Department of Psychology.
Center for Information Systems and Technology.
J Fam Psychol. 2021 Mar;35(2):182-191. doi: 10.1037/fam0000660.
In family contexts, individuals are embedded in networks of relationships. Social network analysis provides a unique framework to investigate family relationships as interrelated networks above and beyond dyadic familial relationships. In the current paper, we used the notion of triadic closure to investigate how various configurations of family networks, classified by their relationship ties, differ in predicting adolescents' experiences of loneliness. We classified different types of network structures based on whether all 3 family members (i.e., child, mother, father) shared high-quality relationships with one another (closed) or whether 1 or more low quality ties existed in the family triad (open). Results indicated that, compared with adolescents in families containing 1 or more poor-quality ties, adolescents in families containing all high-quality relational ties experienced lower levels of loneliness, above and beyond the impact of gender, parents' education and mental health, and family income. Simply put, adolescents' experiences of loneliness is not tied to the number of high-quality relationships they experience within the family but rather is dependent on the presence of high-quality relationships among all family ties. With the introduction of 1 low-quality relationship within a family triad, additional low-quality relationships appear to make little difference. In line with family systems theory, our examination of the family as a whole, rather than as a summative combination of smaller relationships, indicates that a closed family structure is important for protecting adolescents against experiences of loneliness. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).
在家庭环境中，个体嵌入在关系网络中。社会网络分析提供了一个独特的框架，可以将家庭关系作为相互关联的网络进行研究，而不仅仅是二元的家庭关系。在当前的论文中，我们使用三元闭合的概念来研究家庭网络的各种配置如何通过其关系纽带的分类来预测青少年的孤独感体验。我们根据以下标准对不同类型的网络结构进行分类：家庭三角关系中是否所有 3 位家庭成员（即孩子、母亲、父亲）彼此之间都有高质量的关系（闭合），或者家庭三角关系中是否存在 1 个或多个低质量的关系（开放）。结果表明，与家庭中存在 1 个或多个低质量关系的青少年相比，家庭中所有关系都具有高质量的青少年经历的孤独感水平较低，这超出了性别、父母教育和心理健康以及家庭收入的影响。简单地说，青少年的孤独感体验与其在家庭中经历的高质量关系数量无关，而是取决于所有家庭关系中高质量关系的存在。在家庭三角关系中存在 1 个低质量关系的情况下，额外的低质量关系似乎影响不大。与家庭系统理论一致，我们对家庭作为一个整体的考察，而不是对较小关系总和的考察，表明封闭的家庭结构对于保护青少年免受孤独感体验的影响很重要。（PsycInfo 数据库记录（c）2021 APA，保留所有权利）。
