Perceived and Ideal Family Communication Patterns and Family Satisfaction for Parents and their College-Aged Children

A sample of 120 dyads consisting of a parent and their college-aged child provided reports of perceived and ideal family communication patterns (FCP) in addition to indicating their satisfaction with the family. Results indicated high correlations between perceived and ideal FCP dimensions for both parents and their children. Parents reported higher scores than children did on perceived conversation orientation, ideal conversation orientation, and ideal conformity orientation. Children reported a larger gap between perceived and ideal conformity orientation, the result of a perceived excess of conformity orientation in the family. For both parents and children, unmet conversation ideals were largely the result of insufficient conversation orientation to meet desires. After controlling statistically for perceived conversation orientation, parent satisfaction was negatively predicted from the parent-child discrepancy on conversation orientation, and child satisfaction was negatively predicted from the parent-child discrepancy on conformity orientation. Several major substantive and methodological implications are discussed.