger semantic groupings of kin classes are also recognized. It seems premature, however, to assume that the principles of kinship organization uncovered in the relatively few structural studies that have been made to date are the only ones that could prove fruitful. This study accordingly attempts to explore the notion of distance (Murdock 1949) as a useful structural dimension.1 Furthermore, this study attempts to operate without assuming that sharp boundary-setting criteria are a priori necessary (Wallace and Atkins 1960: 60). Though there is a cover term for kinsmen as opposed to nonkinsmen that was useful in blocking out the field of study, the final analysis does not deal directly with all terms within that boundary; only those that are amenable to simple structural treatment within the boundary need be analyzed, while the residue (all of which contain the suffix -wari) can be treated as semantically shifted forms of terms in the analyzable set.

Avunculocality and Incest: The Development of Unilateral Cross-Cousin Marriage and Crow-Omaha Kinship Systems

IN THIS paper1 we present a theory of the development of kinship systems2 and unilateral cross-cousin marriage. This theory builds upon the important contribution recently made by Lane and Lane (1959: 25465) concerning kinship systems and departs radically from the theory of unilateral cross-cousin presented by Homans and Schneider (1955). In this presentation we presuppose much of the analysis of kinship organization given by Murdock in his Social Structure (1949). Throughout this paper we shall test theoretical statements against the massive amount of data presented in Murdock's World Ethnographic Sample (1957:664-87).3 It has long been known (Lowie 1917:151-52) that kinship systems are associated with matrilineal and patrilineal descent respectively. Homans and Schneider (1955:34-35) have shown, and Murdock (1957:687) has confirmed, that patrilateral cross-cousin (PCCM) and matrilateral cross-cousin (MCCM)4 are associated with matrilineal and patrilineal descent groups respectively. Recently, Lane and Lane (1959:257-58) have noted that rules affect the alignment of kin types in kin groups and, more importantly, have claimed that MCCM produces the correct alignment for terminologies in matrilineal and patrilineal societies respectively.5 Since they accept the view, strongly confirmed by Murdock (1949:113-83), that common kin-group membership is a major factor in common kinship classification, they are led to suggest that: Crow-Omaha systems of terminology may be associated not only with matrilineal and patrilineal sibs respectively, but also with matrilateral cross-cousin marriage (1959:258).