The purpose of this research was to explore the presence of a value paradigm in the family. A consensus of values was defined as a family structure which organizes patterns of daily living for family members and as such serves as a paradigm. This paradigm was examined with three objectives in mind; to determine how much agreement there is between the values of family members, to determine if one family subsystem evidences greater agreement than the other subsystems, and to determine if value agreement influences other family structures. / Rokeach's Value Survey and FACES II were administered to fathers, mothers, and one adolescent of 106 families obtained from an educational research school affiliated with a southern university. The results indicate that there is a value paradigm for both terminal and instrumental values operating in families with adolescents. The terminal value paradigm is not affected by the sex, race, or age of the adolescent, the socioeconomic status, religiosity, or size of the family, the employment of mothers, the ordinal position of the child, or the age differentials between children and their parents. Of these variables, instrumental value agreement was affected by paternal employment. No significant differences between the value agreement of family subsystems were indicated although the consensus within the parental dyad was noticeably higher than between either parent and adolescent with regard to terminal values. The values of family subsystems were significantly correlated indicating that the consensual level of one subsystem affects the consensual level of other subsystems. The value paradigm did not significantly affect the family structures of cohesion and adaptability as evaluated by FACES II. / The findings of this study support the concept of interdependence and interrelatedness of family members which is generated by General Systems Theory. Implications for further research include the development of a family typology using the value paradigm and further exploration of this paradigm and its effect on (1) the family during different phases of the family life cycle and (2) other family structures. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 44-02, Section: A, page: 0588. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1983.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_75029 |
| Contributors | FIELDS, JOYCE WHITLOCK., Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | 178 p. |
| Rights | On campus use only. |
| Relation | Dissertation Abstracts International |
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