ABSTRACT
In the Preface to their volume, Child influences on marital and family interaction: A life-span perspective (1978a), Richard M. Lerner and Graham B. Spanier wrote:
There is an emerging synthesis in social science of sociologists, psychologists, and physicians. The family is the central social institution in society and has been the focus of much research and scholarship among, in particular, family sociologists. Additionally, perhaps no topic in the social sciences has received as much attention, particularly from developmental psychologists, as has the behavioral development of the individual. Yet, these two closely related and obviously interdependent topics have not adequately been studied jointly, (p. xv)
