The Influence of Adult Development on Family Development.

Most theories of family development are child-centered in that family life cycle stages and developmental tasks are determined by the development of the oldest child. The individual development of other family members is not accounted for, although there is a growing body of evidence indicating that development is a lifelong process. This dissertation was designed to test the hypothesis that adult development influences family development. It was evaluating families where the ages of the children were constant but the age and developmental stage of the parents varied. Two issues in adult development were selected for study: alertness to the finitude of time and the degree to which adults do what they want rather than what they should. Literature on adult development points to both an increasing altertness to the finitude of time and a consequent desire to do more of what they want as adults age. If adult development influences family development, then family development is expected to reflect the parents' developmental concerns. 40 white middle class families with one to three children were recruited from the Ann Arbor area. Children were 6-12 years old; parents were 31-48. Families were matched by age of parents for religion and maternal employment. Each family was evaluated in a two hour interview which included assessment of the parents' development by individual TAT and interview, and assessment of family development by family TAT and task. Correlations were estimated by calculation of Pearson r. Although r values reached significance (p < .05), only a small portion of the variance (10-15%) was accounted for, and significance was usually reached only by pooling measures. The main findings were: (1) Adult development was correlated with age for the issue of alertness to the finitude of time. (2) Mothers influenced the family with regard to the issue of time. (3) Father influenced the family with regard to the issue of shoulds vs. wants, but in a different way from that which was expected: concern with wants matched the children's responses better than did concern with shoulds. Given that the recruits were not a systematic, representative sample of a known group, results are tentative but suggestive. Specific suggestions for further research are included.PhDDevelopmental psychologyUniversity of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/158736/1/8204761.pd