Download Chapter 3, Exploring the Family

Chapter 3, Exploring the Family
Key Terms

Family Ecology Perspective
Explores how a family influences and is
influenced by the environments that surround
it.

natural physical-biological environment
The unaltered natural world: climate, soil,
plants, animals, etc.

human-built environment
The environment that develops when nature is
altered by human action.

social-cultural environment
Entirely a human creation, consists of cultural
values, cultural products like language and law,
and social and economic systems.

family policy
All the procedures, regulations, attitudes, and
goals of government that affect families.

Family Development Perspective
Emphasizes the family itself as its unit of
analysis, based on the idea that the family
changes in predictable ways over time.

Structure-Functional Perspective
Sees the family as a social institution that
performs certain essential functions for society.

social institutions
Patterned and predictable ways of thinking and
behaving-beliefs, values, attitudes, and norms.

monogamy
Sexually exclusive union of one woman and
one man.

polygamy
Non exclusive union with multiple partners.

polygyny
One man with multiple wives.

polyandry
Multiple husbands for one wife.

vertically extended family
Family members from three or more
generations.

horizontally extended family
Family members from the same generation or
other related lines such as uncles, brothers,
sisters, and aunts.

cross-cultural researchers
Researchers who compare cultures around the
world.

individualistic societies
Societies where the main concern is with one’s
own interests and those of one’s immediate
family.

collectivist society
Society where people identify with and conform
to the expectations of their relatives or clan.

interactionist perspective
Looks within families at internal family
dynamics.

self-concept
The basic feelings people have about
themselves, their abilities, and their worth.

identity
A sense of inner sameness developed by
individuals throughout their lives.

Exchange Theory
Focuses on how individual’s various personal
resources affect their formation of and
continuation of relationships and their relative
positions in families and groups.

Family Systems Theory
The family is a whole that is more than the sum
of the parts.

feminist perspective
Central focus is on gender issues and how
male dominance in family and society is
oppressive to women.

conflict perspective
Calls attention to unequal power within groups
or larger societies.

biosocial perspective
Argues that human’s evolutionary biology
affects much of human behavior and many
family-related behaviors.

inclusive fitness
Survival of one’s genes.

agreement reality
What members of a society agree to be true.

heterosexism
The tendency to see heterosexual or straight
families as the standards.

cultural equivalent approach
Emphasizes the features that minority families
have in common with mainstream white
families.

cultural deviant approach
Views the qualities that distinguish minority
families from mainstream families as negative
or pathological.

cultural variant approach
Calls for making culturally and contextually
relevant interpretations of minority family lives.

kin scripts framework
Includes three culturally relevant family
concepts: kin-work, kin-time, and kin-scription.

naturalistic observation
Researcher lives with a family or social group
and spends extensive time carefully recording
their activities, conversations, gestures and
other aspects of everyday life.

case studies
Compilations by psychologists, psychiatrists,
marriage counselors, and social workers who
counsel people with marital and family
problems.

longitudinal studies
Studies that provide long-term information
about individuals or groups, as research
conducts follow up investigations for several
years after the study.