There are many models of family life, from which it is advisable to choose one and be guided by it throughout your life. After all, you will have to solve sometimes complex family problems, be able to correctly divide the family budget, plan purchases and funds for vacation, so choose a role for yourself according to one of the family models.
We offer the most common models of family relationships:
The head of the family is the man
In such a family, all the main decisions are made by the man, the woman takes a secondary role. According to the well-worn stereotype in such a family, a man must naturally earn more in order to provide for the family, make bold decisions and achieve their normal implementation. In this case, the wife is assigned the role of a housewife. However, be careful - you may get too used to this role that you will completely forget about yourself, your interests, and feelings. For a man, such a woman may simply become uninteresting, since she becomes quite predictable and primitive.
A man will get used to taking all her actions for granted, while not feeling any gratitude for creating comfort and keeping the house clean. Common topics of conversation in such a family could be a discussion of rising prices in the market for food or neighborly gossip.
Of course, family life with a housewife is measured and calm, but the only problem is that such a woman takes her intimate life for granted. The big disadvantage of the sexual life of such a couple can be that the man will very quickly get tired of the lack of any variety, emotions, passion. And after some time, he will want to turn his attention to cute coquettes in revealing dresses and miniskirts, who do not make cleaning and every minute dusting from home closets the main goal of their life.
Solid matriarchy
There are women who are not too fond of fiddling with a rag in their hands all day or washing pots, and therefore, in most cases, they go to the other extreme - they dream of complete matriarchy in the family. In their firm belief, a man cannot do anything without their help and guardianship, so they control his every step. This is a kind of “caring mommy” who thinks that her partner definitely needs her support and help, otherwise he will definitely do something wrong.
A woman pursues only one goal - to win the love of her man, so that he is convinced that he cannot do without her, that she is simply irreplaceable in his life. And therefore, in her opinion, he will never leave her.
But the more you cooze with a man, the more it annoys him and pisses him off. All tremulous feelings are killed by this excessive guardianship, and the former sexual desire is no longer so strong. Therefore, the partner sees only two ways out of this situation - either get used to this behavior of his wife or simply change his partner.
Democracy
Another option for family relationships is democracy in the family. This means that spouses are more independent and at the same time equal in rights, they have approximately the same material income. They make decisions together, while taking into account the opinions and wishes of the other half. This model of relationships helps a woman carry out her high calling of “being a Woman,” without taking into account the financial situation of the family.
Such a woman is very unpredictable, it is impossible to predict her further actions in advance, so she never ceases to be interesting to her man. She is not prone to an absolute obsession with cleanliness and “owning” her husband; she is a woman with a sense of her own Self, which those around her should also take into account.
Remember that when choosing one family model, you do not need to be guided by the principle “like everyone else, like me.” Each family is a unique and inimitable union, with its own rules and life principles, so do not be afraid to accept the patriarchal or matriarchal model. After all, the main thing is to have a reliable and faithful man nearby, for whom you will gladly want to make any effort.
Introduction
It just so happened that thanks to the development of the Internet, people got the opportunity to communicate, be friends or love each other, while remaining complete strangers, hiding behind the letters and font size on the monitor screen. Bursting into the Internet space, each person puts on his favorite masks and begins to play a “role”. This is a very good topic for research. And perhaps I am a very good candidate for such research, but...
But sometimes people just need to talk it out.
Previously, you could go to church and confess to a priest. Now it’s much easier - there are forums, websites, chats, and so on. All this led to the fact that personal life ceased to be so personal. The volumes of information pouring into the network sometimes allow us to draw very interesting conclusions, which are often used by sociologists, psychotherapists, students, security officials and simply curious individuals. It's easy enough to analyze it.
When there is too much information, any idea or thought arises unexpectedly. Bang! And here she is.
For me, this thought became: “is there any model for marital relationships?” After all, you can describe any action or phenomenon. The impetus for the emergence of such an idea was a phrase accidentally uttered: “We are still like best friends...” This was said by a man who has been married for five years now.
Experts say that human psychological resources are limited and they are forced to obey certain laws of behavior in order to survive. That is, to live according to a certain model.
There are many theories regarding the development of marital relationships, which suggest that they do not stand still, they are constantly developing and changing. They even highlight the main stages: the period of acquaintance and the formation of relationships, the period before the birth of a child, the period of growing up of a child, etc. I have no desire to reveal all these theories to you - the publications can be easily found on the Internet.
But while communicating with friends, acquaintances, and even unfamiliar people, I began to notice some features of their personal lives (which, however, they did not pay attention to so often), forcing me to think differently. And the more I talked to them, the more and more the following idea formed in my head:
“The initial model of behavior during the formation of family relationships remains unchanged throughout the existence of the entire marriage, but is slightly modified under the influence of other factors, such as the birth of children, change of place of residence, etc.”
Having accepted it as the initial hypothesis, I began to analyze even more the previously received information: my conversations, my communication, stories about acquaintances from friends, letters, messages, and so on. I began to look at the couples around me and check whether they fit into my theory or not.
And in the end it resulted in this publication.
Let me make a reservation right away that this work is not the result of a scrupulous study of other people’s works or an intellectual breakthrough into something previously unknown (although I would like to think so).
This publication summarizes and reveals the author’s conclusions and ideas about the model of relationships between spouses. The author hopes that this will help to understand people’s actions, their behavior and will make it possible to predict and manage the microclimate in the family.
Whether this is so - time will tell.
Basic definitions of models
In this context, the word “model” is understood as a set of actions, feelings, reactions and perceptions that outline certain patterns of behavior between spouses.
So the reaction to joint dates (wedding, birth of a child) or individual ones (birthday, professional holiday), the emergence of problems and ways to solve them are always identical, and it doesn’t matter how many years you have been married. And after 3 years and after 7 years, the degree of attitude towards your requests and wishes will change slightly.
It is very important for a person to know which model of relationship is the most acceptable for him, and which he categorically does not accept. After all, according to most psychologists, people’s happiness in life together depends primarily on how much their ideas about how spouses should behave in family life coincide. After all, if a man believes that he should be the head of the family, and a woman is confident that the last word in solving family problems should always remain with her, then such a couple is most likely doomed to constant showdowns and a quick breakup, even despite mutual passion and a sincere desire to be in the place.
Things will not go well for the spouses if the man is used to thinking that the wife should solve all family problems and make final decisions in any matters, and the woman, at this time, will expect determination and initiative from the man and believe that since he is a man , which means he must solve both her problems and his own. So, family psychologists correctly believe that there are no bad and good husbands and wives, but that there are compatible and incompatible people.
There are three main models of relationships:
1. Patriarchal model. With this model of relationships, the main role in the family is given to the spouse, who boldly takes responsibility for the entire family and himself, usually without consulting his wife, makes important decisions concerning the entire family. The wife, in such a family, is usually assigned the role of a housewife and keeper of the hearth, or a spoiled, capricious girl whose wishes are quickly fulfilled by a loving and caring dad.
The advantage of such a relationship is that the woman feels like a stone wall behind her husband and is spared from independently struggling with various everyday difficulties and problems. The husband, with this model of relationship, most often not only has a strong and decisive character, but also earns good money. The main disadvantage of patriarchal relationships between spouses is the complete dependence of the wife on her husband, which sometimes takes the most extreme forms and threatens the woman with complete loss of herself as an individual. In addition, if a man suddenly decides to get a divorce, then a woman, who for many years of marriage has become unaccustomed to the struggle for existence, may feel unhappy and helpless and will not be able to settle well in life, especially if the children remain with her and the ex-husband reduces her material assistance to a minimum.
2. Matriarchal model. In such a family, the role of the head of the family is performed by the wife, who not only controls the budget and single-handedly makes all decisions that are fateful for the family, but also often tries to influence the interests and hobbies of her spouse. Such relationships are usually formed in a family where a woman, firstly, earns significantly more than a man, and secondly, has a stronger character and is not afraid to take on traditionally male responsibilities both in the family and at work. A man can also be satisfied with such a relationship if he does not really strive for leadership and, especially if in childhood he had a similar example of his parents before his eyes. The downside of such a relationship may be the possibility of a wife’s sudden infatuation with a stronger man, in comparison with whom the ever-submissive and quiet husband may seem boring and uninteresting to her. Although a strong and powerful woman is unlikely to be able to peacefully coexist with an equally strong and powerful man, so, more often than not, such women, even starting relationships on the side, rarely leave their comfortable and cozy spouse.
3. Affiliate model. With this model of relationship, spouses usually have equal rights and share both rights and responsibilities in half. Ideally, they have both common interests and take into account the interests of their partner that are different from their own. In such a family, spouses most often have approximately the same status and income, which does not give reason for one of the spouses to consider themselves in some way better and more successful than their partner. Spouses make important decisions only in consultation with each other and distribute household responsibilities equally. The advantage of such relationships is the opportunity for each partner to reveal themselves as individuals and unique individuals in marriage. A downside may be that the spouses develop a feeling of competition and a desire to surpass their partner in some way, which can lead to a gradual cooling between the spouses and to mutual alienation. To prevent this from happening, there must be not only passion and mutual sympathy between spouses, but also mutual respect.
Development of family science
In 1879, W. Wundt opened a laboratory, this became the separation of psychology into a separate science.
Bachofen wrote "Mother's Right" in 1861, which described family relationships and their development throughout history.
Mac Lennan "Primitive Marriage"
The early stages of development were characterized by group marriage. A family was considered a group of people, each man the husband of all the women in the group.
Initially, endogamy dominated.
But gradually a panulual family is taking shape. Kinship was determined through the maternal line, paternity was uncertain. A polygamous marriage, polygamy or polyandry is formed. The next stage was monogamy.
Since the 19th century, the family has been viewed as a small social group. The pre-19th century is seen as a micromodel of society.
Since the 12th century, a man has reigned supreme over all household members. Children are brought up in prohibitions.
At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, a family crisis was recorded. The nuclear family stands out.
Issues considered by sp.: marital relationships, parent-child relationships, relationships with older generations in the family, direction of family development, family counseling, diagnostics.
Socio-psychological model of family relationships
Family typology, family structure, parenting styles.
The reference group is a significant group. The peculiarity of a reference group is to share the norms, values and rules of this group. The values of this group underlie behavior control.
The family is a complex social entity.
Family is a specific system of relationships between spouses, parents, and children.
Members of the group are connected by marriage or kinship relations, common life, mutual moral responsibility, goals, objectives, plans.
Family relationships are regulated by moral and legal norms. The basis of family relationships is marriage, and this is the official recognition of the relationship between a man and a woman, and these relationships are accompanied by the appearance of children and responsibility for the physical and moral health of family members.
An important condition for the existence of a family is joint activity and spatial localization (they must live together)
Family - based on a single family community of people connected by marriage, carrying out the reproduction of the population and the succession of family generations, the socialization of children and the support of family members.
The most common are polygamous and monogamous families.
A monogamous family consists of a married couple. Polygamous - marriage of one with several.
Division into types according to family ties:
Nuclear family: parents and children
Extended family: two or more nuclear families, remarriages, children from previous families
Patriarchal family - many children, several generations live together. It is based on totalitarianism.
Small families, not complete: consist of two people.
By family orientation:
1) Socially progressive family. Supports social values, unity of views, good, warm interpersonal relationships
2) Contradictory – there is no unity of views. Active actions to defend your views. Struggle
3) Antisocial - family values contradict the ideals of society.
According to legal capacity:
1) limited
2) time-limited – families experiencing temporary disasters, refugees, unemployment
3) Unlimited - a full range of possibilities to fit into the social space
By activity:
1) own activity – good adaptive capabilities, mobile
2) limited activity – age-related, somatic restrictions
3) passivity - orientation towards dependency, low level of adaptive capabilities, immaturity of the family as a whole, infantilism.
Psychological health of the family:
1) prosperous family - knows how to resolve conflicts
2) dysfunctional - problems arise due to the dissatisfaction of the needs of family members. They are not resolved, or they are resolved unproductively. There is often no emotional warmth.
A) conflict families. Clash of values
B) families in crisis. The confrontation of interests is sharp and affects many areas of the family. Positions of hostility towards each other are possible.
B) problem families. Problematic situations are perceived so strongly that it can lead to family breakdown (temporary lack of housing, income)
Family functions:
Reproductive function
Educational function
Household function
Economic and material.
Leisure organization
Social control
Family is a dynamic formation.
The state of the family is influenced:
The ability of family members to coordinate actions
Actions of group pressure.
Establishing certain relationships between family members
Assignment: a group of techniques (TEST) intended for studying:
Families: interpersonal relationships (marital relationships), parent-child relationships,
family conflicts
Personal techniques (for people compatibility)
Projective techniques for studying family
Types of disorders influenced by family:
1) Korolenko and Donskikh, as a result of their research, revealed: addictive behavior is the desire to escape from reality.
2) Antisocial behavior. A person commits actions that are contrary to ethics and morality, violates laws and the rights of other people.
3) Suicidal behavior. Lack of emotional warmth, intimacy, spirituality, sense of security.
4) Conformist behavior. Submission to the opinion of the majority.
5) Narcissistic behavior. Manifests itself in relationships with other people.
6) Fanatical behavior. Blind adherence to an idea and intolerance to other views.
7) Autistic behavior. Difficulty in social contacts, a person is immersed in dreams and fantasies. Lives with a family, but cannot, does not want or does not intend to have contact.
Types of education that contain a risk of deviations:
1) Overprotection – the child is perceived as immature, all issues are decided for the child, and contacts are limited. May lead to an inferiority complex.
According to Adler, the feeling of inferiority is an impetus for development. Or the second option: Overcompensation due to the environment, manipulation, control. The third option: a person is absorbed in his inferiority and receives some benefit from it.
2) presenting exorbitant demands
3) Unpredictable emotional reactions. It creates self-doubt and adapts to the mood of other people.
4) Hypocustody – insufficient attention to children.
Factors of family well-being:
1) Psychobiological compatibility
2) Social maturity of the spouses
indirect
3) Parental family experience
4) Education
5) Labor stability
6) Age
7) Duration of dating
Psychological incompatibility is the inability to understand each other and satisfy one’s needs.
Compatibility - mutual acceptance of each other, understanding of each other.
Cognitive compatibility – similarity of ideas about oneself and the world
The harmony of marital relations depends on: the emotional side, the cognitive side, a similar picture of the family, the general cultural level
Complementary marriage is a union in which each of the partners occupies the position that he had in relation to brothers or sisters in the parental family
Symmetrical marriage - equal positions, equal rights in relation to each other, no one is subordinate.
Meta-complementary marriage - one of the partners occupies a leading position due to his inexperience. Manipulates a partner, demonstrating his weakness, inexperience, and ineptitude.
Stages of development of marital relations:
3) Adoption of a new person (child) into the family
4) Introduction of children into non-family institutions.
5) Acceptance of children's adolescence.
6) Experimenting with independence
7) Preparing for children to leave the family
8) Children leaving the family, accepting care
9) Acceptance of the fact of retirement and old age
Stages of development of marital relations:
1) Young marriage (up to 5 years)
Habituation, adaptation. Organization of everyday life. Distribution of duties.
2) Middle-aged marriage (6-14 years old)
3) Mature marriage (15-25 years)
Spouses are left alone with each other, or are raising their grandchildren
4) Elderly marriage (over 25 years)
Two critical periods in the development of relationships:
1) between 3-7 years, lasts about a year with a favorable course of events. Associated with the disappearance of romantic relationships. More frequent occurrence of negative emotions.
2) between 17-25 years. Less deep and bright than the first, it can last for years. Worries about work, health. Feeling of loneliness due to children leaving the family.
Stages of grief:
2) depression
3) revival
Personality types according to Lesgaft:
1) Good-natured. The child experienced all emotions without restrictions
2) Demonstrative. We learned to express emotions beautifully. “You’re so ugly when you cry.” Theatricality. No sincerity. Seeks to make an impression.
3) Hypocritical. Parents allow only certain emotions to be shown. Adapts to interlocutors. Hides emotions, does not show certain emotions
4) Viciously downtrodden. A strict ban on expressing any emotions. They scold and punish for their expression.
5) Soft-filled. Very gently, affectionately, caringly, they forbid showing any emotions. “No need to jump and gallop, they love you very much.” He doesn’t understand what he’s experiencing, he doesn’t recognize emotions because he rarely experiences them.
6) The oppressed type. In various ways, it is softly and harshly forbidden to demonstrate one’s emotions. A person has not gained experience and does not know how to experience emotions; he cannot always correctly calculate the emotion of another person.
Other causes of conflict may include:
· Violation of the ethics of marital relations (infidelity, jealousy);
· mental or biological (sexual) incompatibility;
· incorrect relationships between spouses and people around them (relatives, acquaintances, colleagues);
· incompatibility of interests and needs;
· different positions in relation to raising a child;
· presence of shortcomings or negative qualities in spouses;
· lack of mutual understanding between parents and children, etc.
· general psychological fatigue of relationships (different needs of spouses for emotions);
· household and financial problems
· exhaustion of marriage goals (in old age of spouses, when children have grown up)
Classification of marital conflicts:
1) The dignity of the other is not recognized. Disdainful attitude.
2) Failure to satisfy sexual needs.
3) Emotional sphere. Lack of care, affection, attention.
4) Related to addictions (cigarettes, gambling)
5) Financial disagreements.
6) With food, clothing, setting up a home. (the diet is not suitable for my husband)
7) are associated with differences in interests in leisure and entertainment.
8) Regarding raising children.
By degree of danger:
1) when ordinary difficulties or fatigue arise
2) One of the partners decides that the other must change, conform. Gross interference in another person's space. Imposition from outside.
Main reasons for divorce:
Did not get along
People are not ready to accept others as they are
Adultery or characteristics of sexual life in marriage
Some rules for
1) Look at things and contradictions realistically.
2) Don’t create illusions.
3) Don't avoid difficulties.
4) Appreciate the little things.
5) Communicate your desires directly.
6) Take care of yourself.
The Parental Relationship Questionnaire was developed by Stolin, Barga.
Standardized interview with yes or no answers.
Goal: to identify parental attitudes.
Role expectations and aspirations in marriage.
For the compatibility of spouses in marriage.
Methodology for determining the characteristics of the distribution of roles in the family. Authors: Aleshina, Gozman, Dubovskaya. In 1987.
Designed to diagnose the characteristics of the distribution of roles in the family between spouses.
Both partners answer at the same time without commenting on each other’s answers.
Purpose: to identify the characteristics of the child’s relationships in the family.
Family drawing technique - projective techniques for assessing intrafamily relationships. Based on interpretation and analysis of the drawing.
For younger preschoolers. Peculiarities of perception and
In drawings, children can express what they cannot express in words.
3 standardized questionnaires for different ages. You can work with both parents and teenagers and compare the results. 120 questions in the questionnaire.
Family sociogram. Endymiller and Cheremsin.
Makes it possible to identify the context of relationships within the family.
You need to draw a circle, then family members. Some family members may not be included in the circle.
Zikrubin scale of love and sympathy. The goal is to identify what prevails: love or sympathy.
Typical family condition. Eidemiller
Purpose: to study the psychological atmosphere of the family and family relationships.
Analysis of family relationships. Yustitskikh, Eidemiller.
The questionnaire consists of 130 statements. 20 scales. The first 11 scales are the main styles of family education. 13, 17 and 18 – an idea of the structural role relationship.
Purpose: allows you to study violations of upbringing processes and establish the causes of violations in the family system. Available for both parents and teenagers.
PARI was invented by sheffer and bell. Methodology for studying parental attitudes.
Purpose: To study parents' attitudes towards family roles. Consists of 115 statements about family life.
The nature of interaction between spouses in conflict situations.
The family is not just a social group, but also a social institution.
According to the definition of sociologists, an “institution” is a set of social roles and statuses designed to satisfy a specific social need.
Here the concepts of “role” and “status” should be clarified.
Status refers to a person's position in society with certain rights and responsibilities, while role is the expected behavior associated with a certain status. If a person has the social status of a nobleman, then those around him only expect him to fulfill his role: loyalty to the sovereign, adherence to the code of honor, personal autonomy and responsibility, etc. A person assigns roles in the course of socialization, under the influence of the immediate social environment, which he imitates, which rewards him for some actions and punishes him for others.
The result of a child’s socialization is determined by the assignment of social norms and values in the course of interaction with other people. And the family plays a decisive role in the socialization of the child.
The family as a social institution, in addition to the educational one, performs a number of functions, namely: 1) an economic function - in the pre-industrial era, the family was the primary production group, at present - income earned from outside is distributed in the family and consumption occurs, 2) the function of transferring social status - families of different strata of society have different social status and pass it on to new family members - children, 3) the function of maintaining the well-being of family members.
Many researchers, in particular T. Parsons, argue that at present the family has lost these functions due to the transition of developed countries to the phase of post-industrial society, and the socialization of children remains an essential function of the family.
I believe that the socialization of children has always, at all times and among all peoples, been the only specific function of the family, and other functions were additional and changed over the centuries.
Sociologists distinguish the following main forms of family:
1) Nuclear family - consists of adults and children who depend on them;
2) The extended family includes the nuclear family and relatives (grandparents, grandchildren, sisters, brothers, etc.).
The family, like any other social institution, is held together by a system of power. There are three types of power structures: a patriarchal family, where power belongs to the husband, a matriarchal family, where power belongs to the wife, and an egalitarian family, where power is evenly distributed between husband and wife.
I believe that the latter version of the family, characteristic of the industrial era and resulting from the crisis of the family as a social institution, masks the collapse of the family structure and latent conflict: in industrial countries the number of divorces is growing, and in post-industrial countries it reaches its maximum. This allows American sociologists to talk about the collapse of the family and the birth of a new version of human relationships that have nothing in common not only with the “traditional family”, but also with the family as such. In the United States, over 30 years (from 1960 to 1990), the divorce rate increased almost 15 times, it is the highest in the world.
Although the emergence of “alternative” families, the spread of homosexual marriages, life in communes and other types of relationships that replace the family, suggests the progressiveness of the rejection of the family as a social institution, the consequences of this rejection are catastrophic for the process of socialization of children.
The dominance of a working mother in the family leads to the fact that children are less able to assimilate the values, norms and morals of society. True, research by American psychologists has shown that juvenile delinquents are less likely to come from single-parent families, and more often from families with conflicting two parents. But children of single mothers experience great problems in social adaptation, choosing a marriage partner and raising their own children. The thread of social inheritance is breaking.
In Russia, the family, despite the presence of processes similar to those occurring in the United States, also retains its most important social functions.
A number of additional important concepts have been introduced:
1. Real family - a specific family as a social group, an object of study.
2. A typical family is the most common variant of the family model in a given society.
3. An ideal family is a normative model of a family, which is accepted by society, reflected in the collective ideas and culture of society, primarily religious.
4. Elementary family - a family consisting of three members: husband, wife and child.
The subject of our consideration will be models of an ideal family from the point of view of their psychological structure. A compound nuclear family, where there are several children, should be considered as a conjunction of several elementary ones.
So, the family is a social institution, and a specific family is an institutionalized social group, the function of which is the primary socialization of children.
Like any other institutionalized group, it is held together by relations of “power-subordination” and mutual responsibility. Family members can love each other, they can hate each other, satisfy their sexual and other needs in the family or “on the side,” have their own children or adopted ones, but as long as there is a system of these relationships and as long as the family fulfills the task of raising children, it exists. Since we are talking not about marriage, but about family, we will not use the terms “husband” and “wife”, but “father” and “mother” - these are roles determined by the function in socialization and ensuring the life of the child. They may not be carried out
only the biological mother and father, but in single-parent and even complete families - grandparents, other relatives, older brothers and sisters, although with such a replacement of performers, socialization defects arise.
For example, in homosexual families with a child, one partner may take on the functions of the mother, and the other, the functions of the father.
But people remain people and in relationships they show the full range of their experiences: in an integrated form, relationships can be described by one more parameter - emotional and psychological closeness, which is associated with the motivation of affiliation (joining). There are certain connections between the three types of relationships that characterize the psychological model of the family. Dominance presupposes responsibility for those who obey, and responsibility implies power over people to implement important tasks.
Psychological closeness usually correlates negatively with the dominance-submission relationship: the greater the power one person has over another, the less psychological closeness there is between them, since power is coercion.
Love for those in power also arises and is nurtured in certain cultures.
Let us characterize the main types of relationships realized in the family.
1. Dominance-submission
The family is, first of all, a structure in which the relationship of power is realized: dominance-subordination.
The most, in my opinion, succinct definition of dominance (power, domination) was made by political scientist R. E. Dahl: “My intuitive idea of power looks something like this: A has power over B to the extent that he can force B to do what which, left to himself, B would not do.”
Social rank characterizes even individuals in a group of animals of the same species living in a flock, herd, etc. in a certain territory. The struggle for dominance is waged by the individual constantly and with varying success.
The relationship of “dominance-submission” in a group of people undoubtedly has sociocultural specifics and, of course, cannot be reduced to the “pecking order”. There are 5 types of social power that characterize the relationship between a child and adults in the family (French and Raven).
1) Reward power - a child can be rewarded for certain behavior. Reward follows a socially approved (expected) action, punishment follows a socially disapproved one.
2) The power of coercion - it is based on strict control over the child’s behavior, every minor offense is subject to punishment (either verbal - a threat, or physical).
3) Expert power - based on the greater competence of parents in a particular matter (social or professional competence).
5) The rule of law is the only form of extrapersonal power, however, the bearer and interpreter of the “law” - the rules of behavior - for a child are adults and, in particular, parents.
Typically, social psychologists associate dominance with the acceptance of social responsibility for the actions of the group: the dominant member of the group is responsible for the success of the common task and, in addition, is responsible for maintaining normal relations between group members.
In addition, improvisational activity and initiation of action are associated with dominance. It is believed that the most successful leaders are those who are prone to bargaining, indifference to interpersonal relationships, able to resist social pressure, striving for achievements, taking risks and enjoying manipulating other people.
The task of the dominant personality is to ensure the security of the group, coordinate the actions of its members to achieve group goals, determine the prospects for the life and development of the group, and instill faith in the future.
The dominance of one of the spouses is a necessary condition for the stability of the family. Marriage satisfaction is no less important, subject to parity relations and joint leisure activities.
2. Responsibility
Responsibility is one of the most complex concepts in personality and social psychology.
Within the framework of the theory of moral consciousness, there are several hypotheses about the nature of responsibility and the stages of development of responsible behavior.
According to K. Helkman, there are three phases in the formation of responsibility: 1) autonomous subjective responsibility, 2) responsibility as a social duty, 3) responsibility based on moral principles.
F. Heider's typology is based on the concept of attributing responsibility for actions to oneself or the environment. F. Heider identifies five levels of attribution of responsibility: 1) “association” - a person is responsible for every result that is somehow connected with him, 2) “causality” - a person is responsible even when he could not foresee the result, 3) “foreseeability “- responsibility for any foreseeable consequence of actions, 4) “intentionality” - responsibility only for what a person intended to do, 5) “justifiability” - responsibility for a person’s actions is shared with others.
Personal responsibility is associated with its manifestation in behavior: “The degree of personal responsibility is a feeling of a certain ability to control the commission of an action and its outcome.”
K. Muzdybaev defines social responsibility as follows: “This is, first of all, a quality that characterizes the social typicality of an individual. Therefore, we will talk about social responsibility, meaning the tendency of an individual to adhere in his behavior to generally accepted social norms in a given society, to fulfill role responsibilities and his willingness to give an account for his actions. Alienation from social norms and the inability to find meaning in life weaken social responsibility.
K. Muzdybaev identifies the following vectors for the development of responsibility: 1) from collective to individual (vector of individualization according to J. Piaget). With the development of society, it is not the group to which the person who committed the act belongs that is responsible for the action of an individual, but he himself; 2) from external to internal, conscious personal responsibility (the vector of spiritualization of responsibility according to J. Piaget), the transition from external to internal control of behavior; 3) from a retrospective plan to a prospective one - responsibility not only for the past, but also for the future; a person not only foresees the results of his actions, but also strives to actively achieve them;
4) responsibility and “statute of limitations” - the possibility of influence of previous relationships between people on their current relationships, when they are already different.
E.D. Dorofeev proposes to supplement the vectors of development of responsibility with one more. This vector can be defined as the development of individual responsibility for an increasing number of people - “from responsibility for oneself to responsibility for everyone.”
You can take responsibility for the relationships in the group, as well as for its activities (goal, result and process). Responsibility for group relations is divided into responsibility 1) for group norms (as a result of past interactions), 2) for the desire to change norms, traditions, relationships (future), 3) for the real state of the group (present).
A person can be responsible for himself, for individual members of the group, for the reference group (part of the group to which he belongs) and for the group as a whole.
Thus, E.D. Dorofeev puts forward a three-dimensional model of group responsibility; 1) time (past, present, future), 2) characteristics (activity, relational), 3) subject (for oneself, for individual others, for a group).
This model obviously needs to be supplemented with one more parameter: to whom the individual is responsible (to himself, to individual others, to the group as a whole, to society as a whole).
In our case, a family member may be responsible for other individual family members (for example, a wife or husband, or children) and for the family as a whole. The role of the leader, head of the family presupposes responsibility for the family as a whole: its present, past, future, activities and behavior of family members, to oneself and the family, to the community (the immediate social environment) and that part of the world of people (society) to which the family belongs . It is always responsibility for others, and not just individual close people, but for the social group as a whole.
3. Emotional intimacy
Psychologically, it is based on affiliation motivation. Murray in 1938 described the need for affiliation motive as follows: “To make friends and feel affection. Enjoy other people and live with them. Collaborate and communicate with them. Be in love. Join groups." By affiliation (contact, communication) we meant a certain class of social interactions that are of an everyday and at the same time fundamental nature. Their content consists of communicating with other people (including people unfamiliar or poorly acquainted) and maintaining it in such a way that brings satisfaction, captivates and enriches both parties.
Affiliation should end with the establishment of mutually pleasant, friendly relations, sympathy of communication partners. People are motivated not only positively (by the hope of establishing a good relationship), but also negatively (by the fear of rejection). These motivational expectations are formed on the basis of a generalization of a person’s experience of communicating with other people.
Affiliation is the opposite of power - love pushes a person to do things that he wants to do, and fear of power (motivation of submission) forces him to take actions that a person would not do of his own free will.
Therefore, affiliative motivation almost always acts as a compensator for the “power-submission” motivation: nowhere is so much said about love for one’s neighbors as in Orthodox theology, and yet it is in Orthodox dogma that the “power-submission” relationship has special significance.
Muslim dogmatics uses “respect” for the same purposes: younger for older, wife for husband (the first - i and more). “Respect” is recognition of the importance of another compared to oneself, but without love. In “respect,” the motivation for submission is merged with the motivation for self-esteem into a single structure.
Psychological models of an elementary family can be divided on the following grounds:
1. Who is responsible for the family: father or mother (or a child who has reached legal age)?
Let us call an “abnormal” family a family where the husband is not responsible for it.
If no one is responsible, it is a “pseudo-family.”
2. Who dominates the family?
In a patriarchal family, the father dominates.
In a matriarchal family, the mother dominates.
In the so-called “child-centric” family, the child, his needs or whims, really (psychologically) dominate.
In an egalitarian family, power functions are distributed, but their distribution is a constant basis for conflict (hence the emergence of “conflict theories” to describe the modern family); one can call it a conflict family.
The dominance hierarchy includes three family members, so it is important not only to determine who dominates everyone, but also the “power-submission” hierarchy itself.
At first glance, theoretically, in a complete elementary nuclear family there are only 6 types of hierarchy (in order of dominance): 1) “father-mother-child”, 2) “father-child-mother”, 3) “mother-father-child” , 4) “mother-child-father”, 5) “child-father-mother”, 6) “child-mother-father”.
However, dominance relations are not transitive, i.e. if the father dominates the child, and he dominates the mother, the mother may well dominate the father, therefore the number of options, taking into account intransitivity, is 2 more.
In an incomplete nuclear family, naturally, only four options are possible.
In an extended nuclear family, there is a hierarchy of relationships among children, as well as the inclusion of individual children in hierarchical relationships with mother and father, etc. The diversity of life cannot be described by a simple theoretical diagram, but the diagram still helps to clarify some problems.
Emotional closeness-distance also characterizes the relationship in the trio “father-mother-child”: a child can be “closer” to the mother than to the father and vice versa, parents can be closer to each other than to the child, everyone can be equally close to each other friend, etc.
In a particular culture, different importance may be attached to the relationship of “power-subordination”, emotional closeness, and responsibility. This is manifested in the different “weight” of certain relationships in the family structure.
Mathematically, it is possible to describe possible models of a complete elementary nuclear family by a system of three parameters with weighting coefficients defined on them; the place of each family member in the feature space will be determined. Two parameters (responsibility and dominance) characterize one family member, the third dimension (emotional intimacy) characterizes each of the three pairs (“father-mother”, “father-child”, “child-mother”). The dominance relationship is vector, the rest are scalar.
It should be noted that in reality, personal experiences of psychological closeness are vector relationships, since affiliative motivation determines the direction of behavior: the child may strive for the mother, and the mother may be alienated from him.
Psychological emotional closeness is the “resulting” orientation of two family members, but behind this resultant can hide much more complex emotional relationships.
More often, the subject of dominance and responsibility coincide in one person.
We will call a variant of a family in which one family member dominates, and another is responsible, an “exploiting” family (a typical case of the “Holy Family” consisting of the Virgin Mary, Jesus Christ and Joseph the Betrothed, who is responsible for them, but lower in the hierarchy).
It can be assumed that the most stable family is one in which the subject of responsibility and power is the same person, and family members are psychologically closer to him than to each other. As will be seen from further analysis, the “ideal” Catholic family is closest to this type, which, of course, does not make it ideal in the emotional and evaluative sense of the word.
Once again it is worth mentioning that so far we are talking only about a theoretical design and nothing more.
Table Family models taking into account dominance-submission relationships
"Normal" family
Family and marriage arose at a fairly late stage in the development of society. The earliest form of marriage and family relations was group marriage. The form of hostel was the clan commune. It consisted of male and female groups and provided not only biological reproduction, but also feeding and raising children. In addition to the men's and women's groups, the commune had a children's group, which was more closely connected with the women's group.
Between childhood and adulthood lay a rite of passage: a teenager passed a test (mental and physical) and moved into a men's or women's group. Sometimes the young man was given a new name. In one form or another, the initiation rite has been preserved to this day: we are not only talking about the “registration” of a young criminal in a prison cell or the transfer of conscripts from “young” to “kettles”. The classic initiation procedure is, for example, defending a dissertation: the applicant spends a long time preparing for the procedure, he has a mentor (guardian) - a supervisor or consultant, he is subjected to a series of mental (fortunately - not physical) tests by more “adults”, and, finally, he is enrolled in the senior group and receives a new “name” of candidate or doctor of science with all the accompanying rights and responsibilities.
In a primitive society, the transition of young men to a male group was probably psychologically more complex and more painful than the transition of girls to a group of adult women, if we take into account the structure of psychological closeness of male, female and child groups. This was manifested in the fact that all his life a person belonged to the group in which he was born, to which his mother belonged. This does not mean that a person’s clan membership was determined by his mother. A person belonged to a given clan not at all because his mother belonged to it, but because from birth he was part of this group and could not belong to any other. The relationships were not yet personified: there were not “person-to-person” relationships, but “group-to-group” relationships.
The fate of man was derived from the dynamics of intergroup relations. And only when the clan ceased to coincide with the work collective, kinship began to be determined: through the father or through the mother. Features of the definition of kinship were associated with the type of culture.
Is there something common in relationships within a normal family that does not depend on time, culture, or ethnic system?
And here it is appropriate to give the floor to the psychologist and anthropologist Margaret Mead: “We may encounter in some communities very lazy men or, conversely, women abnormally free from any responsibilities, as in a childless town house in America. But the principle remains the same throughout. A man is the heir to traditions and must provide for women and children. We have no reason to believe that a man who remained an animal and did not go through the school of social training could do anything like that.” The social structure of society determines which women and children a man will provide for, although the main rule here seems to require him to provide for the woman with whom he has sexual intercourse. From her point of view, it is not so important whose children are, whether the man is the biological father or not: children can be adopted, chosen, can be orphans, etc. However, throughout the world there is an idea of \u200b\u200bduty and family for which a man is responsible. The husband brings food into the house, the wife cooks it, the husband provides for the family, but the wife raises the children. M. Mead believes that special social efforts are required for a man to fulfill the obligation to feed his family and children, since this social responsibility does not have a biological mechanism, while maternal attachment to a child is natural. The Russian poet Mikhail Lvov (albeit for a different reason) wrote: “To become a man, it’s not enough to be born. To become iron, it is not enough to be ore...”
Therefore, each generation of young men must learn parental behavior in the family: their biological role is complemented by a social, learned, parental role. In the Christian religion, the image of the father-breadwinner is embodied in Joseph the Betrothed, the earthly husband of the Virgin Mary. It is no coincidence that the Christian religion attaches great importance to the socialization of men.
A family collapses when a man either does not acquire or loses responsibility for the family as a whole, or is unable, due to circumstances, to fulfill his duties. With slavery, with serfdom, with proletarianization, during revolutions, epidemics, wars, the “connection of times” is broken - a thin thread connecting generations. The binder is always a man. “In times like these, when the primary unit in caring for children again becomes the biological given - mother and child, a man loses clarity of orientation, and those special conditions thanks to which a person maintained the continuity of his social traditions are violated and distorted.”
A man can dominate in the family, he can occupy a subordinate position, he can be psychologically close to his wife or child, he can be emotionally distant from them, he can love or not love his wife and, accordingly, be loved or not loved. But he must always be responsible for the family. If a man is responsible for himself and for the family, its present and future, the family can be considered “normal”. If a man voluntarily, or due to external circumstances, loses the burden of responsibility, various variants of an abnormal family arise.
M. Mead is an optimist. And her bright view of the past and future of humanity allows her to say: “Until now, all known human societies have always restored the forms they had temporarily lost. The Negro slave in the United States was kept as a breeding stallion and his children were sold, so the lack of paternal responsibility is still felt among black working-class Americans. In this environment, the primary unit of care for children turns out to be the mother and grandmother, the mother's mother; the man also joins this unit, without even making any economic contribution to it.
But with the acquisition of education and economic security, this disorganized way of life is cast aside and the American middle-class Negro father is perhaps almost overly child-loving and responsible.”
History, however, is replete with negative examples of the consequences of family failure. E. Erikson believed that the main reason for Hitler’s rise to power in Germany was the loss of the authority of fathers in the eyes of their sons. Hitler acted as the "ideal" father substitute.
In my opinion, the dominance of the father in the German family has replaced responsibility - care.
Erikson describes the German family of the late 19th and early 20th centuries as an extremely conflictual group. The denial of paternal authority in the 10s resulted in youth extremist movements, gangs, adherence to mystical-romantic cults of Genius, Race, Nature, Culture, etc. Young men believed that their mother openly or secretly stood on their children’s side, and their father was seen as an enemy . An even worse option is the type of “overbearing mother” who borrowed the ideal of “I” from the father or grandfather and strives for absolute power over the children. The consequence of this is a loss of authority among children. Their children leave the family, wander, etc.
But the most striking manifestation of the collapse of the normal family is the “family” in the former USSR. The Soviet family can be called post-Orthodox atheistic (we will return to its characteristics later). Depriving men of social and economic opportunities to provide for and be responsible for their families, as well as to raise children, led to the collapse of the family as a social institution. The totalitarian state took upon itself the entire burden of responsibility and replaced the father with itself.
Here is the role of the father in raising Soviet children according to sociological research: fathers are 1.5 times less likely than mothers to control their children’s studies at school, 1.5-4 times less likely than mothers to discuss school matters, books, relationships with friends, fashion, TV shows, plans for the future, choice of profession, character traits of children, etc. Accordingly, to the question: “who is the greatest authority for you?” - only 5-9% of schoolchildren in grades 8-10 in Vilnius, Moscow and Baku answered that - father, and 17-19% - named mother. Both boys and girls are more open with their mother than with their father. She often becomes a role model. 28% of Vilnius, 26.5% of Moscow and 19.4% of Baku schoolchildren want to be like her, and 10.6%, 8.8%, and 8.9%, respectively, want to be like their father.
The consequences of this state of affairs are very deplorable.
M. Mead's point of view is confirmed in clinical studies. Moreover, the father is of utmost importance for development from the very moment the child is born: he is the first external object for the child and plays the role of a model during early identification. Fathers encourage the process of separation of the child from the mother, thereby accelerating the process of socialization; the absence of a father in the family or his failure to fulfill his responsibilities leads to the development of psychopathology in the child.
During the process of fatherhood, a father is also susceptible to psychological crises, and if the father himself has not resolved the problems of childhood attachment to his father and mother, his risk of psychopathological disorders increases.
If the father is incapacitated (cannot bear responsibility for the family and fulfill the role of leader), then he finds himself in a very difficult situation. After all, in order to ensure the material well-being of the family, authority and independence at work, and gain public recognition and status, he must make his efforts outside the family. And, if he has failed in the outside world, he begins to fight for power in the family.
If society hinders a man and interferes with his activity in providing for his family, this inevitably leads to the collapse of it as a social institution.
The problem of paternity is the most acute for post-Soviet society. Our state has declared the equality of both parents in relation to the child (Code of Laws on Marriage and Family of the Russian Federation). In reality, current legislation and practice alienate the father from the family.
Not only was public education considered fundamental, but responsibility for the fate of children was transferred to the “state” and teachers. But the system of benefits in connection with the birth of a child, child care, and their upbringing is provided only to mothers, and to fathers - only in connection with the death of the mother, her long-term departure or illness. In case of divorce, the child remains with the mother.
Consequently, a man knows that his fate as a father does not depend in any way on his concerns and personal qualities, and a child is primarily a woman’s problem.
In general, family relationships in a totalitarian society become psychobiological, rather than socio-psychological: the role of the father as the main agent of socialization is reduced to nothing, and the importance of the natural psychobiological connection between the child and mother increases. Therefore, the collapse of this last support of the family through the fault of the mother is a disaster. This phenomenon again forces the authorities and society to address the problems of mothers and motherhood and gives rise to a vicious circle of imaginary causes and real consequences.
If the ideas of the early and late utopian communists were realized in anything, it was in the fate of the family. It is characteristic of all utopias and dystopias (utopia-warnings) that the state takes on all the functions of a normal family, from social to biological (artificial breeding of children). In the end, man as a social, psychological, biological being is completely unnecessary for “progress”. In all utopias and dystopias, the child is not considered at all as an independent member of the family. The attention of the authors of projects for a “bright communist future” is focused on sexual relationships: “husband-wife”, “husband-other women”, “wife-other men”. Utopian views on the family deny the family as the subject of raising children. For them, a child is an object of state education or artificial breeding (as with T. Campanella).
In M. Zamyatin’s novel “We” there is not even the concept of family.” The state takes upon itself all the concerns for the prolongation of the human race. In O. Huxley's novel Brave New World, the words “father” and “mother” become swear words in a totalitarian society. The state also takes over the process of procreation: it fertilizes the egg and influences the process of fetal maturation. Thus, the totalitarian state becomes father, mother and teacher-educator in one person. Similarly with A. Platonov: children are alienated from the family. But the authorities don’t care about children; they grow up without any care and die at an early age.
The ultimate solution to family, marriage and sexual problems is “Moscow 2042” by V. Voinovich: the division of various enterprises into male and female still exists only in hostile circles, but here there is complete equality, and the difference between men and women is practically erased.
It cannot be said that the “Soviet” family is not a family as such; rather, it is an anomalous family in which the mother is responsible, and she often dominates.
The return to civilization for her will begin with the revival of the “normal family” (in the scientific meaning of this term) and not before.
Neither democracy, nor private property, nor the general Christianization of the Russian population will solve anything on their own: they are only external prerequisites for spiritual work.