The first aim of the present study was to examine the extent to which the larger network of family relationships (parent-adolescent, marital, and sibling relations) affect adolescent adjustment. The second aim was to identify distinct patterns of family relationships and to examine whether these different family relationship patterns are associated with adolescent adjustment. The sample consisted of 288 intact families with two adolescent siblings. Each family member provided information on the affective quality of his or her relationship with every other family member (round-robin design). The quality of all family relations was related to the indicators of deviant development (problem behavior) but not to the indicators of normative development (identity formation). Five distinct and theoretically consistent clusters of different constellations of affective family relations were found. Differences in adolescent problem behavior were related to the cluster membership. The usefulness of the family systems perspective for research on adolescent development is discussed.
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