Studying Marriages and Families

1. Studying Marriages and Families Chapter 2

2. Chapter Outline • How Do We Know? • How Popular Culture Misrepresents Family Life • Researching the Family • Macro-Level Theories • Micro-Level Theories • Conducting Research on Families

3. How Do We Know? • Social research is one way we can learn about things. • However, most of what we “know” about the social world we have “learned” elsewhere through other less systematic means • Tradition • Authority

4. How Popular Culture Misrepresents Family Life • As of 2008, more than 98% of U.S. households had television sets. • During the third quarter of 2008, the average person watched television four hours and 45 minutes per day • The average household was tuned in for eight hours and 18 minutes per day

5. Cumulatively, television, popular music, the Internet, magazines, newspapers, and movies help shape our attitudes and beliefs about the world in which we live. Popular Culture

6. The combined portrayal of family life on daytime television that results from soap operas and talk shows is unrealistic and highly negative. Daytime Television

7. Prime-time television, in both dramas and situation comedies, unrealistically depicts married life. “Reality Television” highlights extreme cases or introduces artificial circumstances and/or competitive goals, making these shows no more representative of familial reality than the daytime talk shows. Primetime Television

8. Researching the Family • The Importance of Objectivity • suspend the beliefs, biases, or prejudices we have about a subject until we understand what is being said • Objective statements vs. Value judgments • Value judgments usually includes words that mean “should” and imply that our way is the correct way

9. Fallacies • Fallacies are errors in reasoning • Egocentric fallacy • belief that everyone has the same experiences and values that we have and therefore should think as we do • Ethnocentric fallacy • belief that our ethnic group, nation, or culture is innately superior to others

10. The Scientific Method • The Scientific Method consists of well-established procedures used to collect and analyze information about family experiences. • Much of the research family scientists do is shared in specialized journals or in book form. • Much of the information contained in this book originally appeared in scholarly journals or government reports.

11. Concepts and Theories • Theories • sets of general principles or concepts used to explain a phenomenon and to make predictions that may be tested and verified experimentally • Concepts • abstract ideas that we use to represent the reality in which we are interested.

12. Conceptualization and Operationalization • Conceptualization • the specification and definition of concepts used by the researcher • Operationalization • the identification and/or development of research strategies to observe or measure concepts

13. Variables and Hypotheses • Variables • concepts that can vary in some meaningful way • Independent variables • Dependent variables • Intervening variables • Hypotheses • Predictions about the relationships between

15. Theoretical Perspectives on Families • Macro-level theories • focus on the family as a social institution. • Micro-level theories • Emphasize what happens within families, looking at everyday behavior, interaction between family members, patterns of communication, and so on.

17. Family Ecology Theory • The emphasis of family ecology theory is on how families are influenced by and in turn influence the wider environment. • The core concepts in ecological theory include environment and adaptation. • Initially used to refer to the adaptation of plant and animal species to their physical environments, these concepts were later extended to humans and their physical, social, cultural, and economic environments

18. Family Ecology Theory • Critiques of Family Ecology Theory • not always clear which system best accounts for the behavior we attempt to explain or how the different systems influence each other. • has been more effectively applied to individual or familial development and growth • the theory may not apply as well to a range of diverse, especially nontraditional, families

19. Structural Functionalism Theory • When structural functionalists study the family, they look at three aspects: • What functions the family as an institution serves for society • What functional requirements family members perform for the family • What needs the family meets for its individual members • Structural functionalism treats society as if it were a living organism, like a person, animal, or tree.

20. Structural Functionalism Theory • Critiques of Structural Functionalism Theory • How do we know which family functions are vital? • Looks at the family abstractly and views the family in terms of functions and roles. • It is not always clear what function a particular structure serves

21. Conflict Theory • Conflict theory holds that life involves discord and competition. • Sources of Conflict in Families • Marriages and families are composed of individuals with different personalities, ideas, values, tastes, and goals. • Sources of Power • Family members have different resources and amounts of power. • There are four important sources of power: • legitimacy, • Money • physical coercion • love.

22. Conflict Theory • Critiques of Conflict Theory • Conflict theory derives from politics and economics, in which self-interest, egotism, and competition are dominant elements. • Conflict theorists do not often talk about the power of love or bonding, yet the presence of love and bonding may distinguish the family from all other groups in society. • conflict theorists assume that differences lead to conflict. Differences can also be accepted, tolerated, or appreciated

23. Feminist Perspectives • Feminists critically examine the ways in which family experience is shaped by gender. • Argue that gender and family are concepts created by society. • Feminists have an action orientation alongside their analytical one as they strive to raise society’s level of awareness regarding the oppression of women.

24. Feminist Perspectives • Critique of Feminist Perspectives • The feminist perspective is not a unified theory; rather, it represents thinking across the feminist movement. • Some family scholars who conceptualize family life and work as a “calling” have taken issue with feminists’ focus on power and economics as a description of family.

25. Symbolic Interaction Theory • Symbolic interaction theory looks at how people interact with one another. • We interpret or attach meanings to interactions, situations, roles, relationships and other individuals whenever we encounter them. • In marital and family relationships, our interactions are partly structured by social roles.

26. How family members interact with one another is partly determined by how they define their roles and by the meanings they attach to such behaviors as housework and childcare.

27. Symbolic Interaction Theory • Critiques of Symbolic Interaction Theory • The theory tends to minimize the role of power in relationships. • Does not fully account for the psychological aspects of human life • Does not place marriage or family within a larger social context

28. Social Exchange Theory • According to social exchange theory, we measure our actions and relationships on a cost–benefit basis, seeking to maximize rewards and minimize costs by employing our resources to gain the most favorable outcome. • We do much of this unconsciously

29. Social Exchange Theory • Critiques of Social Exchange Theory • Assumes that we are all rational, calculating individuals, weighing the costs and rewards of our relationships and making cost–benefit comparisons of all alternatives. • Difficulty ascertaining the value of costs, rewards, and resources, as such values may vary considerably from person to person or situation to situation

30. Family Development Theory • Family development theory is the only one exclusively directed at families, and it emphasizes the patterned changes that occur in families through stages and across time. • Family development theory looks at the changes in the family that typically commence in the formation of the premarital relationship, proceed through marriage, and continue through subsequent sequential stages.

31. Family Development Theory • Critiques of Family Development Theory • It assumes the sequential processes of intact, nuclear families. • Gender, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, and social class all create variations in how we experience family dynamics and the very sequence of stages may reflect a middle- to upper-class-family reality.

33. Conducting Research on Families • Quantitative research • deals with large quantities of information that is analyzed and presented statistically • Qualitative research • Is concerned with a detailed understanding of the object of study. • Secondary data analysis • reanalyzing data originally collected for another purpose.