Reed Larson is assistant professor of human development and family ecology at the University of Illinois in Urbana/Champaign and director of the labouratory for the Study of Adolescence at Michael Reese Hospital in Chicago.
This book emerged from a study in which triads of mothers, fathers, and young adolescents (ages 10-14) from suburban white families were provided with beepers that rang at random times throughout the day. Participants then recorded what they were doing, with whom they were doing it, and what emotions they were feeling. Some of the results are common coinage in family sociology, yet the book is redeemed by some new, interesting, and practical information on the differences between healthy and troubled families (e.g., in the happier families, fathers pitched in during the dinnertime ``six o'clock crunch''). While not an essential purchase-the authors do not seem to realize that the ``divergent realities'' idea has long been accepted by scholars of the family-this book is nevertheless a worthwhile addition to large family studies collections in public and academic libraries.-Mary Ann Hughes, Neill P.L., Pullman, Wash.
This report's empirical treatment of family dynamics is the result of an innovative research procedure called ESM (experience sampling method). The authors examine the lives of 55 middle-class, two-parent, European-American families in the Chicago area by gathering family members' ongoing accounts of their daily experiences. Through subjects' responses to periodic contact made with them via beeper devises, the authors trace the effects of unchecked emotions from one family member to another; at intervals the authors intervene with helpful suggestions on how families might surmount emotional hazards. Making the family a cohesive unit in contemporary society, the authors emphasize, takes effort, and there is no single way to do it successfully. This is a significant scholarly contribution to the understanding of family relationships. Larson chairs Family Studies at the University of Illinois, Richards teaches psychology at Loyola University. Illustrations not seen by PW. (June)
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