Interpersonal Communication- A Mindful Approach to Relationships, 2020a

interests: the combination of an absence of social constraint plus a positive impetus to self-expression
should foster both communication and competence.” 20 Some parents/guardians worry that this type of
openness of thought actually creates problems in their children, but McLeod and Chaffee noted that
these families have children who are more likely to say they want to grow up and be like their parents/
guardians than the other three types.
Laissez-faire
The final family communication pattern, laissez-faire, is marked by both low concept- and socioorientations.
In these families, there tends to be a lack of parent-child interaction or co-orientation.
Instead, these children are more likely to be influenced by external factors like the media, peers, and
other forces outside of the family unit. McLeod and Chaffee said that these children are more like a
control group in an experiment because of the hands-off nature of their communicative relationships
with their patterns. As such, it’s somewhat difficult to discuss the effectiveness of this study of family
communication.
Research
children’s racial biases.
Research Spotlight
In a 2018 study by Kelly G. Odenweller & Tina M. Harris, the researchers set out to
examine the relationship between family communication patterns and adult children’s
racial prejudice and tolerance. The researchers used a mostly college-aged sample of
190 adults.
Parental use of socio-oriented family communication patterns was positively related
to an adult child’s reported levels of prejudice and bias towards their own group, and
negatively related to being racially tolerant. As for concept-orientation, there were no
relationships found at all.
Ultimately, a parent’s conformity oriented family communication style can affect their
Odenweller, K. G., & Harris, T. M. (2018). Intergroup socialization: The influence of parents’ family
communication patterns on adult children’s racial prejudice and tolerance. Communication Quarterly, 66(5),
501–521. https://doi.org/10.1080/01463373.2018.1452766
Family Systems Theory
At the turn of the 20 th Century, philosophers started questioning how humans organize things and
our understanding of organizing. One critical theorist was Belarusian-born Alexander Aleksandrovich
Bogdanov, who wrote a philosophical treaty on the nature of organization in 1922. 21 Bogdanov’s ideas
ultimately influenced Ludwig von Bertalanffy’s general systems theory. In a series of works, Bertalanffy
conceptualized what has become known as general systems theory. 22 Bertalanffy defined a as “sets
of elements standing in interrelation.” 23 A classic mechanical system is a non-digital watch. Figure 11.3
shows the basic layout of a watch’s innards.
In this illustration, we see how the balance wheel causes the fork pin to move, which turns the escapement
wheel. The escapement wheel turns the third wheel (seconds), which turns the second wheel, which
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