Family Climate and Social Adaptation of Adolescents in Community Samples: A Systematic Review

Family Climate Measurements

With regard to Research Question 1 (Is there systematic research on family climate with regard to its theoretical definition?), family climate was assessed with different measurements. Family climate is a widely used overarching term to describe daily family life, which is evident from a lack of definitions of family climate and the different measuring instruments used in the studies, as shown in Table 4. Regarding the operationalization, family climate was mainly measured by family cohesion (11/12 studies), which is a dimension of most measurements used to describe family climate (4/5 measurements). The similarity between family climate, family environment, and family systems becomes apparent through studies using the FES to measure family climate, which is explained through aspects of family functioning (family conflict, cohesion, and organization) that reflect the general family climate (Fosco et al., 2016). None of the studies used all 10 dimensions of FES. None of the studies used the FCI, which is interesting, because it is the only measuring instrument that includes the term family climate. In addition, family climate was measured by the Family Climate Questionnaire Perceived by Children in Relation to Parents’ Management of Behavior Problems (CFPC-H, Cantero-García & Alonso-Tapia, 2017). The scale consists of four dimensions describing the four coping strategies practiced by parents (positive attitude, reasoning versus punishment, patience, and stress). Comparing the family climate dimensions from the literature review and the actually investigated dimensions in studies from the last twenty years showed that today family climate is mainly investigated at the level of relationships between family members, while in the past control within the family and independence of individual family members were also investigated. All the dimensions examined in the corpus of the systematic review are presented below, and based on this, an empirically based definition of family climate is given.

Family Climate Model: Empirically Based Definition

To answer Research Question 2 (How is family climate operationalized in the context of adolescents’ social adaptation in community samples, and how can family climate be defined based on all operationalizations?), all dimensions of the measurements in the reviewed studies were combined in one family climate model (see Fig. 2) according to the FES (Moos & Moos, 1983). The family climate model is based on the finding that family communication is a third dimension alongside the other two dimensions (cohesion and adaptability; Olson, 1986). For a better understanding of the dimensions, all item examples of the corpus are listed in Table 5. In general, family climate can be described with respect to emotional connections, conflicts, and support between family members. Further descriptions cover daily family attitudes and structures, such as orderly versus chaotic, hierarchical versus heterarchical, flexible versus static, or open versus closed.

Fig. 2figure 2

Family climate model guided by the three main dimensions of the FES by Moos and Moos (1976) and based on the results of this review (Main dimensions in italic; most often used subdimensions (at least twice) in bold)

Table 5 Dimensions of family climate with item examples based on the systematic review

The family climate main dimension “relationship” was most commonly used in the corpus. It describes the quality of familial relationships and is measured by cohesion, conflict, and support within the family. Accordingly, dimensions regarding familial relationships form the core of family climate. Cohesion is one of the most frequently used dimensions and is included in most family climate scales (FES, FFS, FACES, and ICF), described as the emotional bonding between family members (Sbicigo & Dell’Aglio 2012). Feelings within the family are compared with feelings toward people outside the family (Idan & Margalit, 2014). The dimension “cohesion” also includes support (Fosco et al., 2016), which in other measurements is assessed separately. Family “support” encompasses the material and emotional support between family members, which is perceived when coping with individual or family problems (Sbicigo & Dell’Aglio 2012). “Conflict” involves negative feelings (Buelga et al., 2017) and includes criticism, anger, fights, and violence between family members (Xia et al., 2016). Family conflicts are inversely related to family support and cohesion (Sbicigo & Dell’Aglio 2012; Teodoro et al., 2009).

The family climate main dimension “system maintenance/system change” is described with regard to structures, rules, and flexibility among all family members and includes the dimensions of hierarchy, control, organization, and adaptability within the family. The distribution of power and control is subsumed under the hierarchy dimension, which indicates that older individuals in particular have a greater influence than younger family members (Sbicigo & Dell’Aglio 2012). The dimension “control” includes, next to hierarchical structures, the handling of family rules or structures of order (Cerezo et al., 2018). Whether the family is chaotic or structured and orderly is described under the dimension of “organization” (Xia et al., 2016). Aspects of managing and structuring daily family life can be rigidly and stubbornly implemented or handled flexibly (Sharabai et al. 2012). Hence, adaptability refers to the ability of the family system to balance stability against change and is assessed by its level of flexibility, discipline, and negotiation of roles (Idan & Margalit, 2014). The ability to change roles, power structures, relations, and rules of the family system depends on situational and developmental stress (Olson & Gorall, 2006; Sharabai et al. 2012).

In addition to the emotional and structural aspects of the family, family climate is described with regard to attitudes and typical behavior, which can be subsumed under the family climate main dimension “familial behavior/openness/independence”. Parental reactions to adolescent misbehavior were measured using different parental coping strategies (positive attitude, patience, stress, and punishment versus reasoning). “Independence” and “expressiveness” within the family are included in this dimension. The quality of family openness was assessed by the “expressiveness” dimension, which describes how family members express their feelings using the example of communication (Buelga et al., 2017; Muñiz, 2017; Ruiz et al., 2012). Expressiveness means the “degree of tolerance and importance given in the family to the sharing of ideas and feelings” (Valdés-Cuervo et al., 2018, p. 154). A high degree of love and a low degree of conflict in the family does not necessarily mean that the family is open-minded and family members express their feelings. Expressiveness is not categorized in the originally assigned FES dimension of “relationship” because the “communication” dimension of FACES is understood as a third dimension. In summary, expressiveness in communication between family members is understood as familial behavior indicating openness in the family. With regard to parental coping strategies in the family environment, supportive and reassuring parental behavior is subsumed under the “positive attitude” dimension (Cantero-García & Alonso-Tapia, 2017). The dimensions “patience” and “stress” are used to check whether parents respond calmly in response to adolescent misconduct (Cantero-García & Alonso-Tapia, 2017). The dimension “punishment versus reasoning” describes whether parents punish or reason with adolescents when they misbehave (Cantero-García & Alonso-Tapia, 2017). Personal growth in the family is included in the “independence” dimension (Cerezo et al., 2018).

(Positive and Negative) Family Climate and Social Adaptation

To answer the third Research Question (How does family climate influence adolescents’ social adaptation?), associations between family climate and adolescents’ social adaptation (see Table 3) are presented separately for positive and negative family climate, which is why these are briefly described. A negative family climate is characterized by numerous conflicts and a lack of esteem and support, which reduces the ability to create nonviolent solutions (Muñiz, 2017). Families with a negative climate displayed low cohesion, many conflicts, less support and expressiveness, and offensive communication with parents. A positive family climate was evidenced by warmth and acceptance, and was linked to high levels of expressivity, cohesion, support, system maintenance, positive attitudes, and patience, in addition to low levels of conflicts, less criticism, and reduced aggressive behavior among family members.

The third research question can only be partially answered because the body of this review mostly consists of cross-sectional studies (9/12 studies). In the view of longitudinal studies, results indicate that a positive family climate is a predictor of high academic self-regulation (Xia et al., 2016), better problem-solving skills in relationships (Xia et al., 2018), less relationship violence, and less hostile-aggressive adolescent behavior (Fosco et al., 2016). When considering the results, the heterogeneity of the studies in terms of age, methodology, origin of samples, and measurement instruments should be taken into account. For a more detailed description of all associations between family climate and dependent variables related to adolescents’ social adaptation were summarized in four categories based on content: school and self-perception (school attachment, academic self-regulation, self-esteem, and self-depreciation); emotions (loneliness, hope, sense of coherence, satisfaction in life, empathy, and shame); (cyber-)bullying; managing conflicts (hostile-aggressive behavior and relationship violence). A maximum of two studies examined the same aspects (see Table 3).

School and Self-perception

A positive family climate was a good predictor of adolescents’ psychological adjustment (self-efficacy and positive self-esteem), and has been consistently associated with school attachment over time (Xia et al., 2016). Family climate and school attachment influenced each other, with each having unique and unidirectional positive effects on academic self-regulation (Xia et al., 2016). Adolescents in cohesive and supportive families felt more loved, approved of, and accepted and were more likely to have feelings of self-worth and confidence (Sbicigo & Dell’Aglio 2012). A positive family climate with low levels of conflict, criticism, and aggressive behavior among family members can strengthen the concept of self. High rates of cohesion and support and low rates of family conflict were significant predictors of psychological adjustment, while self-depreciation and hierarchy exhibited a significant positive correlation (Sbicigo & Dell’Aglio 2012).

Emotions

Family climate showed associations with loneliness, hope, and the form of management parents chose. Loneliness was negatively associated with both cohesion and adaptability, while significant positive correlations were found between hope and cohesion and between effort and adaptability (Sharabi et al., 2012). Low levels of cohesion and hope were predictors of loneliness, while adolescents in families with high levels of cohesion were more likely to exhibit a higher sense of coherence regarding their personality strengths. It appears that family cohesion contributes to the developmental adjustment, personal strength, and relatedness of adolescents (Sharabi et al., 2012). Family behavior management climate, operationalized by four parental coping strategies (positive attitude, punishment versus reasoning, patience, and stress), was positively associated with adolescents’ satisfaction (Cantero-García & Alonso-Tapia, 2017). Family climate was positively associated with adolescents’ empathy, restorative management of shame, and the role of defender (Valdés-Cuervo et al., 2018). Moreover, positive parenting (positive family climate, parental support, and restorative discipline) promotes moral emotions, such as empathy and shame, which are associated with a defender role (Valdés-Cuervo et al., 2018).

(Cyber-)Bullying

Bullying is described as aggressive, repetitive, and deliberate behavior to abuse a defenseless victim (Cerezo et al., 2018). When this takes place via technology, it is termed cyberbullying (Buelga et al., 2017). Adolescents cannot be assigned exclusively to either a (cyber-)victim or (cyber-)bully role, and can potentially play both roles (Buelga et al., 2017; Cerezo et al., 2018). The results of this review showed important associations between family climate and the characteristics of (cyber-)victims and (cyber-)bullies. Victims are perceived in the family environment as unbalanced compared to those who are not bullied or those who are bullies (Cerezo et al., 2018). Cyber-victims were more likely to have less problematic family relationships compared to cyberbully-victims, who play both roles (Buelga et al., 2017), and exhibited no differences in family social climate compared to nonvictims (Cerezo et al., 2018). A positive family climate encourages adolescents to adopt a defender role, where adolescents protect themselves or other adolescents from bullying (Valdés-Cuervo et al., 2018). Cyberbullies had higher scores in family conflict than victims of cyberbullying (Buelga et al., 2017). High family conflict, low cohesion, and expressiveness predicted adolescents becoming either cyberbullies or victims (Buelga et al., 2017). Further, high levels of control and low levels of familial organization predicted adolescents becoming victims of bullying (Cerezo et al., 2018).

Managing Conflicts

Family climate was shown to be an important predictor of problem-solving skills and violent behavior in relationships. A positive family climate improves adolescents’ problem-solving skills in relationships (Xia et al., 2018) and supports them in managing disagreements (Fosco et al., 2016). A relatively stable and consistent influence of family climate on hostile-aggressive behavior was demonstrated in the study by Fosco et al. (2016). Family conflict predicts aggressive behavior by girls toward their partners in online environments (Muñiz, 2017). Adolescents in a positive family climate have been shown to be less likely to engage in relationship violence (Fosco et al., 2016; Xia et al., 2018). There is an indirect impact of family climate on adolescents’ relationship violence through the change in hostile-aggressive behavior over time (Fosco et al., 2016), and family climate is negatively related to positive reputation, which is linked to violent behavior (Ruiz et al., 2012).

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