[361] THE HIM-B AS A FAMILY INTERACTION ASSESSMENT TECHNIQUE

A major review of research in marital happiness in the decade 1960-1970 concluded that: In general, higher occupational statuses, incomes, and educational levels for husbands; husband-wife similarities in socio-economic status, age, and religion; affectional rewards, such as esteem for spouse, sexual enjoyment, companionship; and age at marriage had all been delineated as variables correlated positively with marital happiness. Non-whites have different and essentially less happy marriages. It should be noted, of course, that at best these variables accounted for less than one-third of the variance in marital happiness. [Hicks and Platt, 1971: 555]] The search for theory and/or models in the broad area of family interaction continues unabated as we enter the second half of a subsequent decade. Central to the problem of articulating the processes and patterns of interaction between spouses, parents and children, and siblings is the inadequacy of much of the existing instrumentation in terms of sensi