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The intergenerational-stake phenomenon refers to the generational bias in parents' and adult children's perceptions of their joint relationship, which is, parents consistently perceive their relationship more favorably than do children (Bengtson & Kuypers, 1971). The original theoretical explanation of this phenomenon-the developmental-stake hypothesis-has its basis in theories of developmental aging. Although evidence of the phenomenon has been well documented, support has yet to be found for the theoretical justification. Nonetheless, the developmental-stake hypothesis continues to be used in the literature as an explanatory framework for a variety of empirical findings on parents and adult children (e.g., Fiese, 1993; Martell, 1990; Martini, Grusec, & Bernardini, 2001; Smetana, Crean, & Daddis, 2002; Smetana, Daddis, & Chuang, 2003).
The first purpose of this chapter is to examine whether or how the intergenerational-stake phenomenon in affectual and consensual solidarity changes over 20 years for adult child-parent dyads. The second purpose of this chapter is to investigate factors that may be associated with this stability or change. Factors associated with change could provide clues about the dynamics underlying the intergenerational-stake phenomenon. We present several alternative theoretical perspectives that might better explain the existence and persistence of the intergenerational-stake phenomenon than those previously proposed.
This chapter begins with a brief review of the history of the intergenerational-stake phenomenon and the original hypothesis, followed by a description of four theoretical perspectives: the status inheritance model, the stress model, the life-events model, and the social-psychological model. We use data on adult child-parent dyads from USC's Longitudinal Study of Generations to examine whether several theoretically derived factors influence change in the intergenerational-stake phenomenon over a 20-year period from 1971 to 1991. Because gender is an important factor in intergenerational family relationships (Hagestad, 1986; Rossi & Rossi, 1990), status inheritance (Korupp, 2002), stress and life events (Turner & Avison, 2002), and social psychological attitudes (Acock & Bengtson, 1978), we examine change in the phenomenon separately for father-son, father-daughter, mother-son, and mother-daughter dyads.
HISTORY OF THE INTERGENERATIONAL-STAKE PHENOMENON
Three decades ago, Bengtson and Kuypers (1971) found that parents and their post-adolescent children differed in their evaluations of their joint relationship; parents tended to view the relationship as more emotionally close than did children, as well as higher in consensus. To explain this finding, Bengtson and Kuypers...