Family rituals. Conceptions, research and psychological functions

The article concerns issues relating to family rituals, discussing them both from the theoretical findings, results of research and psychological functions, as well as therapeutic applications. After discussing the modern range of the concept of ritual, more than 60-year history of psychological research on family rituals in the world, mostly in the US, and the status of such research in Poland are presented. The existing definitions, classifications and attempts of operationalization of family rituals as well as research methods, including the structure of rituals and experiences gained from participation are discussed. In the final part the authors deal with psychological functions of family rituals.

Socio-cultural conditions of separation in adolescence

The process of transition from childhood to adulthood in primitive societies is connected with initiation rites, while in Western societies there are no such rituals. Instead, you can see conflicting expectations from adults directed towards the adolescents. They are ordering, depending on the circumstances, behavior consistent with the roles of a child or an adult. The content, contained in this form of communication, is the postulate of self-determination that satisfies the opposition. The adolescents’ response that satisfies these criteria is behaviour incompatible with adults’ expectations. The synchronic contradictory message, containing in its structure elements in accordance with the three phases of rites of passage, gives it the ability to read it in a diachronic accordance with the individual adolescent developmental process and thus corresponds to the initiation rites.

Occupational pathway in relation to human personality and spirituality

Presented research concerns developmental aspect of human personality and spirituality. We compared study participants taking into account age and profession: 170 doctors, 48 managers, 81 monks and 561 persons from general population (N = 860; women 471). Two questionnaires were used: NEO-FFI (Costa, McCrae, 1992) to measure personality, and Self-Description Questionnaire (Kwestionariusz Samoopisu of Heszen-Niejodek,Gruszczyńska, 2004) to assess the essence and level of spirituality.
The results show that personality and spirituality (mainly religious attitude) allow to predict occupational pathways. Moreover age and dimensions of Big-Five Model (without openness) are predictors of spirituality, with age and Agreeableness being its best predictors. The results provide premises which indicate that personality, and spirituality as one of its dimensions, is an important factor related to choice of individual occupational pathway in life.
 

Content of the concepts of Joy and Fear in adulthood – Verbal fluency as a technique of analysis of emotional concepts

The aim of this article is a description of content of emotional concepts. The main thesis was focused on quantitative and qualitative characteristics of affective concepts of Joy and Fear in 3 stages of adulthood (N = 302). The hypothesis was formulated about differences in numbers of generated words related to emotional concepts, and in structure of these concepts. Affective verbal fluency technique was used. Nouns were grouped in clusters for each concepts. Then, number of words in clusters and organization of clusters (cluster analysis) was compared between 3 stages of adulthood. There was shown some stable elements in each emotional concept, and some changeable aspects in concepts of Joy and Fear. Results are discussed in terms of development, and theories of emotional prototype or schemas.
 

Place attachment of people in life span

The aim of the research was the comparison the place attachment of people in various ages. Place attachment is a specific bond, positive emotional attitude, which is the result of compound units of this place (Altman, Low, 1992). We can distinguish two dimensions of attachment to the place: place identity and place dependence (Williams, Vaske, 2003). Relations between place attachment, age and life satisfaction of the respondents were examined.
The study involved 240 people, 4 groups over 60 people at the age of adolescence, early adulthood, middle adulthood and late adulthood. Place Attachment Scale (Williams, Vaske, 2003) and Satisfaction With Life Scale (Diener et al., 1985) were used.
Results showed that attachment to the place of residence positively correlated with age and satisfaction with life. Attachment to the place of residence is strongest in people in late adulthood, and weakest in early adulthood. For people in early adulthood and middle adulthood gender differences were reported: women were more strongly tied to the place than men.

Professional development and educational preferences, motives and barriers in the life course

The aim of the study was to show that, despite the need for continuous professional development, the role of which is emphasized both in the individual (motivation to learn) and organizational (the need for efficiency), not all age groups in the area have the same experience. The study was conducted in a group of 167 employees of various institutions, using a questionnaire created for the study. The results show that age, as a determinant of developmental change may decide the choice of the type of educational activity, it also differentiates test takers in the range educational activity motives and barriers that are most relevant to them when choosing forms of learning. The process of directing their own development is therefore dependent not only on the preferences of the individual, which are an expression of subjectivity of human development but also the social context such as the support of the employer. Topic requires further studies that will take into account both the characteristics of the individual and the environment, without which it is impossible to fully define the developmental processes in the professional field.

 

Sprawozdanie z sesji poświęconej pamięci  Profesor Marii Przetacznik-Gierowskiej,  Kraków, 13 marca 2015 roku

Recenzja: Iwona Janicka, Hanna Liberska (red. nauk.) (2014), Psychologia rodziny. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN