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The Family and the Child: A Psychological View

Psych 441 UMass Boston

Professor Peggy Vaughan Family Research Brief Review

Overview: Key Points on Studying Families

Personal Inquiry � Science is about working with truth-like, fact-based

ideas; it is not about finding ultimate ‘truths’ per se.

� Personal inquiry is very important, however: � Our own ideas may not represent what is happening

with the larger population of people we wish to know more about.

� Our own ideas are biased. � Our own ideas are rarely inspected by others for

clarity and consistency.

Thoughts on Research � Thinking of how we define families as we engage in

family research:

� “Families consist of members with very different perspectives, needs, obligations, and resources. The characteristics of individual family members change over time—within life spans and across generations. Families exist in a broader economic, social, and cultural context that itself changes over time.”

� https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/

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Who is Family? Child and Teen Perspectives

Defining Family Structure � Research has demonstrated that family structure is more subjective than

researchers might assume.

� In the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health—known as Add Health, a nationally representative study of how social contexts affect the health and risk behaviors of teens and young adults—adolescents and their mothers were asked about family structure (Harris, 2009).

� In families with two biological parents, 99 percent of the responses were the same. But in families with single mothers, married stepparents, or cohabiting stepparents, 11.6 percent, 30.2 percent, and 65.9 percent of the responses, respectively, were different (Brown and Manning, 2009). “The more complex the family form, the greater the family boundary ambiguity,” Brown said. This ambiguity can affect even estimates of family structure, depending on which person in a family is asked about the structure.

� Excerpt from: Olson, S. Ed. (2011). Toward an Integrated Science of Research on Families.

Experiential Reality � We all have the potential to find out about families

in ways that transcend your personal experience.

� Our own view of life is heavily influenced by our own experiences. While those are important to bring to the table, we have to be careful not to ‘overgeneralize’ them.

� Research is “mesearch” for some; awareness of one’s interests and research topic; and how interests and experiences guide research. It is important to remain alert to “bias”.

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Sample Bias � When we conduct research, we are usually trying to

discover or understand a problem that resides within a larger population of people. � An example of an exception to this idea is that some

medical research focuses on just one patient or child with a rare disease or condition and it is not necessary or possible to have a ‘sample’ of several patients with the same problem.

Research Goals, Strategies, and Methods

� The goal is large objective of a research project � For example, the goal of much research in our field

has been to understand the nature of poverty, health challenges, stress or adversity and their short term and long term effects on the well-being of children and families.

� The strategy is the method we use to answer the questions found within the goal.

Methods � Methods reflect the approach taken to investigate a

hypothesis. These may involve qualitative or quantitative aspects and measures.

� Tactics or the research activities and plans are very specific. These are the logistics of a particular research project. These may include the specific interventions within a study.

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Review Causation and Correlation

� Causation implies that some characteristic, event, or property necessarily changes something else in a predictable way (e.g. The sun causes the ice to melt; high levels of lead exposure during early childhood causes intellectual or cognitive deficits).

� Correlation implies that two events, characteristics, or properties seem to occur together with predictability (e.g. couple spending increases after payday; unexpected family separations lead to greater stress).

Causal versus Correlational � Since the study of social science is not about

ultimate causal truth, we, instead find ourselves telling stories based on correlations within data.

� The caution in studying families is one can think they have found a cause, per se, when in fact, most of the time we only have associative or correlational data.

Empirical Research � Based on collecting facts, numbers, and statistics

� Empiricism emphasizes the role of experience plus evidence. � The empirical world of science seeks to collect

convincing, reliable, valid evidence about the connections among constructs. � For example, we want to know if divorce harms children

or not. So, we devise theories, generate hypotheses, and collect the best data we can to find out if divorce is a negative thing in the lives of children.

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Goal � By conducting child and family research, we hope to

devise new ways of caring for children, and new interventions or improve current interventions for development learning, social concerns or problems. Research-based ideas emphasize evidence as opposed to a personal belief or personal experience.

Qualitative Research � Another way to research families is through

‘qualitative’ research methods. � Interview data (open-ended and in-depth).

� Use of key informants; interviews with family members � Participant observation or ethnography. (Within cultural

settings such as a particular location or community, etc.)

� Concerned with family life and settings including practices, rituals and daily activities. Extended time required, such as when observing caregiving patterns and interactions.

Mixed Methods � The systematic integration of qualitative and quantitative

techniques to represent family processes and settings (Weisner & Fiese, 2011).

� Includes “person-oriented research” as well as variable or question focused research”

� Family settings and processes can be represented � by text and words

� categories, narratives, stories, events, and scripts; � by numbers

� scales, variables, mathematical models � by images, sounds and smells

� photos, videos, artifacts, audio or documents linked to culture, language and other traditions.

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Ethnography � Seeks to answer central anthropological questions concerning

the ways of life of living human beings. � Ethnographic questions generally concern the link between culture

and behavior and/or how cultural processes develop over time. � The data base for ethnographies is usually extensive description of

the details of social life in a smaller number of cases. � Important to consider Emic (native) and etic (outsider) views

Example: Margaret Mead’s work in cultural anthropology � The first anthropologist to study child-rearing practices and

learning theory within social groups in various cultures. � Based on her observations, she proposed that children learned through

imprinting. Imprinting is when children learn by observing and following adult behavior.

https://www.history.com/topics/womens-history/margaret-mead

In-Depth Interviews � An interviewer recruits a number of people (family

members) who have had a similar experience- such as fathers with young children who are in prison and/or the school-aged or adolescent children of these fathers.

Research Questions � Carefully designed questions are asked of the

participant and usually their answers are tape recorded or videotaped

� Sample question areas: How do the fathers maintain relationships with their children while incarcerated? How do the children cope?

� Interviewers transcribe and read the responses of the interviewees

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Narrative Analysis � Narrative analysis involves distinguishing between

“narratives” and “stories.”

� It is relatively easy to use the terms interchangeably, but subtle distinctions can be made (Cowan, 1999).

� Most discussions on this distinction begin with reference to “story” as content and structure and “narrative” as the process of making sense of an event or personal experience.

Multiple Informants � Methods also differ in terms of the number of family

members included. � Can be collected from a single member telling a story

about a collective family event to multiple family members describing the impact of an individual’s experience on the whole family.

Steps in the Research Coding Process

� During the process of reviewing the interview data from the tapes, the interviewer actually becomes the research instrument and searches for themes, patterns, reoccurring ideas, and topic areas. � The interviewer (s) continues this process until there is

a point of saturation. � From open coding, key themes and codes are

selected. � Careful coding assists with data reduction. � Coding and the review of coding with other coders

provides inter-rater reliability.

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Final Process � The researcher then organizes the work in order to

tell the “research story” and share key findings in a brief or more detailed research report or presentation. Editing and peer review is part of the final process for all research studies.

Summary � Family research requires careful and organized documentation and strong

and clear evidence.

� The family research process can be challenging, demanding, and costly.

� Mixed methods: Combines quantitative with qualitative research and methods. Qualitative data can be “quanticized”.

� Researchers want answers to questions about family functioning and family processes, why families do what they do, and how to help them/inform policy and practice. This is important to providers caring for children and families in diverse settings.

� Quality family research: Well-conducted research is culturally-anchored research. Findings may offer strong evidence for the understanding and supporting family life and well-being.

Family Research Example

Review of an article on childhood illness.

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Family Psychology Article � Winter, M.A., Fiese, B., Spagnola, M. & Anbar, R.D.

(2011). Asthma severity, child security, and child internalizing: Using story stem techniques to assess the meaning children give to family and disease- specific events. Journal of Family Psychology, 25(6), 857–867.

Childhood Chronic Illness � The onset and diagnosis of a chronic illness, such as

epilepsy or asthma in a child, increases the challenges of parenting and the levels of parental concerns. � Parents must continue to attend the normal developmental

and caregiving tasks of childhood. � Parents must then also learn how to manage an illness or

condition such as asthma or epilepsy. � Parents must care for their child physically and emotionally

and help their child to both adapt to and understand their condition.

� The family and the overall family environment needs to remain functional and adaptive.

� Parents of children with conditions with severe symptoms and requiring close medical management have many fears.

Study Overview Winter, Fiese, Spagnola and Anbar (2011)

� A study of children ages 5 to 12 years old with chronic asthma and their families. � In 2010, nearly 10% of children (7.1 million) in the

United States received a diagnosis of asthma (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2010).

� Asthma threatens emotional security and children with asthma are at risk for emotional and mental health problems.

� Children under age 10 years are often not the center of the reports on the impact of their illness on emotional security and overall family effects.

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Sample Composition � N =168 children ages 5-12 years: Mean age: 7.84

years; Standard Deviation: 2.12 years � Majority male: 63% boys, 37% girls and

� Primary caregivers, vast majority were mothers � 95% mothers; 3% grandmothers; 2% fathers

� Caregiver-reported child race � 58% White; 29% African American; 12% mixed race,

and 1% Asian American.

Story Stem Techniques � Within the study the authors focused their interest

on children’s symptoms and behaviors and their narratives. Narrative techniques were a focus: children’s responses to general and asthma-related story stems were coded and analyzed. � Children’s responses provided data on children’s

understandings of family and appraisals of illness events.

Hypotheses � Greater asthma severity would be related to greater

internalizing symptoms.

� Greater asthma severity would be related to less security and trust in family.

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Measures � Asthma severity determined by test of pulmonary

function and parent report via Functional Severity of Asthma Scale.

� Medical adherence (following medical guidelines for appointments, treatments and medication)

� Demographics

� Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) � Internalizing and externalizing behaviors

� Story Stem Techniques

Story Stems � The stems for the routine family events included

common, innocuous scenarios such as a family at dinnertime, bedtime, and family celebrations.

� The story stems presenting asthma-related events, included threatening scenarios such as tightness in the chest or wheezing.

Rating Codes

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Results � Asthma severity relates to children’s emotional

outcomes, in terms of the level of narrative representations and at the level of symptomatology.

� Greater asthma physiological threat (i.e., poorer lung function) was associated with perceptions of the family as less involved and less cohesive during routine family events.

� There was less child ‘felt emotional security” in the context of ambiguous, but potentially threatening, asthma events.

(W inter, Fiese, Spagnola and Anbar, 2006, p.864)

Mixed Method Findings � Not only did more severe asthma severity predict

more internalizing and externalizing symptoms in children, the child narratives that were coded as less secure were associated with greater child internalizing symptoms.

Discussion � A primary focus in this study was the link between

asthma severity and children’s emotional security.

� Results suggest that asthma severity influences children’s emotional outcomes, both at the level of representations and at the level of symptomatology.

� These findings are in accord with previous research. � For example, Fiese, Winter, Wamoldt, Anbar, and Wamboldt

(2010) found a relation between poorer lung function and separation anxiety symptoms in children, suggesting that the shortness of breath, wheezing, and coughing symptoms might translate to feelings of threat and worry. This makes sense and children need reassurance when they have fears associated with their illness.

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Conclusion � The integration of physiological measures with narrative

analysis provides an especially rich opportunity to explore converging evidence across different domains (physical and social emotional) and disciplines (psychology and medicine).

� Future efforts are warranted to further understand how the felt experience of stress and threat are translated into narratives about family life as either supportive or rejecting, and how these representations influence mental health outcomes.

� Digging deeper into the narratives of family life may afford one avenue into understanding and improving health and well-being.