The Relationship Between Family Communication Patterns and Child Vaccination Intentions

This study examined the role of family communication patterns in assessing the intentions of individuals to vaccinate their children. Using the theory of planned behavior, we constructed a path model whereby family communication patterns led to perceptions regarding vaccinations and finally to the intentions. The model showed excellent fit, with both communication and conformity orientations inversely related to vaccination beliefs. There were also significant inverse indirect effects between the two orientations and vaccination intentions. The family communication patterns interacted to predict both vaccination control and perceived norms outside the family. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.     

Family Communication Patterns and Difficult Family Conversations

Difficult conversations among family members can impact the health and structure of familial relationships. The reported study investigated potential antecedents and outcomes of difficult family conversations. Perceived consequences of, reasons behind, responses to, and results of difficult conversations were considered, and the family communication patterns (FCP) framework guided the examination. Although the majority of respondents feared negative consequences prior to conversations, most reported positive results. The type of response received from conversational partners was associated with the eventual result. Counter to predictions, data analysis found no relationships among the family communication styles proposed by FCP and the antecedents and outcomes of difficult family conversations. These results suggest that the need for engaging in difficult conversations may outweigh family communicative norms and potential family consequences. Practical implications of the findings, including how therapists or counselors might communicate the benefits of discussing difficult topics generally and of avoiding negative reactions during such conversations, are considered.     

Family Communication Patterns and Adolescent Experiences During Parental Military Deployment and Reintegration: The Role of Inappropriate Parental Disclosures and Perceived Family Understanding

This study examines associations between adolescent reports of family communication patterns (FCPs) and difficulties experienced during the deployment and reintegration of a military parent. Data from 106 adolescents (9–17 years) in 72 National Guard families where a parent had recently returned from overseas deployment were analyzed to examine direct and indirect links between FCPs, perceived family understanding, inappropriate parental disclosures, and adolescent difficulties. Results indicate direct effects for conformity orientation, with it being inversely associated with adolescent difficulties during both deployment and reintegration. Conversation orientation exerts mixed effects on adolescent difficulties during deployment. At a trend level, conversation orientation shares a direct, negative association with adolescent difficulties during deployment but also an indirect, positive association via family inappropriate parental disclosures. Implications of the findings for future research on FCPs as well as programs working with military families are discussed.     

Helicopter Parenting,Family Communication Patterns,and Out-of-Class Communication with College Instructors

The present study examined the influence of helicopter parenting and family conversation and conformity orientations on college students’ out-of-class communication (OCC) with instructors. Data from 272 college students revealed significant negative relationships between helicopter parenting and conformity orientations and students’ reported OCC and a positive relationship between conversation orientation and OCC.     

Family Communication Patterns as Predictors of Organizational Dissent: A Replication Study

This study replicated a previous research project addressing connections between family-of-origin communication and organizational dissent expression. We predicted that family communication patterns (FCPs), specifically conversation and conformity orientations, would predict upward, lateral, and displaced dissent. As in the original study, significant findings emerged for upward dissent and conformity orientation. This replication study indicated family type as an inconsistent predictor of expressed dissent. Contrary to the original study, we found no evidence to support a connection between pluralistic family types and upward dissent. Finally, as an extension of the original study we analyzed effects of FCPs on displaced dissent, finding an inverse association with conversation orientation. Implications for future research are discussed.     

Readability and Basic Course Hybrid Textbooks in Human Communication: A Disparity of Reading Difficulty

Parents play a pivotal role in the gender development and sex-typing of children. It is important to discover whether gender role communication differences exist based on the sex of the child or parent. The present study aimed to discover differences in gender role messages communicated between mother-daughter, mother-son, father-daughter, and father-son dyads. Participants (n = 630) completed a modified version of Bem's Sex Role Inventory. Two key results were discovered: mothers communicate significantly more feminine messages to children, regardless of child sex; and the modified BSRI identifies respondents as weak vs. strong gender identity rather than masculine, feminine, androgynous, or undifferentiated.     

论性别与传播交叉研究的两种范式

随着社会性别视角以及社会性别理论在传播学中的应用,性别与传播交叉研究逐渐发展成为一个相对独立的研究领域。不过,基于不同的认识论与方法论,该研究领域已然分化出两种截然不同的研究范式,分别是以社会性别理论为主体的"性别传播研究",和以传播学理论为主体的"性别与传播研究"。本文将阐释这两个基本范畴和研究范式之间的差别,并分析各自的特征与挑战。     

Family Ties: Communicating Identity Through Jointly Told Family Stories This paper is based on the author's dissertation study and was presented on the Top Four Panel of the Family Communication Division at the National Communication Association Convention,November 2003, Miami,FL.

Family stories work to construct family identity. Little research, however, has examined storytelling in families. This study examined storytelling content and process to assess the extent to which families jointly integrated or fragmented a shared sense of identity and how these discursive practices relate to family qualities. Results of a study involving 58 family triads indicate relationships between story theme (e.g., accomplishment vs. stress), person referencing practices (e.g., we-ness vs. separateness), and interactional storytelling behaviors (e.g., engagement, turn-taking). Moreover, story framing, perspective-taking, statements about selves-in-the-family, and identifying as a “storytelling family” emerged consistently as positive predictors of family satisfaction and functioning. The results offer a portrait of how families communicate identity and functioning in joint storytelling interactions and further position storytelling as a communication phenomenon worthy of consideration.     

网络传播效果聚焦家庭和社区

本文将美国已经发表的对网络传播效果的研究将其按网络对个人,家庭和组织三个层面的影响划分并考察后,揭示出网络传播效果研究在三个研究层面上采取的不同价值取向和对效果的评价标准。以此为基础,本文认为在现代化背景下考察网络新技术对家庭和社区关系的效果可以作为理解网络社会效果并建立起中程理论的有效路径,同时以家庭和社区为聚焦并将社会结构和个人感受作为背景的研究有利于体现出学者的人文关怀和社会责任。从这一立场出发,本文提出了一些未得到充分重视的研究领域和假设。     

Family Communication Patterns and Cognitive Processing: Conversation and Conformity Orientations as Predictors of Informational Reception Apprehension

This study examined the unique and combined associations among family communication patterns (i.e., conversation and conformity orientations) and young adult children's informational reception apprehension (IRA; i.e., listening anxiety and intellectual inflexibility). Participants included 592 young adult children from first-marriage and postdivorce families. Results indicated that family conversation orientations are inversely associated with listening anxiety and intellectual inflexibility, whereas conformity orientations are positively associated with both traits. Furthermore, an interaction effect between conversation and conformity orientations emerged, such that high-conformity orientations moderate (or reduce) the inverse association between family conversation orientations and young adults' listening anxiety. Among the more important implications in this study is the finding that family communication patterns have a small but meaningful association with individuals' information-processing skills.     

Constructing Work-Life Balance and Fatherhood: Men's Framing of the Meanings of Both Work and Family

We explored 18 fathers' interviews to locate how they constructed work-family balance and their fatherhood roles within their particular life contexts. Using the constant comparative method, we found that these men framed and enlarged work-family balance as both work and life negotiations but elevated family as first by linking family to their meanings of work. To them, fatherhood meant webs of responsibilities to others and community engagements with problem solving constituting their main activity. These reconceptualizations of fatherhood and masculinities may indicate that there are ideological changes in the nature of fatherhood that have implications for understanding men's contemporary roles as well as for changing work-life policies and practices.     

Exploring the Recursive Nature of Food and Family Communication

Objective: Students experience the numerous ways in which a relationship exists between the food families eat and the patterns of communication families enact; this activity illustrates how family metaphors, stories, rules, roles, rituals, and other relevant course concepts are conveyed through food

Courses: Family communication, intercultural communication, interpersonal communication, and gender communication     

意识形态的图腾抑或失效——关于两部二战宣传电影传播效果的比较分析

本文比较了两部二战时期著名的宣传电影——德国纳粹的《意志的胜利》以及美国政府投资拍摄的《我们为何而战》在传播策略和传播效果方面的差异。进而指出,文本是否具有感性魅惑的特质、受众是否具有鲜明的自我主体意识以及感性还是理性策略的使用成为决定电影宣传效果的三个重要因素。而电影技术无疑是客观中立的,从这个意义上说,技术决定论具有明显的理论缺陷。     

Exploring Family Discourses About Purity Pledges: Connecting Relationships and Popular Culture

This study explores connections between popular culture and family interaction. Multiadic interview data were collected from families who enacted purity pledges. Using contrapuntal analysis, results indicate how competing familial discourses about popular culture serve as both centrifugal and centripetal forces. Fathers rejected many sexual values in popular culture texts, but they also appreciated that popular culture makes purity rings intelligible to others. Mothers expressed frustration at portrayals of teenage pregnancy on television. Children indicated that their parents did not understand how they saw popular culture, in competition with the aforementioned parental discourses, but appreciated that their parents cared. They also articulated parental disapproval of a current generation's popular culture choices as ongoing ritual, thus allowing the competing discourses to operate in a centripetal fashion. Overall, it is apparent that distal popular culture discourses inform proximal, constitutive family discourses about sex and sexuality.     

Intergenerational Support and the Role of Grandparents in Post-Divorce Families: Retrospective Accounts of Young Adult Grandchildren

The purpose of the current study was to examine grandparent support to grandchildren following the divorce of parents. Participants (N = 42) responded to questions focusing on the enactment of support and relationships with grandparents. Through these retrospective, self-report accounts, six categories of grandparent support were identified. Additionally, four barriers to grandparent support emerged from the responses of the grandchildren. These categories of and barriers to intergenerational social support are discussed as they relate to characteristics and expectations of provided support in post-divorce families.     

A Meta-Analytical Review of Family Communication Patterns and their Associations with Information Processing,Behavioral, and Psychosocial Outcomes

This meta-analysis reviews the findings of 56 studies (n=19,745) examining the associations among family communication patterns (i.e., conversation and conformity orientations) and information-processing, behavioral, and psychosocial outcomes. When both conversation and conformity orientations are considered collectively, the cumulative evidence indicates a small, but meaningful relationship between family communication patterns and overall outcomes (r=.285). Similar overall effect sizes were observed for conversation (r=.262) and conformity orientations (r=.253), though the average effect size for conversation orientation and psychosocial outcomes (r=.460) was greater in magnitude than those obtained for information processing (r=.238) or behavioral outcomes (r=.276). Slightly larger effect sizes were observed when researchers used the Revised Family Communication Patterns scale (r=.332) as compared with the Family Communication Patterns scale (r=.261), though this difference in magnitude was statistically non-significant. Collectively, the results suggest that family communication patterns have a meaningful association with a variety of cognitive activities and relational behaviors, as well as individual well-being.     

The Chilling Effect in Families and the Pressure to Conceal Secrets

In this study two models were constructed to test the link between the chilling effect and family members' continued concealment of secrets. The direct effects model suggests that coercive power in families has a direct influence on family members' concealment, such that it suppresses the desire to reveal sensitive information for fear of negative consequences. In contrast, the indirect effects model contends that coercive power diminishes family members' closeness and commitment to one another, which in turn, compels them to want to continue to conceal negative secrets. For families in general, the results supported the direct effects model. This study also assessed how these models applied to conformity– and conversation-oriented families.     

美国传播学的“冷战宣言”——重评拉斯韦尔的《社会传播的结构与功能》

拉斯韦尔的《社会传播的结构与功能》是传播学史上的一篇经典之作,对这一学科的形成与发展产生了深远影响。本文结合拉斯韦尔的政治理论和思想背景,揭示了他对两种意识形态对立以及由此引发战争可能性的强调,认为该文堪称美国传播学的冷战宣言。     

Daughters' Perceptions of Communication with Their Fathers: The Role of Skill Similarity and Co-Orientation in Relationship Satisfaction

This study examines the communication skill similarity between fathers and daughters. Participants were 186 daughters who identified perceptions of both their own communication competence and their father's communication competence. Results indicated that perceived similarity was related to relational satisfaction and quantity of communication. Using the Family Communication Pattern (FCP) model, father-daughter relationship satisfaction and communication skill similarity varied depending on the family type (i.e., consensual, pluralistic, protective, laissez-faire).     

The Push and Pull of Stepfamily Life: The Contribution of Stepchildren's Autonomy and Connection-Seeking Behaviors to Role Development in Stepfamilies

Role negotiation in stepfamilies is an important process that involves and affects all family members. Although researchers have focused on stepparent role development and the influence of stepparents' behaviors, less attention has been given to the influence and experience of stepchildren in role development. This investigation examined the contribution of stepchildren to the type of stepparent roles developed in stepfamilies, as well as stepchildren's experience of role ambiguity and the impact of stepchildren's role content and clarity on relational quality. Fifty-two stepchildren completed questionnaires about their relationships and interaction with their stepparent during adolescence. Findings indicate that stepchildren's autonomy and connection-seeking behaviors predict stepchildren's reports of stepparent role types, stepchildren's reports of stepparents' warmth displays predict stepchildren's role ambiguity, and stepchildren's behavior and role ambiguity relate to their relational satisfaction. Suggestions for future research in this area are proposed.