The Child in the Family

Author(s): Glenn R. Hawkes and Robert J. Havighurst

Source: Marriage and Family Living, Vol. 19, No. 1, Proceedings of the Family Research
Conference (Feb., 1957), pp. 46-53
Published by: National Council on Family Relations
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 The Child in the Family*
GLENN R. HAWKES
Professorof Child Development,Iowa State College
SINCE Freud's "id" emerged into our west-
ern culture, it has exerted an ever increasing
influence in our behavioralsciences, our litera-
ture, our folk-lore, and our education. We
speak of childhood complexes and emotional
blocks in children as easily as we describe the
World Series or the new model automobiles.
This credo of our cult has become such an
importantpart of our way of life that the man
on the street can relate his present problemsto
his early childhood experiences in his family
as naturallyas he ascribespeace and prosperity
to either the Republicansor the Democratsand
on just as superficiala basis. Child guidance
workers,child psychiatrists,social workers,and
pediatriciansall look to parentsand families to
explain problem behavior or to correct it.
Even John Broadus Watson, our rejected
prophet of childhood, was so concerned with
the child in the family that he wrote Psycho-
logical Care of Infant and Childl for popular
consumption. The following passage became
dictum for thousandsof parents:
There is a sensible way of treating children.
. . .Let your behavioralways be objective and
kindly firm. Never hug and kiss them, never let
them sit on your lap. If you must, kiss them once
on the foreheadwhen they say goodnight.Shake
hands with them in the morning.
Today Benjamin Spock and Arnold Gesell
enjoy the acclaimof parentswith their writings
about children because of the real need that
parentshave to understandthe childrenin their
families. Television, movies, and novels find
that a centralstory theme built aroundthe child
in the family draws popular appeal very
quickly.
In therapy with children, the family is be-
* Published as Journal
Paper No. J-3083 of the Iowa
Agricultural Experiment Station, Ames, Iowa, Project No.
1299, Home Economics Research.
1 John B. Watson,
Psychological Care of Infant and Child,
New York: Norton, 1928, pp. 81-82.
46 MARRIAGE AND FAMILY LIVING
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coming increasingly important. Bakwin and
Bakwin, Baruch, Bettleheim, Ribble, and
Bowlby, either as therapists or theorists for
therapists, stress over and over again the im-
portance of understandingthe relations of the
child to his family. Bowlby, in his Maternal
Care and Mental Health,2 a book which inci-
dentally has excited many in the behavioral
sciences because it reveals so many seemingly
fruitful hypotheses for study, states:
. . For the momentit is sufficientto say that
what is believedto be essentialfor mentalhealth
is that the infant and young child should ex-
perience a warm, intimate, and continuousrela-
tionship with his mother in which both find
satisfactionand enjoyment.
Bender,3 attempting to explain anxiety in
disturbed children, cites lack of a satisfactory
mothering relationship as a major factor. Logi-
cally deep and intense therapy has tried to make
up for this lack. Dorothy Baruch's4 study of
Kenneth, and the subsequent therapy, revolves
around the theme:
Kenneth's mother and father, like most par-
ents, tried to do their best for their child, and
yet their own personal problems deprived the
little boy of the most vital ingredientsof growth
and happiness-love and understanding. The story
of his therapy, . . . of necessity included the re-
educationof his parents.
With this strong preoccupation in the minds
of the public, in our mass media, and in our
therapy, where are we with research about
children in families? With clinical hypotheses
enough to keep us busy for a generation, how
does our researchmeasureup? To sum it all up
-do we reallyhave a body of knowledge about
children in families growing out of research?
2 John Bowlby, Maternal Care and Mental
Health, Geneva:
World Health Organization, 1952, p. 11.
3 Lauretta
Bender, Aggression, Hostility and Anxiety in
Children, Springfield, Illinois: Charles C Thomas, 1953.
4 Dorothy Baruch, One Little
Boy, New York: Julian,
1952 (jacket p. i).
February,1957
 Another short digression seems pertinent
before we attempt to answer these questions.
In so-called "family" research, children in
families are mentionedas variablesof one sort
or another by Terman, Burgess and Wallin,
Locke and Hill. Yet in none of these studies
was the child, his attitudes and feelings about
family living and its attendant relationships,
used as a subject or researchdatum. This, of
itself, raises a very interesting question about
the child's place in family sociology. Is he a
memberof a family only in relationshipto his
parents' adjustment? As a child psychologist
and a parent, I find that I must agree with the
position of Moore and Leahy5 that children
control parentsmore than parents control chil-
dren. Therefore, to understand families one
must understandsomething about children in
these families. As social scientistswe still have
not rejectedthe idea that one of the basic pur-
poses of families is the begetting and rearing
of children. It is true that Bossard6has re-
cently embarkedupon the study of the child in
the larger family, and yet it is interesting and
significantto note that his informants are not
children.
Permit me to look into my own backyard-
that of child psychology-before we give the
child up for lost. Since the days of G. Stanley
Hall and John J. B. Morgan,psychologistshave
been interested in children as the subjects of
their myriadexperiments.Dennis isolated them,
Gesell watchedthem, Termanand Goodenough
measuredtheir I.Q.s, and otherslooked at them
in similar "atomistic" fashions. All this has
been good and has advancedour understanding
of children.But as a family memberit has taken
a long time for the child to come into his own.
Fortunatelythe horizon is all not dark. But
to get back to our question, "Do we really have
a body of knowledge about children in families
growing out of research?"The answeris mostly
"No." This, in spite of the fact that parents,
the public, and clinicianshave given us leader-
5Bernice Moore and Dorothy Leahy, You and Your
Family, New York: D. C. Heath, 1948.
6J. H. S. Bossard and E. S. Boll, "Personality Roles in
the Large Family," Child Development, 26 (1955), pp. 71-78.
February,1957 MARRIAGE AND FAMILY LIVING
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ship to view the child as a family member.
The reason for this lack is not just the rela-
tionship of psychologyand sociology,but a lack
of methodology and theory with which to
bolster the interest which many of us have.
These lacks are now disappearingand progress
appearspossible.
CHILD'S PERCEPTION
Out of the body of theorypostulatedby Sul-
livan on "reflectiveappraisal,"the concepts of
George Mead, and finally Snygg and Bruner7
has come the concept of individual perception
and behavior. Researchersmust learn to see
through the eyes of their subjects in order to
understandwhat the subjectsees. It is not suffi-
cient or even realistic to assume that, because
a mother fondles a child, the child sees this
attention as a sign that his mother loves him.
It is not the physicalnatureof a stimuluswhich
determinesreactionbut ratherthe way in which
that stimulus is interpreted by the individual
stimulated. In each case this will be a highly
individual interpretation.Thus to understand
the child as a memberof a family, we have to
examine that child in his family. One cannot
be separatedfrom the other, and most impor-
tant, the child must be in our subject group.
With perception research in its infancy it is
rather dangerous to assume that the parent or
an informant can accuratelyassess the environ-
ment of the child.
Langford and Alm, Brodbeck and Cass re-
port some accuracyon the part of parents in
predicting needs, scores, and attributesof their
children but there were errors, and the ability
to predict accurately is to a great degree a
function of the age of the child and the ad-
justment of the parent.
Several studies have indicated that children
do have ideas about their relationships with
their parentsand their environment.Often they
are able to evaluate this environmentin terms
Jerome S. Bruner, "Personality Dynamics and the
Process of Perceiving," in Perception: An Approach to Per-
sonality, edited by Robert R. Blake and Glenn V. Ramsey,
New York: Ronald, 1951.
47
of what they sense as fair or compatiblewith
the environmentto which their peers are sub-
ject.
Neill8 in testing children's perceptions of
parental roles found that considerable differ-
ences existed betweenthese perceptionsand the
actual situations as these were revealed by the
parents. Children named corporal punishment
as the discipline which they expected from
their parents slightly more than fifty per cent
of the time. In interviews with the parents,
Neill found that parents used corporalpunish-
ment as a last resort. Seventy-oneper cent of
these parents said they would expect the chil-
dren to take the consequencesof their own acts,
yet only three of the twenty-eight children
named that as what they would expect. Seven
children agreed with their parents that they
might be put to bed forcefully. Fifty per cent
of all parents visited stated that that was the
discipline they would use, if any were neces-
sary,at bed time.
Griffiths9in his study found that children,
even in the earlyelementaryschool period, have
a fairly good realizationof what their parents
and teachersbelieve to be their behaviorprob-
lems, but at this age the child's conception of
better behavior is practicallysynonymouswith
obedience to adults. It is not until the child is
in the late elementaryschool years that he be-
comes aware of his parents' and teachers'in-
terest in other things abouthis behaviorbesides
following adult instructions.The child's aware-
ness of submissive traits appears much later
than his awareness of aggressive traits. The
father representsprimarilya person not to be
interfered with. The child conceives of better
behaviorin terms of what his father wants, as
activitieswhich do not disturb the father, such
as not interruptingor meddling or making less
noise. The child feels that the mother wants
8B. M. Neill, "Perception by Preschool Children of
Parental Roles in Selected Home Situations." Unpublished
M. S. Thesis, 'Ames, Iowa: Iowa State College Library, 1946.
9 William Griffiths, Behavior Dificulties of Children as
Perceived and Judged by Parents, Teachers and the Children
Themselves, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press,
1952.
48 MARRIAGE AND FAMILY LIVING
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an efficientand orderlyhome and wants him to
assume household responsibilities, follow in-
structionspromptlyand carefully,and get along
better with his brothersand sisters.
Sowers'l studied parent-child relationships
from the child's point of view. Among her
findings was the expression on the part of her
subjects that they desired admirable traits in
parents. Among these were kindness, sincerity,
fairness, and justice. She concluded that chil-
dren want discipline to be firm but fair. She
found, too, that opinions and attitudesof young
people are not influenced to any great extent
by sex, personalityadjustment,or by variations
in environmental backgrounds.
In a study by Hawkes, Burchinal,and Gard-
nerl, 12 where children were approached
directly for their attitudes about the control
which was exerted upon them by their parents,
children for the most part chose responses
which indicated that they were satisfied with
their control relations with their parents. Boys
as comparedwith girls were slightly less satis-
fied with their treatment in their homes.
Mothers as compared with fathers were per-
ceived by the children in a slightly more fav-
orable manner for most of the comparisons
which could be made. There was a definite
tendency for children to respond in the same
manner to separate questions related to the
same characteristics for their mothers and
fathers.
A study of Hansen reported by Anderson13
revealed that the elementaryschool child has
definite impressions of his parents and has
formed an image of them. The major image or
concept was often very different from that
which the parents themselves expected. Chil-
10Alice Sowers, "Parent-Child Relationships from the
Child's Point of View," Journal of Experimental Education
6 (December, 1937), pp. 205-231.
n Glenn R. Hawkes, Lee Burchinal, and Bruce Gardner,
"The Measurement of Pre-Adolescents; Perceptions of Family
Control of Behavior," Child Development. (In press).
2 Glenn R. Hawkes, Lee Burchinal, and Bruce Gardner,
"Pre-Adolescents Perceptions of Some Family Controls,"
Child Development. (In press).
" John E. Anderson, "Parents' Attitudes on Child Be-
havior: A Report of Three Studies," Child Development, 17
(March, 1946), pp. 91-97.
February,1957
dren's concepts tended to emphasizethe disci- the two variables here, the child and the family,
as two changing systems whose interactive and
plinary and managementcontrols exercised by
influence patterns will shift in relation to different
parents. The child tended to see parents more demands and needs of each. As we follow this
as frustrating beings. He also concluded that trend, seeking specific functional relationships,
parents have very different attitudes with re- we should be able to specify in necessary detail
spect to the managementof children. The par- those variables most readily influenced by fa-
ent in this study had an idealized child against milial experiences.
which he compared the behavior of his own One example of a promising methodology
child. for beginning such analysis of interaction is
The crux of parent-childrelations as far as that devised by Bales.16 Interaction process
the child in the family is concernedappearsto analysis, as defined by him, is a method of
be in the area of children's perceptions of classifying each act of behavior occurring in
what they, the parents,are, ratherthan in very small face-to-face groups. This includes both
definite and specificcharacteristics
of home life. verbal and non-verbalinteraction.
Brown's statementwith which he concludedhis Bradyl7 developed an adaptation of inter-
study seems to make my point well: action process analysis as defined by Bales to
Finally, the manner in which the child per- investigate the interaction of eight pairs of
ceives the parent's behavioral norms may, in the young brothers. Admittedly, her greatest prob-
last analysis, determine its personality make-up. lem was the trainingof observersfor reliability.
If this is so, a parent may earn a discouraging
score on a parental attitude scale without being
Even with the use of written protocols, film,
reacted to as a poor parent by the child.14 and live sessions, reliability continued to be a
major problem. She suggests longer training
INTERACTION periods and more refinement of Bales' cate-
as the key to the use of this method.
To see the family through the child's eyes gories
It is not trite to suggest that the interaction
is not enough if we are to understandthe total
process between and among family members
family constellationand in particularits mean- exerts a
ing to the variousfamily members.The child is as it powerful force upon the child just
a memberof a primarygroup and acts upon as may upon the parent or some other family
well as is acted upon. This calls for a social- member. Stott18makes the following observa-
tion:
psychologicalscheme which would allow us to
see the dynamics of the interaction and the Another developmental task with which chil-
resultant modification, which in turn impacts dren in our culture are early confronted is the
achievement of sphincter control. The perfection
upon both giver and receiver if, indeed, both of this function, like others, must await the ade-
are not givers and receivers at the same mo- quate preparation of the structures involved
ment. Sigel15points up this need: through maturation. This fact is too frequently
not recognized by parents, who through lack of
The analysis of the family as it functions in
various ways to effect the child should follow a understanding often exert undue pressure on the
child, sometimes with unfortunate results.
longitudinal pattern in order to assess its role at
As a rule this function develops gradually.
different developmental stages of the child. As
the child matures and his familial relationships Sometimes the developmental curve is quite ir-
regular, indicating very erratic performance. This
begin to function differently, the influence of the
nuclear family may vary. Thus, we have to view irregularity is probably due more to adult inter-
16Robert F. Bales, Interaction Process
14 Analysis, Cam-
Fred Brown, "An Experimental Study of Parental Atti- bridge: Addison-Wesley, 1951.
tudes and Their Effect upon Child Adjustment," American 17 Mary Rose
Brady, "Interaction of Brothers in an Ex-
Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 12 (April, 1942), pp. 224-229. perimental Play Situation." Unpublished M. S. Thesis, Ames,
15Irving E. Sigel, "The Need for Conceptualization in Iowa: Iowa State College Library, 1955.
Research on Child Development," Child Development, 27 18 Leland H. Stott, The Longitudinal Study of Individual
(June, 1956), pp. 241-252. Development, Detroit: Merrill-Palmer School, 1955, pp. 17-18.

February,1957 MARRIAGE AND FAMILY LIVING 49

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 ference than to anything inherent in the process
of development.
What about the effect upon the parent when
this process is delayed? What does it mean to
the reciprocalrelationshipbetween parent and
child, child and older sibling, and what is the
impact of this failure upon other areas of
interaction?
We, in a sense, do have some studies which
give us insight into the concept of interaction
or rather the lack of it. Goldfarbl9 states in
relation to children who were denied adequate
interaction opportunity in institutions:
The bulk of evidence points to generalized
retardation and impoverishment in all aspects of
personality, and in perceptual reaction. The chil-
dren lacked the drive to grow that is derived in
most children from their early identifications.
This, no doubt, points to the generalization
that one of the basic functions of the family
insofar as the child is concernedis to give him
opportunity to interact and thus develop a
sense of self.
CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
To understand the child in the family, it
would seem to me, we need a conceptualframe-
work or researchschemewhich would reduceto
observablecomponentsthe family environment
which seems to have an impact upon the child.
This framework needs to take cognizance of
the social and psychological variables within
the family. The framework suggested below,
while of a tentative nature,does seem to facili-
tate this point of view.20
Underlying the framework is the concept
that the environment may be placed upon a
continuum. This continuum is the degree to
which the total environment nurtures the
growth of the individual. The continuum
would exist from the point of stifling the indi-
vidual to a complete disregardof him. Some-
where along this continuumis the point where
19W. Goldfarb, "Effects of Psychological Deprivation in
Infancy and Subsequent Stimulation," American Journal of
Psychiatry 15 (April, 1945), pp. 247-255.
20Glenn R. Hawkes,
"Family Influences on Personality De-
velopment," Journal of Home Economics, 44 (December,
1952), pp. 767-769.
50 MARRIAGE AND FAMILY LIVING
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the environmentbecomes most nurturing.This
environment is dictated to a great degree by
the perceptions of the individual or child in
the family.
Probablythe most pronouncedfactors which
go to make up this continuum are family in-
fluences of one sort or another. These might
be called family interaction variables. These
family interactionvariablescould be organized
as follows: (1) affectionalfamily relationships,
(2) control of behavior, (3) acceptance of
individuality,and (4) family unity. These are
not absolutesin any environmentbut they may
exist to a greateror lesser degree, and they, too,
exist on a continuum. Further,there might be
other factors beyond these.
Each continuum has its quantitative and
qualitativeaspects. As an example-control of
behavior-the quantitativecontinuum for con-
trol of behavior might be from "no control"
to "completeor absolute control." The qualita-
tive continuum for this same factor might be
from "individualdomination"to "group dom-
ination." Somewhere along these continuums
are points where quantityand quality are opti-
mum for personalitygrowth.
It is further suggested that there might also
be family structure variables which would
operate to influence individual environment,
such as uniquenessof family structure,number
of family members, age pattern, ordinal pat-
tern, degree of personal adjustment in each
family member, and stage of family develop-
ment. These structurevariables are considered
to be on a different level of abstraction,hence
of less concern until the basic nurturingopti-
mum is more fully explored.
If this frameworkproves to be useful, possi-
bly we could reduce the individual perceptions
of interactionsto the point that we would be
much more able to understand the family's
impact upon the child at various points in the
family life cycle.
Ivan Nye's work in Oregon on Adolescent-
Parent Adjustment21probably does to a great
21 Ivan
Nye, "Adolescent-Parent Adjustment-Socio-
Economic Level as a Variable," American Sociological Re-
view, 16 (June, 1951), pp. 341-349.
February,1957
extent the type of thing that I have been talk-
ing about. He has attempted to study inter-
action between parents and their children dur-
ing a particularlystormy time in their life.
We also have been doing some studies along
this same line at Iowa State College. Needless
to say, one of our greatest lacks is that of
precise and helpful measuring devices. Theo-
retical formulations, frameworks,and the best
of schemes are of little help to us if our
methods are not refined. If we were to accept
the measuring devices we have used at Iowa
State College as infallible, we would be forced
to concludethat there is little or no relationship
between acceptanceand attitudesof parentsand
the perceptions and adjustment of their chil-
dren.22Bold and imaginativework must con-
tinue in methodology.
SUMMARY
The following summarystatementsseem to
me to crystallizemy impressions:
See also Ivan Nye, "Adolescent-Parent Adjustment: Age,
Sex, Sibling Number, Broken Homes, and Employed Mothers
as Variable," Marriage and Family Living 14 (1952), pp.
327-332.
2 Lee Burchinal, Glenn R. Hawkes, and Bruce Gardner,
"The Relationship Between Parental Acceptance and Adjust-
ment of Children," Child Development. (In press).
COMMENTS
The two writers both point to the complexity of
the child-family system and they believe that research
in the past has tended to oversimplify this situation
and therefore to arrive at vague or superficial results.
In this conclusion we can all agree.
Hawkes and Martin agree that:
1. We should study the child as well as the parent.
2. We should study the particular child in relation
to his particular family.
Martin points out that most research on child-parent
relations has been oversimplified due to the assump-
tion that training acts by parents and behaviorial acts
by children are related in a simple one-to-one cor-
respondence. He shows the importance of specifying
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1. Clinicians, the public, and parents recog-
nize the child as a member of a family and
avidly seek researchhelp in facilitating family
relationships.
2. Family sociology has been predominately
occupied with marital adjustmentof husbands
and wives.
3. Child psychology and development have
devoted their researchefforts almost exclusively
to the developing and growing child with little
concern for his relationshipsas a family mem-
ber.
4. Phenomenological personality theory of-
fers a-potentially fruitful way to "see" what a
relationshipreally means to a child.
5. Family interaction can be studied using
the child as a memberof the family ratherthan
just a product of the biological union of hus-
band and wife.
6. A knowledge of development can pro-
vide us with fruitful cues as to the times when
the stress and strain of developmentcall for a
re-alignment of the relationships within the
family.
7. By integrating these various systems, we
can more fully appreciatethe role of the child
in the family.
a variety of conditions under which the training acts
occur,and of takingpersonalityvariables(intervening
variables) into account. It is the training act combin-
ing with the child's personality that results in the ob-
served behavior. Martin says: "This is to suggest
that antecedent variable or set of variables A, under
specified conditions 1, 2, 3, . . . n, does not lead to
consequent variable or set of variables C, any C, ne-
cessarily."
But in a wide range of situations this is just what
does happen. For instance:
1. When a child is trained to speak English (ante-
cedent variable) under conditions of living in an
English speaking family he always speaks English
(consequent variable).
51
 However, there is a gradationof the assurancewe
have that a particularset of events will be followed
by a particularset of results. This gradationis illus-
trated by the following, in decreasingorder of cer-
tainty.
2. When a child is trainedto act like a boy in a
social group where there are other boys, he acts like
a boy.
3. When a child is trained consistentlyto certain
moral norms of good and bad behavior under a
"normal"range of conditionsof punishmentand re-
ward in the family, his moral behavioris consistent.
4. When a child is trainedpunitively,he becomes
dependent.
The degree of certaintywith which we makethese
statementsdecreasesfrom one to four. Statementthree
is made with a fair degree of certainty,being sup-
portedby severalstudies and contradictedby none, as
far as I know. But Statementfour is not true of all
children,and the outcomeof punitivetrainingdepends
on a number of other factors in the situation, as
Martin indicates.
In all of these situations,I am sure we all believe
in determinism-that is, that behavioris caused,and
that the results can be predictedif we know enough
about the causes, or antecedentevents. These situa-
tions are all at the macroscopiclevel, whereas the
"indeterminacy"of the physicist applies only to
events at the level of single atoms and molecules.
It is the complexity and not the indeterminacy of
the processeswe are studyingthat gives us difficulty
in predicting consequentvariables from antecedent
variables.
Martinis right when he says that we shouldphrase
our questionas follows: "What is the effect of breast
feeding as performed by a particularmother in a
particularway as perceived and received by a par-
ticular child under particularcircumstances,with re-
gard to both time and space?"As he says, "We first
seek regularityand orderliness,in whatever degree
they may exist, within the individualevent,which for
us is the effect of a particulartrainingagent and prac-
tice upon a particularindividual under given condi-
tions. As we accumulatedata about a numberof such
individual events, it may be possible to discover,
through a study of similarities and dissimilarities
among them, certainprinciplesor laws, statisticalin
form, that may apply to all."
I do not quite understandwhatMartinmeanswhen
he says that we need "naturalisticobservations"and
more attention to the "individualevent." It is true
that the events we study "are unique, non-reproduci-
ble" but, as he says,thereis regularityand orderliness
within these events, and it is this that we seek to
discover.What is the "naturalisticobservation"that
will single out and report on significant"individual
52 MARRIAGE AND FAMILY LIVING
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events." How does it differ from current research
that takes a number of interacting variables into
account,and studiesa smallnumberof children?With
Martin'sargumentthat we must pay attentionto the
"interveningvariables"or the personalityvariables,
I am in full agreement.We are all aware that a
given antecedentevent may result in several different
consequentevents, or that there is seldom a single
and constantcausefor a particularbehaviormanifesta-
tion. The only way we can hope to understandthis
complex situationis to use a theory of personalityor
of motivation which gives us intervening variables
with which we can explain and predict the relation
of trainingacts to resultantbehavior.
What I hope people will get out of Martin'sex-
cellent critique is the understandingthat:
1. Much of the past researchon child trainingand
personalityhas been oversimplebecause,
2. Trainingacts and children'sbehaviorare seldom
related to one another in a strict one to one cor-
respondence;and the desire to-
3. Seek and employ more thorough statementsof
personalitytheory in designing research;and
4. Pay more attention to the complexityof chil-
dren's experiences.
I hope that people will not get fromMartin'spaper
the notions that:
1. Determinismin the sense of strictcause-effectse-
quencesis outmodedin the study of humanbehavior.
2. Correlationcoefficientsand other statisticalin-
strumentsare not essentialto researchin this field.
3. We canget an adequateunderstandingof human
behaviorby studyingintenselya very few individuals.
It seems to me that we need:
1. Studies of complex events in human develop-
ment made susceptiblefor researchby consciousand
explicit simplificationof the situationswe study.
2. Betteruses of statisticsin group studies.
3. More attention to personality structure vari-
ables in relation to training and behaviorvariables.
'Hawkesdoes us a serviceby calling attentionto the
significanceof the child's perceptionsof his family in
determiningthe effects of the family upon him. This
probablypresagesa good deal of researchinterest in
children'ssocial perceptions.But when Hawkes goes
on to suggest the probablefruitfulnessof "interactive
process analysis," I am not so certain. Interactive
process analysis is a method of classifying each act
of behavior(verbal and non-verbal)in small face-to-
face groups. The work that has been done on chil-
dren in this area indicatesthat two or more observers
find it difficultto agree in their classifications.
This suggestion of detailed specificationof ob-
servable behavior, together with Martin's urge that
February, 1957
the "single family event" becomes the focus of re-
search attention, seems possibly analogous to the
attemptsaround the year 1930 to study social inter-
action by careful and detailed recording and cate-
gorizing of the behaviorof people in groups.At that
time it was clear that social behaviorwas very com-
plex, and efforts were made to study this in all its
complexity.Dorothy Swaine Thomas made a prodi-
gious effort to study the interactionof childrenusing
an extensive set of codes to categorizetheir behavior.
She failed to get resultsthat could be used to establish
generalizations. (Dorothy S. Thomas, "Some New
Techniquesfor StudyingSocial Behavior,"Child De-
velopment Monographs, No. 1 (1929), and "An
Attempt to Develop Precise Measurementsin the
SocialBehaviorField,"Sociologus,8, pp. 436-56.)
In discussing this and other attempts to study
complexityin human behavior,Kurt Lewin made a
distinctionbetweenmacroscopicand microscopicunits
of interactionor behavior. He pointed to Thomas'
work as illustratingthe dictum that "The attemptto
determinereliably large macroscopicunits by observ-
ing microscopicunits, however, is bound to fail in
psychologicalas in other sciences."(Kurt Lewin, "Be-
havioralDevelopmentas a Functionof the Total Situ-
ation," Chapter 16 in Manual of Child Psychology,
1946 ed., by Carmichael.)
The problemseems to be essentiallyone of intro-
ducing just enough complexityat the right points in
the researchto allow us to understandand predict
specific behavior,without getting bogged down in a
morass of minute, atomisticfacts. This can be done
betternow than twenty-fiveyearsago becausewe have
better theoreticalformulationsof our researchprob-
lems, with the intervening variables (personality-
structure variables) more clearly stated and under-
stood.
ROBERTJ. HAVIGHURST
Committeeon Human Development
Universityof Chicago

SUMMARY OF DISCUSSION
The "determinacyversus complexity"issue quickly tions regardlessof what assumptionsthey make con-
cameto the fore. On the one hand, some personsfeel cerning determinacy.In one case (determinacy)the
that the seeming complexityof antecedent-consequent unexplainedresults become the margin of error, and
variablesis an artifactof our own ignoranceand lack in the other case the residue is held to derive from
of maturityin researchexperience.The historyof so- indeterminacy.The suggestion that we should strive
cial researchindicates that we start out with simple for some intermediateposition on this issue was re-
frames of reference,discover their inadequacy,and jected.We know too little to justify stifling ingenuity
proceedto developmore adequateones. Othersargued and imagination.Let each researchergo his own way
that there is real complexity both in the family choosing appropriateproblems and methods.
constellation and in personality,making it difficult An implied assumptionthat children'sperceptions
in each case to unravel the complexityof the other. of family phenomenamay not be accuratewas chal-
Exampleswere cited of antecedentshaving one con- lenged with the retort that parents'perceptionsmay
sequenceat one level of expressionand anothercon- not be accurateeither. The accuracyof perceptionsis
sequence at another level of expression (love may not, however,the most crucialproblem.Whateverthe
encouragedependencyup to the point where it results perception,it is the realityto the perceiver.This kind
in rebellion), and MartinrejectedHavighurst'sillus- of analysis runs into difficultywhen the researcher
trations of one to one correspondencebetween ante- interpretsthe perceptionsof subjects into his own
cedents and consequents. "objective"categorieswhich categoriesmay not fit the
The stultifyingeffects upon researchof uncritically categories of the subjects themselves. Experiential
acceptingconventionalthought patternswas empha- phenomena may be quite different from objective
sized. Analogy was made to value judgments that phenomena.
pervadefamily research.Such implicit values include A minor disagreementarose in perspectiveon the
the ideas that integrationand adjustmentare ipso facto concepts"individual"and "role."One group can see
good while traumaand discontinuitiesare bad. Some "role" only in terms of its being enactedby a particu-
researchevidencewas cited to suggestthat personality lar individual.The other group stressesrole patterns
develops more adequately"under fire." Perhaps we and changesin role patterns(over generations)which
need to revise our conceptsof the "good family." are "real"enoughto be verbalizedand arguedby sub-
Researchersfollow essentiallythe sameset of opera- jectsthemselves.

February,1957 MARRIAGE AND FAMILY LIVING 53

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