CHAPTER 9

Relationships

Lecture guidelines

The statistics presented within each section all provide interesting perspectives on changes in relationships and the family over the past several decades. It is helpful to encourage students to view these numbers and trends in terms of the biopsychosocial model. The theoretical perspectives on relationships satisfaction in adulthood help to bring depth to these discussions of close relationships. The second unit of information in this chapter concerns family relationships, and here there are also a wealth of data, concepts, and theories. Summarizing statistics on childbirth, family size, and grandparenting helps to provide background to more theoretically oriented discussions regarding the transition to parenthood, extended family relationships, and changes in the family from a sociocultural perspective. Many of these topics can be given specific focus, particularly the relatively new phenomenon of same sex families, blended families, single fathers, and grandparents raising grandchildren. However, other relatively neglected areas such as sibling and friendship relationships also provide very interesting personal and theoretical insights for students

Videos and Films

There are virtually an infinite number of popular movies and television shows to choose from to illustrate the topics of close relationships and family. Most students have seen the movie “Up,” but its opening remains an excellent way to show the evolution of relationships over the course of the adult years. Using On Demand, you can stream episodes or scenes from movies that cover relationships. Some current examples include “This is Us,” “The Kominsky Method,” and “Modern Family.” There is also a video showing the reuniting of siblings who had been separated since childhood (https://www.abcactionnews.com/news/region-hillsborough/siblings-reunite-after-53-years-thanks-to-dna-test-through-ancestry-com). The topic of grandparenting is also popular in the media and, again, there are many videos available to show in class. Finally, the topic of online dating among older adults is receiving media attention, as in this clip: http://theconversation.com/online-dating-could-have-been-made-for-older-adults-they-love-it-23344.

Discussion questions

Marriage and intimate relationships

Do you think it is necessary to be married to have an intimate relationship? Why or why not?

What is the social significance of marriage? Why do people invest so much energy and expense into their own weddings?

Why are men more likely than women to marry late in life?

Do you agree with some experts who believe that many current problems can be attributed to a decline in the traditional family structure?

Why might adults decide to cohabit rather than get married?

What are some of the problems involved in calculating the probability that a marriage will end in divorce?

Do you know (or are you one) people who have been divorced? How were their lives affected?

Do you know (or are you one) children of divorced parents? What has their experience been like?

Has anyone in your family lost a spouse? How did he or she react to the loss?

What are the problems faced in our society by people who become widows?

Do you feel that "opposites attract," or does "like attract like"?

Families

Do you think people go through an empty nest when their children leave home? Do you think it has happened or will happen with your parents?

Is it inevitable that older people lose their sexuality?

(if any parents are in the class) How did you feel when you became a parent? How did it change your life?

(for non-parents) How do you think your life will change when you become a parent?

Why is the transition to parenthood important from a theoretical point of view?

What might some of the dynamics be in blended families?

Do you know people in blended families? How do they compare with families that are not blended?

Is there a difference between "blended" and "reconstituted"?

What understanding can we gain from examining same sex couples who become parents?

What are the roles of household tasks (such as taking out the garbage) vs. child care duties as influences on the transition to parenthood?

How does your family fit into the intergenerational solidarity model?

Have you experienced the concepts of developmental stake and developmental schism? How have these affected you?

Does your cultural background emphasize filial obligation? How does this affect the dynamics in your family?

Is sibling rivalry still an issue in your family?

Do you agree that helicopter parenting may be good for young adults in transition?

What are some of the issues faced by grandparents who have responsibility for raising their grandchildren?

What types of grandparents do you have? How would you rate them on the grandparent style types?

Friendships

Do you think you will stay in touch with your college friends throughout the rest of your life? Why or why not? What could you do to ensure that your close friendships do not dissolve after college?

Why are friends so important for personal happiness?

Multiple Choice Questions

AgeFeed

Social relationships and mortality

People whose social relationships are generally positive have a _____% lower mortality risk compared to those who do not.

1. 25
2. 4
3. 50
4. 12

Social isolation and television watching

The average amount of time per week adults 65 and older watch television is estimated to be ___ hours.

1. 25
2. 33
3. 64
4. 47

Marriage and intimate relationships

Definition of marriage

The definition of marriage includes the provision of:

1. change of name by the wife.
2. extent of love between partners.
3. agreement to live with the partner.
4. a union between partners sanctioned by law.

Percent of adults married

What is the percentage of adults in the United States of people 18 years and older who are married?

1. 43
2. 78
3. 54
4. 91

Percent of adult never married

What is the percentage of adults in the United States of people 18 years and older who have never married?

1. 63
2. 27
3. 54
4. 12

Percent women 85+ widowed

What is the percent of women 85 and older who are widowed?

1. 53
2. 70
3. 33
4. 95

Living situation 85+

As of 2016, 39% of individuals 85 and older in the U.S. are living:

1. in group quarters.
2. alone in a household.
3. with family in a household.
4. with nonfamily in a household.

Median age of marriage

You’re attending the wedding of your best friend’s sister who, at age 31, will be getting married for the first time. She is approximately _____________ compared to the median age of women at first marriage in the U.S.

1. 2 years younger
2. 6 years older
3. exactly the same age
4. 3 years older

Racial/ethnic marriage percent

The highest percentage of married adults ages 20 and older in the U.S. are of what racial/ethnic category?

1. Non-Hispanic Blacks
2. Hispanic Whites
3. Asian Americans
4. Non-Hispanic Whites

Cohabitation rates 25-34

By the year 2018, the percent of individuals ages 25 to 34 living with a partner had risen from .2 in 1970 to:

1. 40.3.
2. 7.1
3. 52.4
4. 14.8

Cohabitation effect

Couples who cohabitate before getting engaged will have a higher divorce rate should they marry. The most likely contributing factor is that:

such marriages are more likely to be based on convenience than true intimacy.

1. the couples have learned about each other’s faults too early in the relationship.
2. their friends disapprove of their relationship.
3. the couples’ own families may have driven them apart.

Living apart together

Older adults in the _____________ relationship status have decided not to share the same household.

1. Non-Committed Arrangement
2. Serial Cohabitation
3. Living Apart Together
4. Dyadic Withdrawal

Same-sex marriage facts

Which state in the U.S. was the first to legalize same-sex marriage?

1. California
2. Massachusetts
3. Washington
4. Nevada

Same-sex marriage facts

The average age in same sex households in the U.S. is _____ years old.

1. 47
2. 28
3. 56
4. 33

Female-female divorce

One reason that female-female same sex marriages are more likely to end in divorce than female-male marriages is that:

1. women face more discrimination if they are in a same sex relationship.
2. same-sex marriages are more strained in general than male-female marriages.
3. childcare becomes more of an issue with same sex relationships.
4. women are more likely to initiate divorce if unhappy in the relationship.

Current divorce rate

The current divorce rate in the U.S., based on 1,000 in the population is:

1. 49.9
2. 13.4
3. 2.9
4. 8.7

Millennials and divorce

Which current generation of U.S. adults have the lowest likelihood of divorcing?

1. Gen X
2. Baby Boomers
3. Gen Y
4. Millennials

Divorce prone

The tendency of people who have been divorced to consider divorce again when their marriage is not working out well is referred to as:

1. developmental schism.
2. anxious ambivalence.
3. need complementarity.
4. divorce proneness.

Second marriages in U.S.

Difficulty:

What percentage of all marriages in the U.S. are second marriages?

1. 10
2. 25
3. 13
4. 4

Saving face in divorce

Difficulty:

The process of “saving face” with regard to divorce, means that the partners in the couple, after their divorce:

1. remain friends with each other.
2. decide to co-parent their children.
3. protect each other’s identity.
4. no longer maintain contact with in-laws.

Divorce and mediation

Difficulty:

To improve the adjustment of the children to their divorce, a couple may be advised to use _____________, in which they learn to engage in cooperative dispute settlement.

1. recommitment
2. saving face
3. mediation
4. social exchange

Number of widowed

In the U.S., there are approximately ______ million widowed adults, most of whom are 65 and older.

1. 32
2. 15
3. 73
4. 54

Widowhood and mental health

Widows experience the most serious mental health outcomes when the death of their spouse:

1. was preceded by lengthy caregiving.
2. occurred while on vacation.
3. was not anticipated.
4. took place in a hospital.

Percent widows who remain depressed

Approximately ______% of widows remain depressed from 12 to 18 months following the death of their spouse.

1. 7
2. 19
3. 38
4. 11

Widowhood effeffcts

The ___________ effect refers to the fact that people whose spouses die are more likely to die after losing their spouse.

1. disillusionment
2. equity
3. similarity
4. widowhood

Chronic grief

Based on Bonnanno’s research, a minority of widows show which pattern of mental health outcomes following the death of their spouse?

1. resilient
2. adaptive
3. reconciled
4. chronic grief

Socioemotional selectivity theory

According to __________________ theory, members of a couple in a long-term relationship should prefer to spend time with each other rather than people they don’t know very well.

1. behavioral interaction
2. need complementarity
3. socioemotional selectivity
4. social similarity

Suffocation model

According to the suffocation model of marriage, members of a couple in a long-term relationship focus too much of their attention on:

1. the wellbeing of their children.
2. how other people view them.
3. involvement with other family members.
4. their relationship as a source of fulfillment.

Conflict resolution

A distressed couple is seeking marital therapy because they feel that they are on the brink of getting a divorce. The therapist they begin treatment with works from a behavioral perspective, meaning that the couple will be asked to evaluate:

1. how often they engage in destructive forms of conflict resolution.
2. whether they feel the costs outweigh the rewards of their relationship.
3. which partner tends to take on more of the chores around the house.
4. whether their values and beliefs are similar or complementary.

Social exchange theory

In the _____ theory of interpersonal relationship satisfaction, you would feel happiest in relationships when you feel that the rewards of the relationship equal or exceed its costs.

1. filial obligation
2. need similarity
3. personal selectivity
4. social exchange

Equity theory

According to equity theory, what are the major considerations that couples take into account in evaluating their levels of satisfaction?

1. whether the costs outweigh the rewards
2. how similar or different the partners are
3. how much effort each contributes
4. the extent to which they can express their true selves

Enduring dynamics

A couple’s friends are not at all surprised to learn that the couple has decided to divorce, because they suspected the relationship would end almost as soon as it began. Which long-term pathway of relationships corresponds to this circumstance?

1. emergent distress
2. disillusionment
3. socioemotional selectivity
4. enduring dynamics

Families

Birth rates 35-49

An increase in birth rates in the U.S. was observed in 2018 in which age group of women?

1. 15-24
2. 25-34
3. 35-49
4. 50 and older

Household composition

In 2018, what percentage of households in the U.S. with children under 18 included a married couple?

1. 74
2. 53
3. 95
4. 69

Children with grandparent only

Census data from the U.S. on the living arrangements of children show that ____% of those living with no parent present live in households with a grandparent only.

1. 8
2. 19
3. 23
4. 4

Insecure attachment and transition to parenthood

A therapist is treating a couple who have just had their first child. In the second session, the therapist notes that the mother seems highly anxious about being left alone and seems to need constant reassurance. It’s possible that the mother is showing _______________, which can place her at risk for difficulties in caring for her infant.

1. insecure attachment
2. developmental shift
3. filial immaturity
4. social exchange

Doing gender

The phenomenon in families known as “doing gender” describes what happens when parents:

1. have children all of one sex.
2. decide they would prefer children who are female rather than male.
3. divide children’s chores according to sex.
4. behave according to traditional gender roles.

Stepparents

The ability of stepparents to feel less stressed in a blended family, in which the other parent is the biological mother or father, can be promoted by:

1. a promise to stop paying alimony to the other biological parent.
2. the relaxing of gender roles among the biological and stepparent.
3. taking regular vacations from all parenting duties.
4. moving to a different location from the other biological parent.

Helicopter parenting and contingency theory

Although the media report frequently on the phenomenon of parents who are over-involved with their young adult children, contingency theory instead suggests instead that many parents actually:

1. provide the most support to their children who are actually in need of help.
2. prefer to spend time with each other once their children leave the home.
3. receive more care and attention from children than they themselves give.
4. resist giving help even to their children in need.

Empty nest syndrome

A study of Canadian parents showed that the greatest difficulty in adapting to the empty nest was experienced by parents who:

1. feel that it’s time to release control over their children.
2. value bonds between parents and children
3. have a large social network of friends.
4. wish they could relive their own earlier days of youth.

Intergenerational solidarity model

At each major holiday family gathering, the liberal son and his highly conservative father inevitably seem to become involved in a heated political debate, upsetting everyone at the dinner table. This situation is an example of which dimension in the intergenerational solidarity model?

1. associational
2. normative
3. consensual
4. obligatory

Intergenerational solidarity model

A 35-year-old man visits his parents as often as he can, driving the 2 hours each way in order to spend a Sunday or day off from work with them. The man and his parents would be considered high on which dimension of the Intergenerational Solidarity Model?

1. associational strength.
2. structural ambivalence.
3. consensual pressure.
4. value consistency.

Filial maturity

When children reach the age at which they enter adulthood, they and their parents experience a phenomenon known as:

1. filial anxiety.
2. family blending.
3. role reciprocity.
4. filial maturity.

Developmental schism

In the family relationships literature, a developmental schism refers to which situation?

1. sibling rivalry between adult children
2. the abandonment of young children by parents
3. when parents and adult children stop valuing each other
4. parents providing more support to one child than another

Filial anxiety

Filial anxiety occurs when adult children experience which set of feelings about their parents?

1. fear that they will be abandoned
2. worries that their parents are acting too youthfully
3. a desire to gain complete independence
4. concern about having to care for them

Grandparents raising grandchildren

The U.S. Census Bureau reports that, as of the latest survey, ________ million grandparents in the labor force are responsible for the basic care of grandchildren living in the home.

1. 3.9
2. 2.7
3. 4.9
4. 1.5

Grandparents raising grandchildren

Grandparents may be put in the position of raising their grandchildren due to the opioid crisis affecting parents in which region of the country?

1. southeast
2. midwest
3. northeast
4. northwest

Siblings

Siblings

A middle-aged woman and her brother consider each other their closest friends, even though both are in satisfying intimate relationships with spouses. Research suggests it is likely that these siblings feel so good about each other because:

1. they bonded against parents who were neglectful.
2. they are trying to make up for having ignored each other as children.
3. each of them felt the other parent loved them more.
4. their parents fostered warm and affectionate relationships.

Friendships

Socioemotional selectivity theory and friendships

A 69-year-old woman has just relocated to a town closer to where her adult children and grandchildren live. She is trying to make new friends, but she still prefers connecting with the friends from the home she just left behind. Which theory provides the best explanation for this situation?

1. social exchange
2. socioemotional selectivity
3. filial anxiety
4. developmental stake

Peripheral ties

The concept of _____________ accounts for people who have only superficial ties with others in their social circle.

1. dyadic withdrawal
2. exchange theory
3. peripheral ties
4. skip generation

Short Answer Questions

Marriage and intimate relationships

1. Contrast the major approaches to analyzing relationship satisfaction.
2. What factors account for the cohabitation effect?

Families

1. Describe three factors that influence the quality of a couple’s relationship as it changes over the transition to parenthood.
2. Summarize the three forms of "filial" attitudes as these exist in the relationships between adult children and their parents.
3. What are three factors that influence the extent to which an adult daughter experiences caregiver stress?
4. What are the risks and benefits involved in grandparents raising grandchildren?
5. How does culture affect the empty nest syndrome?
6. What are the pros and cons to helicopter parenting?

Friendships

1. What are the three changes that can occur in friendships of partners in long-term relationships?
2. What are the three friendship styles identified in adulthood?

Essay Questions

1. Summarize the trends over the past 50 years in marriage and family statistics and provide an analysis of the causes of these changes.
2. Provide an analysis of the transition to parenthood from a biopsychosocial perspective.
3. Describe how the developmental schism might apply to fathers and sons.
4. What are the common features or dimensions shared by models of adult child-parent, grandparent, and sibling relationship?
5. Think of an example of a recent film in which the relationship between friends in adulthood was portrayed. What themes are present in media depictions of friendships that might provide a useful way to approach research on this topic?