Family Structure: Is Childhood Television Comparable to the Real-World

Family Structure: Is childhood television comparable to the real-world?

Jessica Hall, Salisbury University Advisor: Dr. Lance Garmon

April 23, 2010 Poster Presented at Salisbury University Student Research Conference, Salisbury, Maryland.

ABSTRACT

Family-centered shows have existed on television for many decades, but the structures of the families seem to have changed over the years. Television’s first families can be defined as nuclear families, where there is an intact marriage consisting of a mother, father and the possibility of children. As the times changed in America more diverse families were shown on television, such a non-White families and divorced families. This study was created to evaluate if television viewers recognize the different family structures portrayed on television, which types of family structures seem most frequently viewed, and the similarities between their own life and the families portrayed on the shows they watch. Twenty popular family-centered television shows from the 1990’s and early 2000’s were chosen to be analyzed and 264 undergraduates enrolled in general psychology courses at Salisbury University responded to questions about those shows through a set of online questionnaires. The majority (155; 59%) were female and came from families where the biological parents are still married today (n=172; 65%). ANOVAs suggest that gender seems to play a role in the participant’s viewing experience or knowledge of shows portraying biological fathers, step mothers, and step fathers, such that females were more likely to have viewing experience with these shows, however, no difference was found in regards to knowledge of shows with biological mothers portrayed. BACKGROUND Previous Research:

 There has been much research into the topic of family structure portrayals on television during the years of 1950 thru 1990 but after that time the research seems to be lacking.  Family-centered shows have existed on television for many decades, but the structures of the families seem to have changed over the years o In the 1950’s most programs of the domestic comedy variety have been used in the role of reinforcing important values into the lives of the family members (Rapping, 1992).  Often the structures of these television families fail to resemble the real-world families of the time, as can be seen when evaluating Census data from the United States (Skill and Robinson, 1994).  Over the past decades the trends in television support single-parent families with the rationale that there was a death of the spouse and that they are now a widow or widower. (Skill and Robinson, 1994). o It was not until the 1970’s that divorce was first seen on television, and continued to increase in prevalence through the following decades of television (Skill and Robinson, 1994).  Families in the 1990’s began to diversify with the working class family making its way to television in programs such as Roseanne (Douglas and Olson, 1995). Taboo topics, such as sex, were being discussed between families on shows such as Married with Children in ways that were not formatted to solve a problem, but simply a source of conversation (Cantor, 1991).  With the research on 1980’s television it seems that the portrayal of conventional families was decreasing steadily from around 79% in the 1950’s to a much lower 58% in the 1980’s (Skill and Robinson, 1994). Hypothesis  Students from a variety of family structures will be able to recognize the different family structures portrayed on television (i.e., single-parent v. married couple).  Students will be drawn to watch larger amounts of television shows that have family structures similar to their own than shows that reflect other structures.

METHODS  An online questionnaire was developed to analyze student’s familiarity with a group of 20 popular television shows (See Table 1) from the 1990’s and early 2000’s.  A demographics questionnaire was also provided to gain insight into the participant’s lives and personal family structures.

Participants

 Participants (n=264) from a pool of general psychology students at Salisbury University completed the previously mention surveys for class credit (with an alternative option available).

 Students used in the study ranged in age from 18 to 29 years (m=18.87), 213 (80.7%) of which were 18 or 19 years of age.

 Out of the participants who completed the surveys in their entirety 155 (58.7%) were female and 109 (41.3%) were male.

 When examining the marital status of the participant’s parents the data revealed that the 65.2% majority of student’s biological parents were still married (n=172), while the remainder of participants fell into various categories of divorce, remarriage, or never having their biological parents married (See Figure 1).  When examining the number of hours participants watched television per week a majority (n=117, 44.3%) of participants answered they watched approximately 1-5 hours a week (See Figure 2). Measures

 Demographics Survey was made up of 21 questions looking into the background of each participant. The questions ranged from gender, age, and parent’s marital status to an evaluation of how much time the participant spends with various family members.

 Family Structure and Childhood Television Questionnaire consisted of 20 television shows popular during the 1990’s and early 2000’s with six questions asked about each show. These questions delved into the participant’s experience watching the show and how comparable they ranked each show to their overall family structure, mother, father, and experiences. RESULTS

A series of one-way ANOVAs were performed on the participant’s data in order to either discover the relationships present between the participant’s and the 20 television shows.

Gender and Total Knowledge of Shows: The participant’s experience watching the shows was divided up based on the family structure of the shows into 4 new variables: experience with biological fathers, experience with biological mothers experience with step fathers, and experience with step mothers. These new variables were then compared between the genders of participants. Results were mixed depending on the variable being analyzed.

 An ANOVA revealed female participants reported a higher viewing experience than males for shows with family structures containing biological fathers, step fathers, and step mothers (See Figure 3).

 The same ANOVA revealed that there was no significant difference between male or female participants and the amount of experience they had pertaining to shows with family structures containing biological mothers (See Figure 3). Gender and Total Mirror of Family Structure: Two new variables were created breaking down the participant’s responses to the question “How well does this show mirror your own family structure?”. The new variables divided the results for the structure question based on whether or not the television show portrayed a married family or a non-married family. These variables were then compared with the gender of the participants. Results were mixed based on the show’s family structure.

 An ANOVA revealed that female participants reported higher scored reflecting whether or not they felt the television shows containing non-married families mirrored their own (See Figure 4).

 An ANOVA revealed that there was no significant difference between male or female participants and whether or not they felt the television shows containing married families mirrored their own (See Figure 4). Current Parent Marital Status: The participant’s response to their parent’s current marital status were divided up to answer the question of whether or not their parents were divorced. The new variable contained only two possibilities: “yes” or “no”. This new variable was then compared with to both viewing experience and the total family structure mirror variables created in the above analysis.

 ANOVAs revealed that no significance was found between participants with divorced parents or married parents and whether or not they felt the television shows containing married or non-married families mirrored their own (See Figure 5).

 A final series of ANOVAs involving parental marital status and participant’s viewing experience revealed that participants who had parents who were divorced were more likely to have viewed programs portraying stepmothers, F (1, 262) = 39.29, p = .048 (Divorced M= 3.30 vs Married M= 3.12).  No differences were found involving shows with biological fathers or mothers nor for step fathers.

Correlational Trends between Viewing Experience and Mirror Scores: Correlational analyses were also conducted between the four viewing experience variables and the two mirror scores

 While all 8 possible interactions were significant, it is not clear what trends the relationships suggest (See Figure 6).

DISCUSSION

 In looking at gender differences and total viewing experience with of the 20 television shows it was found that there was no significant difference when analyzing shows containing biological mothers.

o This difference may have resulted because in most families, even those who are divorced contain a biological mother. Often in divorced households the custody of the child or children is rewarded to the mother, thus making it equally likely that both males and females would watch shows reflecting a biological mother, something that they are used to having in their own household.

 In looking at gender differences and total mirror of family structure, with the shows divided into containing married families or containing non-married families it was found that there was no significant difference when analyzing shows containing married families.

o This difference may have resulted because based on the demographic data most of the participants were from families where their biological parents are still married. The lack of a difference could have been caused by this dominating family structure because most likely participants watched all types of shows, but the shows containing married families may have stuck out more regardless of the participant’s gender.

 There was no significance found for any of the possibilities between the variables of whether or not the participant’s parents are currently divorced and structural mirror of shows containing married or non-married families.

o This finding reveals that participants coming from both divorced and non-divorced marital statuses did not rank the show’s structural mirror significantly different. This difference could have come from the participant’s feeling fatigue by the length of the survey and simply choosing the “does not apply” option which was later eliminated from the data analysis.

o Another possible reason behind this result is that participant’s simply did not understand the question nor had little knowledge of the show’s family structure, resulting in a haphazard responding.

 A significant finding did emerge such that those participants from divorced homes were more likely to have watched shows with step mothers (although not stepfathers). This finding is consistent with study hypotheses.

Future Research

 Reorganize the survey so that participant’s selecting little knowledge of the show are removed answering the follow-up mirror questions. By simply looking at the participants with a vast knowledge of the show results may be produced that show differences not found within this research.

 Use a larger sample size by branching the study out to other Universities in difference geographical locations to see if there is any difference in knowledge based on location.

 Including non-college samples of similar ages which may increase the percentage of divorced families and diversify the programs views by participants. REFERENCES Cantor, M. G. (1991). The American Family on Television: From Molly Goldberg to Bill Cosby. Journal of Comparative Family Studies, 22(2), 205-216.

Douglas, W. and Olson, B. M. (1995). Beyond family structure: The family in domestic comedy. Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, 39(2), 236- 261.

Rapping, E. (1992). A Family Affair. Progressive Journal, 56(4), 36-39.

Skill, T. and Robinson, J. D. (1994). Four decades in families on television: A demographic profile, 1950-1989. Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, 38(4), 449-464. www.imdb.com Table 1: Family Structure of Television Shows Biological Parent Step Parent Sibling(s) Mother Father Mother Father The Cosby Show ◊ ◊ ◊ Freak and Geeks ◊ ◊ ◊ The Simpsons ◊ ◊ ◊ Saved by the Bell ◊ ◊ Roseanne ◊ ◊ ◊ Sabrina, the Teenage ◊ Witch* Moesha ◊ ◊ ◊ The Parkers ◊ My So-Called Life ◊ ◊ ◊ Malcolm in the Middle ◊ ◊ ◊ Boy Meets World ◊ ◊ ◊ Full House ◊ ◊ That 70’s Show ◊ ◊ ◊ 7th Heaven ◊ ◊ ◊ Married with Children ◊ ◊ ◊ Home Improvement ◊ ◊ ◊ Family Matters ◊ ◊ ◊ Step by Step ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ The Hugley’s ◊ ◊ ◊ Fresh Prince of Bel-Air** ◊ *this show commonly portrayed a teenage girl living with her two Aunts, however in certain episodes the main character’s father did make an appearance **this show commonly portrayed a teenage boy living with his Aunt, Uncle and their children, however in certain episodes the main character’s mother did make an appearance.