Family systems and adolescent development

The primary goal of this research is to increase the goodness-of-fit between the theoretical tenets of family systems theory and quantitative methods employed to test the theory in empirical research. The second goal of this research is to expand family systems ideas developed with nondivorced families to a diverse set of stable remarried families comprised of diverse biological versus step sibling and parent-child relationship constellations. The third goal of this research is to connect family systems theory with an accumulating body of research on nonshared environmental influences on adolescent psychosocial development. Data for the project are part of a larger study examining the effects of nonshared environment on adolescent development. Questionnaire and observational data from a national sample of 516 families will be examined in cross-sectional analyses; longitudinal data consists of 257 families who met inclusion criteria approximately 3 year later.;A combination of cluster, factor, and regression analyses were used to demonstrate that the effects of any individual relationship on adjustment is moderated by the larger network of relationships in which it is embedded. These results yielded support for family systems theory and for the role of configurations of relationships among family members in predicting adolescent antisocial behavior and depression. Few differences in the family systems processes and relationships between nondivorced and three varieties of stabilized stepfamilies were found. Evidence for nonshared familial processes in predicting adolescent psychopathology was also found, but only in a subset of families, and the mechanisms of influence were neither main effects nor linear, as has been assumed by research to date. Longitudinal analyses based on cluster procedures suggested marked stability in the relationship patterns in families, with only a small subset of families exhibiting significant change in alliance configurations. These results are offered as an integrative approach to assessing the goodness-of-fit between theory and method and merging diverse theories of family process into mutually compatible as well as competing models of development.