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The Social Relations Model (SRM) allows for examination of family relations on three different levels: the individual level (actor and partner effects), the dyadic level (relationship effects), and the family level (family effect). The aim of this study was to present a systematic review of SRM family studies and identify general patterns in the results. Results of reanalyses of 17 data sets showed that characteristics of the person who reports on the relationship and the unique characteristics of the relationship were most important explanations of differences in family relationships. The present systematic review contributes to a better understanding of who is driving relationship outcomes in families and provides suggestions concerning the application of the SRM to family data.
Key Words: family relations, parenting, systems.
A large body of research showed that aspects of the parent-child relationship, sibling relation- ship, and marital relationship are all related to the development of child adjustment problems (Dekovic & Buist, 2005; Repetti, Taylor, & Seeman, 2002; Wamboldt & Wamboldt, 2000). The family systems theory has encouraged fam- ily researchers to think about the family as a dynamic and interacting system with sev- eral interdependent subsystems (Cox & Paley, 1997, 2003). In research on family relations, however, the focus is still often on the parent- child dyad, which ignores the fact that family relations are mutually interdependent. Further- more, in earlier studies information regarding parent-child relationships was mostly obtained through reports of only (one of the) parents or the child. What makes one family different from another is the result of characteristics of individuals, dyads, and the family as a group (Cook & Kenny, 2006). Traditional methodolo- gies, however, cannot adequately capture the complexity of the family, and they also have to make a priori assumptions about the level of analysis that would be appropriate for examining family functioning (e.g., the parent-child dyad or the family as a whole). The Social Relations Model (SRM; Kenny & La Voie, 1984) allows for examination of family relations on the indi- vidual level, the dyadic level, and the family level simultaneously. The SRM was originally developed in the field of social psychology to study social interaction data (Warner, Kenny, & Stoto, 1979), but it has also been used to study families for...