Word: psychologists
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Dates: during 2000-2000
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...prove scientifically. Still, I was struck by a report that appeared last week in the American Psychological Association's Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, comparing decades' worth of scores on tests that measure the level of an individual's day-to-day anxiety. The study's author, research psychologist Jean Twenge of Case Western Reserve University, concluded that today's children are significantly more anxious than their counterparts in the 1950s. In fact, her analysis showed, normal children ages 9 to 17 exhibit a higher level of anxiety today than children who were treated for psychiatric disorders 50 years...
Such absolute estrangements may not be the norm, but experts who study family relationships believe they are on the rise. Psychologist Carol Netzer, author of Cutoffs: How Family Members Who Sever Relationships Can Reconnect, thinks that today's broader cultural freedoms have made it easier for people to say goodbye to traditions and to relatives. "The nuclear family is not as tight as it once was," she says. Some rifts reflect larger trends. The Woodstock generation, Netzer explains, was full of young people leaving their families to lose themselves in drugs or join religious groups, political movements and communes. "Often...
...origins of a sibling breach often can be traced to childhood. Psychologist Stephen P. Bank, co-author of The Sibling Bond, observes that eldest children who are expected to care for younger siblings may feel overburdened and resentful. Children born too many years apart, says Bank, may never share common interests or developmental stages. For them, slender ties are sometimes easy...
...other families, psychologist Bank says, large age differences can help alleviate competition for toys, friends and parental attention. Some older siblings enjoy being caregivers, often in exchange for adoration. Studies show bonds among sisters tend to be strongest, epitomized by Bessie and Sadie Delany, co-authors of Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters' First 100 Years. And when parents are absent, neglectful or abusive, siblings often fill the void by forming tight bonds, as did the brothers in the movie Radio Flyer...
...sibling bonds or something like them is to some experts primordial--even for an only child. Parents always have a disproportionate power over offspring, but siblings teach peer-level tolerance, loyalty and constancy--qualities that later apply to colleagues, friends and lovers. In moderation, sibling discord is useful, says psychologist Bank. "If the frustration is too great, it cripples you. But we all need a level of frustration in our lives in order to move ahead...