Family Comm. &Violence
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individual need. Based on this evidence linking family communication patterns to social
support, the final hypothesis we propose is:
H4a: Conversation orientation in family of origin is positively correlated with
children’s perception of social support in their families.
H4b: Conformity orientation in family of origin is negatively correlated with
children’s perception of social support in their families.
Method
Participants
Participants were 268 undergraduate students of several communication studies
courses of a large Midwestern university who received extra credit for their participation.
The sample was largely female (72%) and Caucasian (87%, African-American = 3%,
Asian = 7%, Others = 4%). The mean age was 21.8 (SD = 3.38; range 18-56).
Participants reported on romantic relationships (98% heterosexual) that on average had
lasted 2.2 Years (SD = 2.5 years; Range: 0-22 years).
Procedure
The two researchers described the research project in a short presentation during
class time to undergraduate students in communication studies courses and interested
students received a flier with the web address for the study. Interested students could log
onto the web site during a 3 week period during Spring semester 2003. The questionnaire
was presented on six different web pages asking for demographic information, for
information regarding participants current romantic relationships, and finally for
information regarding participants family communication during participants’ childhood
and adolescents. Individual measurements are discussed in the instruments section.
Convention