ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the meaning and relevance of family group dynamics in studies of child and family development. Readers unfamiliar with recent advances in the conceptualization and measurement of coparenting and family group process may wonder what this chapter has to add on the heels of detailed sections on mothering, fathering, and marital relationships, which is why an overview of multiperson family relationship systems is essential in a volume examining research with families and children. For decades, socialization researchers discussed “family influences on development” without studying the family collective. As we discuss, the ways family members relate with one another in different interpersonal contexts do show consistency in many families. In others, however, inconsistencies are the rule, and children growing up in such families can have disparate social experiences with the same partner in different settings. Moreover, researchers have recently articulated various distinctive family group dynamics, reflecting underlying organizational processes, which surface only when families are engaged together as interacting groups. And, although such family group dynamics do not simply represent a recapitulation of attachment, marital, or other intrafamily relationship processes, they do uniquely predict young children’s social and emotional adaptation, even after the well-known effects of parenting and marital processes have been considered.
