One hundred eighty young adults completed measures of family cohesion and adaptability, communication expressiveness and clarity, and problem solving. The results of polynomial regression trend analyses yielded a linear relationship between cohesion and communication expressiveness, clarity, and problem solving whether cohesion was defined linearly as emotional bonding or curvilinearly as family togetherness. There also was a linear relationship between adaptability, defined linearly as flexibility to master family life cycle stage transitions and these facets of family communication. However, the relationship for communication clarity was curvilinear when adaptability was defined in a curvilinear way as the degree of power, control, and organization in the home. Overall, these results tend not to support Olson’s circumplex model of couples and family systems.
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