2.1 Olson’s circumplex model

One early family communication theory that emerged from an allied discipline but that made theorizing about the role of communication in family process central and therefore has received considerable attention is Olson’s circumplex model of family functioning (1981, 1993; Olson, Sprenkle and Russell 1979; Olson, Russell and Sprenkle 1983). Olsen argued that family functioning is determined by two fundamental dimensions of families: cohesion and adaptability. According to the theory, moderate levels on both dimensions are associated with superior functioning, whereas extremes on either the dimensions are associated with less than optimal functioning. For cohesion, this means that separated or engaged families function better than disengaged or enmeshed families, and for adaptation that flexible or structured families function better than rigid or chaotic families. Families that are moderate on both dimensions function best, followed by families that are moderate on one but extreme on the other dimension, and families that are extreme on both dimensions are the least functional.

Family communication is identified by Olson (1981, 1993) as a third, facilitating dimension of families. Family’s communication ultimately determines where the family falls along the cohesion and adaptability dimensions. Communication also allows families to change their location along the dimensions, which is particularly important for the application of the circumplex model to family therapy. Once a counselor has established where along the two dimensions a dysfunctional family falls, the counselor can suggest specific communication behaviors that may move a family toward more moderate levels on the dimensions, thereby increasing family functioning.

Despite the central, even deterministic role of communication in Olsons’s model, the mechanisms by which communication facilitates the dimensions of cohesion and adaptability were left basically undefined. Although Olson identified specific communication skills (or behaviors) as facilitating moderate levels of cohesion and adaptability, include speaking skills such as speaking for self and avoiding speaking for others, listening skills such as active listening and empathy, as well as general communication skills such as self disclosure, clarity, continuity and tracking, and showing respect and regard for other, how and why these communication behaviors would lead to moderate levels of adaptability and cohesion was never fully explicated. Even more problematic, Olson’s own research produced linear rather than the predicted curvilinear relationships between the communication behaviors and cohesion and adaptability, respectively. Partially as a consequence, family communication researchers’ interest in Olson’s circumplex model has weaned considerably in recent years.

2.2 Family communication patterns theory

A general theory of family communication that originated from within the communication discipline is Family Communication Patterns Theory (FCPT) (Fitzpatrick and Ritchie 1994; Koerner 2007; Koerner and Fitzpatrick 2002a, 2002bc, 2004, 2006a; Ritchie and Fitzpatrick 1990). Grounded in cognitive theory, FCPT postulates that creating a shared social reality is a process fundamental to family functioning that defines family relationships and determines how families communicate. Shared social reality in families is created through two communication behaviors: conversation orientation and conformity orientation, which together determine families’ communication patterns. Conversation orientation refers to open and frequent communication between parents and children with the purpose of co-discovering and co-determining the meaning of objects that constitute social reality. It is associated with warm and supportive communication characterized by mutual respect and concern for one another. Conformity orientation, in contrast, refers to more restricted communication between parents and children in which those of authority, typically the parents, define the family’s social reality. Conformity orientation is associated with more authoritarian parenting and less concern for the children’s thoughts and feelings.

These two orthogonal orientations toward creating shared social reality define a conceptual space for family communication describing four family types. Consensual families are high on both conversation orientation and conformity orientation. Their communication is characterized by a tension between an interest in open communication and in exploring new ideas, on the one hand, and pressure to agree and to preserve the existing hierarchy of the family, on the other hand. Parents attempt to solve this tension by listening to and by explaining their values and beliefs to their children and by trying to persuade them to adopt their views. Children in these families are usually satisfied and well adapted.

Pluralistic families have high conversation orientation and low conformity orientation. Their communication is characterized by open, unconstrained discussions that involve all family members and a wide range of topics. Parents in these families exert little control over their children and welcome their children’s different beliefs and values, although they also explain their own values and beliefs to them. Children of these families learn to be independent and autonomous and to communicate persuasively and they are generally satisfied with their family relationships.

Protective families have high conformity and low conversation orientation. Their communication is characterized by obedience to parental authority and by little concern for conceptual matters. Parents in these families exert strong control over their children and rarely explain their reasoning to them. They express their beliefs and values and expect their children to adopt them as well. Children in protective families learn that there is little value in family conversations and to distrust their own decision making ability.

Laissez-Faire families are low on both conversation and conformity orientation. Their communication is characterized by few, uninvolving interactions. Laissez-faire families are emotionally distant and family members have little interest in the thoughts and feeling of other family members. Children of these families learn not to value family conversations and to become independent decision makers. Because they do not receive parental support or encouragement, they distrust their own decision making ability and are particularly susceptible to peer influence.

These family communication patterns that stem from how families create shared social reality have been associated with a number of family processes, such as confirmation and affection (Schrodt, Ledbetter, and Ohrt 2007), conflict resolution (Koerner and Fitzpatrick 1997), family rituals (Baxter and Clark 1996) and understanding (Sillars, Koerner, and Fitzpatrick 2005), as well as with child-related outcomes, such as communication apprehension (Elwood and Shrader 1998), conflict with romantic partners (Koerner and Fitzpatrick 2002c), children’s mental and physical health (Schrodt and Ledbetter 2007), and children’s resiliency (Fitzpatrick and Koerner 2005).

3.1 Parenting and child socialization

Probably the most essential characteristic of family is the raising of children (Koerner and Fitzpatrick 2013). Thus, it should come as no surprise that much of the research and theorizing about family communication focuses on parenting and the socialization of children. Generally, parenting and socialization have been identified as having two primary functions. The first is to enable children to become socially competent and to perform successfully in their respective social roles. To fulfill this function, families must be oriented externally toward social relationships and be concerned with social norms and rules and adherence to them. This process is fundamentally about compliance with social rules and norms. The other function is for children to achieve a certain degree of psychological well-being that is indicated by them exhibiting satisfaction with their lives, their relationships, and their selves and experience a general sense of happiness. To fulfill this second function, families orient inwards toward acceptance and love of self and are concerned with children’s self-esteem. This process is fundamentally about love and acceptance (Koerner and Fitzpatrick 2013).

This view is echoed by Steinberg (2001), who reviewed two decades of parenting research and concluded that the two most consistent findings of this research have been that warm and firm parenting that is responsive to children’s needs for autonomy is associated with positive child adjustment (Steinberg 1990; Steinberg, Elmen, and Mounts 1989). This generalization is also supported by four decades of parenting research based on Baumrind’s parenting styles (1967, 1971, 1991), which consistently demonstrated that authoritative parenting, which combines warmth with discipline, is superior in terms of child outcomes to permissive parenting (warmth without discipline ), authoritarian parenting (discipline without warmth), and neglecting parenting (neither warmth nor discipline). Other researchers have used different labels to describe these two core concepts of parenting, the results, however, are the same.

Another group of researchers investigated the role parenting strategies play in the social and cognitive development of children (Burleson, Delia and Applegate 1995). According to these scholars, parents use two different communication strategies to regulate children’s behaviors: A person-centered approach or a position-centered approach. In the person-centered approach, parents employ regulating and comforting messages to their children that emphasize how other people are affected by the child’s behavior and that focuses on the needs, values, feelings, and psychology of others. In contrast, the position-centered approach employs regulating and comforting messages that emphasize rules and norms that apply regardless of whether or how others are affected by the behavior. The person-centered approach leads children to develop communication skills that enhance their ability to be empathetic and to take other person’s perspective into consideration, which leads children to develop complex and sophisticated mental representations of themselves, others, and their interpersonal relationships (Burleson et al. 1995; Young 2009). In contrast, the position-centered approach leads children to develop communication skills that enhance their ability to identify pertinent social rules and norms, without considering the other persons’ perspectives. Such communication leads children to develop less complex and less sophisticated and more rigid mental representations of themselves, others, and interpersonal relationships (Burleson et al. 1995; Young 2009).

3.2 Family secrets

Research devoted to exploring even more specific types of family communication is exemplified by Vangelisti’s work on family secrets (1994, 1997; Vangelisti, Caughlin, and Timmerman 2001). According to these researchers, family secrets can be differentiated by form, topic, and function (Vangelisti 1994). Forms vary from whole family secrets (all family members know but outsiders do not) to intra-family secret (some family members know, but others and outsiders do not) to individual secrets (only one family member knows, but other family members and outsiders do not). Topics vary from the conventional (e.g., children’s grades, illness of a parent) to rule violations (e.g., alcohol use, out of wedlock pregnancy of a family member) to taboos (e.g., marital difficulties, physical and sexual abuse). Functions of secrets identified by Vangelisti (1994) include bonding, evaluation, maintenance, privacy, defense and communication.

Vangelisti’s (1994) found correlations between secret form, topic, and function and family satisfaction. For example, taboo secrets were most likely to be whole family secrets and least likely to be individual secrets, whereas rule violations were most likely to be individual secrets and least likely whole family secrets. There was no association between form and topic for conventional secrets. As far as the association between form and function was concerned, Vangelisti found that whole family secrets mainly served the evaluative, defense, and privacy functions; intra-family secrets mainly served the maintenance function; while individual secrets mainly served the evaluative and privacy functions.

Regarding the revelation of family secrets to outsiders, Vangelisti (1997; Vangelisti, Caughlin and Timmermann 2001) found that a member’s satisfaction with their family relationships was negatively associated with revealing secrets to outsiders, whereas closeness and similarity with the outsider was positively associated with revealing family secretes. These findings suggest that family secrets are used to manage interpersonal relationships both within families and with outsiders. Revealing secrets reduces the importance and intimacy of family relationships and family members can use such revelations to assert greater autonomy and independence from the families. At the same time, revealing family secrets also increases the intimacy and interdependence of the family member’s relationship with the outsider and family members can use revealing secretes to increase the closeness of these relationships.

3.3 Privacy management theory

Closely related to the work on family secrets is communication privacy management theory (CPMT) (Petronio 2002, 2010; Petronio and Caughlin 2006). Although it was not developed exclusively for the application to family communication, it is this context in which it has found it greatest use (Caughlin, Petronio, and Middleton 2013). Like Vangelisiti (1994, 1997), CPMT proposes that private information is used primarily to manage interpersonal relationships. According to Petronio (2002, 2010), private information, that is, information about oneself that is potentially harmful or embarrassing, “belongs” to the individual but can be “shared” with others who then obtain partial ownership of the information and share in the responsibility to safeguard it and to use it appropriately. This sharing of private information defines relationships boundaries of varying degrees of permeability and serves to solidify or weakening relationship bonds and keeps others within or outside the relationship (Petronio, 2010). In addition to affecting relationship boundaries, sharing private information also affects the quality of family relationships. Often, sharing enhances family relationships as it represents an expression of closeness, intimacy, and trust (Petronio 2002), but it can also decrease family satisfaction, especially if the information has the potential to negatively affect their relationships with other family members (Afifi, et al. 2007).

This perspective on private information and its strategic use to manage interpersonal and particularly family relationships represents a significant theoretical advancement over early theories of interpersonal communication and relationships, which regarded private information as essentially synonymous with intimacy and conceptualized relationships as being primarily about achieving greater intimacy (e.g., Altman and Taylor 1973)

3.4 Affective communication in families

Another research area of more focused scope involves investigations of the expression of affect in families. A particularly good example of scientific research is Affective Exchange Theory (AET) (Floyd 2001; Floyd and Morman 2003). Unlike many other family communication theories that explain phenomena but take the phenomena themselves as given, Floyd provided a theoretical explanation for why affect is exchanged in family relationships by explicitly grounding AET in evolutionary theory. AET argues that humans’ ability to experience and express affection was evolutionary selected for because it created significant benefits in terms of survival and reproduction. Thus, AET is tied to a larger, extremely powerful explanatory framework rather than standing on its own.

Tying AET to evolutionary theory not only places the theory into a larger, powerful explanatory framework that is relevant to, and used by, a number of social scientists, it also creates an environment that encourages the formulation and testing of very specific hypotheses. Furthermore, unlike hypotheses that originate from theoretical frameworks that were developed specifically for the phenomena they explain and therefore hew close to the empirical observations made about these phenomena, hypotheses based on more distal theoretical explanations have the chance to be truly counterintuitive. As such, data supporting them make a much more powerful case for their theoretical models than data supporting hypotheses that are not counterintuitive. For example, if the evolutionary reason for parental affection is to enable one’s offspring to survive and propagate, it follows that fathers should be more affectionate with biological as opposed to step-children (Floyd and Morman 2001). Likewise, fathers should also be more affectionate with heterosexual sons than with bisexual or homosexual sons, and this association should be mediated by their fathers’ perceptions of their sexual orientations (Floyd, 2001; Floyd, Sargent and Di Corcia 2004).

Floyd’s work on AFT does not only support an evolutionary framework, however. Through its investigating father-son relationships, Floyd and his associates described an often neglected family relationship in great detail and found, for example, that affection in father-son relationships is expressed more through supportive behavior than through direct verbal or non-verbal expression of affection (Floyd, Sargent and Di Corcia 2004). Also, Morman and Floyd (2002, 2006) were able to demonstrate the impact that changing cultural norms have on this family dyad by comparing current fathers’ reports on their relationships with their fathers to their and their sons’ reports on their current father-son relationships. These researchers found that both fathers and sons in contemporary relationships report much more affectionate communication than current fathers had with their own fathers (Floyd and Morman 2005). Thus, while evolved psychological processes do play an important role in father-son relationships, so too do cultural forces.

3.5 Family conflict

Unlike most interpersonal relationships that are voluntary and therefore rarely persist if they are very conflicted, family relationships are involuntary and often characterized by high incidents of conflict (Roloff and Miller 2006; Shantz and Hobart 1989; see Chapter 8, Canary and Canary), with conflict behavior significantly more frequent in family relationships than in peer or work relationships (Sillars, Canary and Tafoya 2004). One reason family relationships are conflicted is that a large proportion of parent-child communication consists of parents’ attempts to regulate their children’s behavior and children often resisting (Laursen 1993; Laursen and Collins 2004; Laursen, Coy and Collins 1998) and resenting these attempts (Collins and Luebker 1994, Smetana, Yau and Hanson 1991). At the same time, family relationships are highly interdependent with family members depending on each other in achieving important individual and interpersonal goals, increasing the potential for families to experience frustration and related negative affect that often finds its expression in conflict of other forms of hostility (Clark, Fitness and Brisette 2001; Fitness 2013).

3.6 Family violence

Family relationships are not only the most conflicted, but also the most physically violent interpersonal relationships most persons have (Straus 1990, 1994; Straus and Gelles 1990). Despite significant changes in U.S. social norms over the last 50 years that have made acts of severe violence (including kicking, punching, and hitting with objects such as belts or paddles) unacceptable or even illegal in spousal, parent-child, and sibling relationships, a 2008 nationally representative sample showed 18% of children and adolescents being exposed to physical violence in their homes, 10% saw a parent hit by a partner, and 5% saw their parent physically assaulted by their partner (Hamby et al. 2011). In a survey on sibling relationships, 36% of children and adolescents reported physically violence in conflict with a sibling (Finkelhor, Turner and Hamby 2005).

3.7 Corporal punishment

One form of family violence that is unique for both its ubiquitousness (Holden, Miller and Harris 1999) and the contentiousness with which research regarding it is received by the public is corporal punishment. According to Strauss (1990), corporal punishment usually is defined as “the use of physical force with the intention of causing a child to experience pain, but not injury, for the purpose of correction or control of the child’s behavior” (p. 4), differentiating it from violence, which is defined as “an act carried out with the intention, or perceived intention, of causing physical pain or injury to another person” (p. 7). Because this distinction depends on the (perceived) intention of the actor, which might not necessarily be obvious or unambiguous, it is difficult for both participants and observers to determine whether an act was corporal punishment or violence.

Potentially due to the difficulty to distinguish between corporal punishment and interpersonal violence, the outcomes for children experiences are remarkably similar (but see Baumrind, Larzelere and Cowan 2002). In an extensive review of research on corporal punishment, Gershoff (2002) found that although corporal punishment often results in short-term compliance, the long-term outcomes of corporal punishment for children are similar to those of other forms of family violence. Such outcomes included increased aggression, delinquency, and antisocial behaviors, decreased moral internalization, lower quality of parent-child relationships, and mental health problems for children (Gershoff 2002). Outcomes that follow children into adulthood included increased risks for adult criminal and antisocial behavior and for abusing one’s own children (Gershoff 2002; Straus 1994). Other research has linked corporal punishment to increased externalizing behaviors (McKenzie et al. 2011) and delayed cognitive development (Straus and Paschall 2009).

One explanation for the finding that violent family conflict and corporal punishment have similarly negative outcomes for children could be that regardless of parents’ intentions, the emotional and physical experience for children is extremely similar. Although parents might able to distinguish between violence and corporal punishment in terms of their own intention, their children might not be able to make this distinction because they necessarily rely on their own inferences and attributions when assigning intent to their parents’ behaviors (Sillars and Canary 2013).

Because most corporal punishment is administered by frustrated and angry parents, it represents a form of parental communication that is both emotionally upsetting and coercive. An alternative explanation for why the negative effects of corporal punishment are indistinguishable from those of parental violence is based on functional correlates of corporal punishment. The use of corporal punishment tends to preclude the opportunity for parents to utilize other, more socially useful methods of behavior control, such as reasoning and reflection and therefore results in children’s truncated development of conflict resolution skills (Straus and Yodanis 1996). The more parents rely on corporal punishment, the fewer opportunities children have to witness and participate in non-violent modes of influencing another person’s behavior, leaving them to rely on physical violence rather than more prosocial strategies. Like other types of family violence, corporal punishment teaches children problem resolution and conflict skills that they cannot successfully use in their relationships outside the family and that therefore impede their social competence and functioning.

4.1 Summary

This brief review of the social scientific investigation of family communication has shown that as a scholarly endeavor, family communication research has made some important contributions to our understanding of family relationships and processes. At the same time, it is still a rather immature science and the majority of empirical work in family communication is primarily concerned with establishing knowledge about associations between variables, especially in regard to child development and adjustment. Mostly, however, this work is not scientific in the sense that it tests hypotheses derived from sophisticated or even clearly articulated theoretical models. In fact, what many researchers call theories or models frequently amount to little more than the predicted associations themselves, and disappointingly often, the only justification for the prediction is that it has been observed before. If there are underlying mechanisms that are causally responsible for the predicted associations, they often are implicit rather than illuminated by a convincing theoretical explanation. It is doubtful that these scholars are unaware of what theory is or should be. Quite the opposite, they understand the value of theory in science and recognize that to be taken seriously in the field, research has to be theory driven, even if the collective empirical knowledge of family communication might be insufficient to develop full-fledged scientific theories about it. Thus, the relative lack of strong family communication theories has more to do with the youth of the discipline

Perhaps this review has shown that, despite misgivings about the relative scarcity of scientific research in family communication, there are examples of truly exceptional theoretical and empirical work that is being done. While this chapter has focused on the theoretical and empirical aspects of these research programs, they are often made possible by the development of tremendously sophisticated methods in recent years, particularly in regard to statistical analysis. Hypotheses testing and other types of empirical research in family communication can be challenging because data are often “messy” and there are various types of dependencies of observations that violate basic assumptions underlying more traditional statistical methods. Newer methods, such as hierarchically nested models, not only control for such dependencies, but can also identify individual level, dyadic, and family level effects, allowing for much greater precision in describing and testing associations between variables and at what level of analysis certain processes operate (see Chapter 5, Caughlin and Basinger; and Chapter 6, Liu).

Finally, this review has also shown the tremendous promise scientific research of family communication holds. All of the theories reviewed here aim to reach a level of complexity that is appropriate to the complexity of the phenomenon under investigation. At the beginning of the chapter, I noted that many allied disciplines treat communication as a primitive term. As communication scholars we know that communication is anything but. Messages and nonverbal behavior are imbued with meaning that depends not only the behaviors and symbols used, but individual cognitive and affective process, the physical space, its place in an ongoing interaction and relationship, the sociocultural context, and a host of other factors whose impact on meaning is negotiated in the very interactions they give meaning to.

The theories reviewed in this chapter recognize this complexity and attempt to account for it. For example, in Privacy Management Theory (Petronio 2002, 2010), relationship boundary permeability not only predicts with whom private information is shared, but with whom private information is shared also predicts the boundaries around family relationships, specifying a recursive association or an association in which causality can change direction. Clearly, one-directional causal associations are conceptually cleaner and easier to theorize about and to test empirically, but the actual phenomenon might not be reducible to linear causal explanation. While this makes privacy management theory more difficult to test, it also makes it a more valid and ultimately more powerful theory.

Similarly, family communication is not self-contained; rather, it is nested within a series of hierarchically ordered systems that are interdependent on one another. Theorizing about communication requires recognition of these systems and the effects they have on communication, even if that requires theorizing about processes that are seemingly far removed from the interaction or the family system. One example of such theorizing is Affective Exchange Theory (AET) (Floyd 2001; Floyd and Morman 2003), which recognizes that communicative behavior is impacted by cognitive processes that have evolved due to evolutionary pressures and that, however unconsciously, affect how we think and feel about our family members and, as a consequence, how we communicate with them. These evolutionary pressures may have taken place tens of thousands of years ago in families that were organized quite unlike ours, yet they still impact how modern families communicate today. In the end, the best scientific theories recognize and address the tremendous complexity of family communication and resists simple and simplistic explanations.

4.2 Future directions

While it is difficult to predict the future, at least in the short term two developments will significantly affect the scientific investigation of family communication. The first is that the theories motivating family communication research will become more complex to account for the complexity of the behaviors they seek to explain. In this process, there is a good chance that narrow theories will broaden and begin to make theoretical connections to other narrow theories that explain other, ostensibly distinct phenomena. For example, there is no good theoretical reason for why family conflict should be treated as distinct from corporal punishment, and why privacy management should be considered separate from parenting. Clearly, these phenomena are related and knowledge and theory about one phenomenon should be useful in understanding the other. Ultimately, it might even be possible that these narrow focused theories converge into broader, more comprehensive models that are based on “grand theories” of relationships, such as evolutionary theory.

The second development that will affect future research is greater awareness about nontraditional families and the greater social acceptance and visibility these families enjoy. The increased attention family communication researchers pay to non-traditional and complex families, such as single-parent, blended, step, and multi-generational families and families created through artificial reproductive technologies or adoption open research to investigate a whole new set of variables that deserve attention. Examples of such variables include cultural norms and expectations about marriages and families, perceptions of gender and sexual orientation, the role of self and family identities, relationships between biologically unrelated siblings and parents and children, to name just a few. Up until now, most research on these relationships has focused on comparing and contrasting these families to their more traditional counterpart, the nuclear family. As a result, how communication and relationships are conceptualized in these families has not yet reached the same level of theoretical sophistication as some of the other work reviewed in this chapter, and it also implies that the traditional family represents the standard of function and well-being (Koerner and Fitzpatrick 2013). The trend toward more complex theoretical explanations of family communication, however, suggests that our understanding of these relationships and the variables that are associated with them will increase dramatically in the future.