Department of Psychology, University of Houston, Houston, TX, USA.
Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, USA.
Fam Process. 2021 Sep;60(3):935-949. doi: 10.1111/famp.12608. Epub 2020 Oct 16.
Despite the importance of emotional closeness (EC) in families, few researchers have accurately measured the construct in a systemic way. Additionally, existing measures rely on ratings from one informant, typically the mother, to provide information on closeness within the entire family system. We examined EC in 140 individuals (37 families) using the Emotional Tone Index for Families (ETIF), a novel, multi-informant measure that obtains bidirectional information about EC within every family relationship. The parent identified as most familiar with the family also completed two widely used single-informant measures: The McMaster Family Assessment Device and the Family Adaptability and Cohesion Evaluation Scales, version IV. The ETIF exhibited good test-retest reliability, high internal consistency, and concurrent validity with the single-informant measures. Though the primary respondent scores correlated highly with overall family closeness, results revealed only a modest association between closeness ratings within each dyad and parents rated higher levels of closeness toward their children than children rated closeness toward parents. These findings suggest that ratings from multiple informants provide valuable information about discrepancies in perceived closeness between family members and other complex family dynamics that cannot be captured by single-informant measures. Limitations, future directions, and implications for practice are discussed.
尽管情感亲密（EC）在家庭中很重要，但很少有研究人员以系统的方式准确测量这一结构。此外，现有的测量方法依赖于一个信息提供者的评分，通常是母亲，以提供整个家庭系统内亲密程度的信息。我们使用家庭情感音调指数（ETIF）对 140 个人（37 个家庭）进行了 EC 研究，ETIF 是一种新颖的多信息提供者的测量方法，它可以获取每个家庭关系中关于 EC 的双向信息。被认为最了解家庭的父母还完成了两个广泛使用的单一信息提供者的测量方法：麦克马斯特家庭评估装置和家庭适应性和凝聚力评估量表第四版。ETIF 表现出良好的重测信度、高内部一致性和与单一信息提供者测量方法的同时效度。尽管主要应答者的分数与整体家庭亲密程度高度相关，但结果仅显示出每个对偶体中的亲密程度评分与父母对孩子的亲密程度评分与孩子对父母的亲密程度评分之间存在适度的关联。这些发现表明，来自多个信息提供者的评分提供了有关家庭成员之间感知亲密程度差异的有价值的信息，以及单一信息提供者的测量方法无法捕捉到的其他复杂家庭动态。讨论了局限性、未来方向和对实践的影响。
