The construction of family image: The adolescent's perspective

Family image represents a family member's subjective-qualitative judgment of his/her family as being positive or negative. The purpose of this study is to introduce this new concept and to conduct an initial empirical examination of the possible structure of family image from the adolescent's perspective. Three alternative structures were hypothesized as possibly underlying family image: The first suggested that the adolescent constructs a perception of their family characteristics and, based on those, constructs his/her family image. The second alternative hypothesis suggested that the adolescent constructs images of each family member (i.e., self, mother, father) and uses those individual images as building blocks of the family image. The third alternative hypothesis combined the first two, suggesting a more complex construction process, whereby the adolescent constructs both individual images and the perception of family characteristics, and both constructs serve as the building blocks of the family image. The findings from a sample of 1038 adolescents support the suggestion that family image is a viable construct, and provide initial support for the first hypothesized alternative. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.