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CHAPTER 2
FRAMEWORK FOR FAMILY COMMUNICATION
TRUE/FALSE
closeness or intimacy they can handle.
among family members.
gendered family roles.
family members. For example, Mother is a “proud hen.”
biosocial belief.
pressure or facing severe crises.
the focal point of family interactions, not behavioral patterns within the
relationships.
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day-to-day basis.
to an interpersonal encounter.
way based upon a shared reality.
centered dialectical management strategy.
MULTIPLE CHOICE
1. Which one of the following statements about family communication is not correct?
A. From a systems perspective, it is not productive to analyze each family member
separately.
2. Using the circumplex model, families can be plotted along both the adaptability and
cohesion axis. Which statement is correct?
D. Ethnic families do not fit this model because they adapt and bond by different
processes.
3. Which is not a point on the adaptability axis?
D. Chaotic
4. Which of the following is not a supporting or secondary family function?
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A. Developing agreement about family images
5. Bill and Donna met in school and plan to marry. Both families are opposed to the
marriage because of very different cultural backgrounds, and each has asked them to
reconsider the decision. At this point, Bill’s family has said they will disown him if
he marries Donna, while her family has said they will not attend the ceremony and it
will be very difficult to accept. Which is the case:
Adaptability (A) Rigid <— (B) ——(C) —— (D) —> (E) Chaotic
D. Bill’s family is at point C, while Donna’s is at point B.
6. Which one of the following is not one of the three essential dimensions in Olson et
al.’s circumplex model?
D. Cohesion
7. In relationships within a family, there are stresses between what one member
desires and what another member opposes. These competing and opposite
possibilities that exist in families can be called:
A. Transactional processes
8. The way in which a family changes its relationship rules, power structure, and role
expectancies in response to either normal developmental changes or crises relates to
its:
D. Family members’ education and income
9. A family image of a “rock” is congruent with what theme?
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A. You can sleep when you die.
10. Read the following young woman’s description of living in an enmeshed
relationship:
My mother acts like we are sisters and wants to be a part of my personal life. She
encourages me to invite friends over and then stays and talks with us for hours. She
gets angry if I don’t tell her every detail of a date. She insisted I attend college near
home and now she is in the middle of my engagement plans. I don’t know what
she’ll do when I get married.
Which of these strategies is least likely to give her a more appropriate relational
distance?
A. Suggest she and her mother see a therapist
11. The finding that both mothers and fathers regard sexual infidelity as more
distressing when committed by a daughter-in-law than by a son-in-law is an
example of which of the following concepts?
D. Gendered family rules
12. Multigenerational systems:
A. Are developmental in nature
13. Genograms can be useful for studying family communication patterns because
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D. They identify changes in relational development among family members over
time
14. Research demonstrates that families often have bidirectional interpersonal patterns.
This means:
A. Parents are not always in control of their children
15. A newer and blossoming area of research regarding underlying issues contributing
to family communication patterns and problems pertains to:
D. The impact of technology on family dynamics
16. Michael and Molly have been dating for a few years and are thinking about getting
engaged. They love each other, but Molly is very concerned that they struggle too
much with some communication issues. Michael is from a big, loud Italian family
and tends to be very communicatively open and occasionally confrontational with
Molly. Molly is from a small Norwegian family, and feels really uncomfortable
with conflict. She’s not sure if she can spend her life in a family of people who are
as loud and conflictual as Michael’s. Michael, in turn, complains that she and her
family are too passive aggressive and wishes they could be more “open” and
“express themselves.” Michael and Molly’s communication problem can best be
described by which of the following terms?
A. Dialectical tensions
17. What is the purpose of creating shared meanings in relationships?
A. Shared meanings are useful only when people who speak different languages
interact
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18. Metacommunication occurs when:
D. People communicate about trivial matters
19. After Maggie and Jen get engaged, they want to post the good news on Facebook, but they
also want to keep the secret “just between them” for a couple days. Which dialectic tension
are they managing?
A. Openness-closedness
20. The day after they get engaged, Maggie wants to post their engagement on Facebook so that
“all our friends can be excited for us!” Jen wants to wait a few days, but decides to go along
with Maggie and post their engagement on Facebook. Which dialectical management
strategy did they use?
D. Reframing
21. Single dad Craig is trying to decide how to talk with his adolescent daughter about going
through puberty. He feels uncomfortable talking with her about taboo issues, but knows that
he should. According to systems theory, which secondary characteristic is Craig managing?
A. Images
ESSAY QUESTIONS
1. Using your own life, or the life of someone you know well, describe how a family
theme has played out in a significant way in that family. Include some discussion of
how members’ communication patterns have been influenced by that theme.
2. Imagine a stressor such as divorce, serious illness, or death impacting a family.
Detail how the same stressor could send a family to two different extremes on the
cohesion/adaptability axis. (I.e. to a point of being rigid and disengaged or to a point
of being enmeshed and chaotic).
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3. Research indicates that family communication patterns tend to be passed down from
generation to generation (i.e., people tend to communicate similarly to their parents
and grandparents). Discuss two distinct reasons that may explain why this trend
occurs, using specific examples from your own family or another family you know
well to support your claims.
4. What do you think makes a family functional? First, support your argument using
the primary and secondary functions of the Circumplex Model. Be sure to
specifically explain and then apply each of the primary and secondary functions.
Second, how does your conceptualization of “functional” compare to the
understanding of “functional” in the Circumplex Model?