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Scholars who have studied the American family over a long period of time are challenging a number of long-held views about our closest relationships, according to a new book co-edited by ºÙºÙÊÓƵ social psychologist .

In "Continuity and Change in Family Relations," Conger says that only by using detailed long-term studies can researchers understand the complex, continually changing dynamics in a family.

Among the findings:

• Relationships between couples, siblings, and between parents and children all seem to follow similar dynamics. "We think of divorce and separation as happening within a marriage, but it also happens in these other family relationships," Conger says.
• The greater friction between mothers and their teenage children may be due to the fact that mothers are emotionally closer than fathers to their offspring.
• Even two years into the marriage, couples who will divorce after seven or more years likely cannot foretell that they will be unhappy.
• The frequency of intercourse has little relationship to marital satisfaction in marriages of 13 years or more.
• The unequal division of labor over housework has little to do with marital happiness for many; what matters is the wife's attitudes toward housework and her standard for egalitarian marriages.
• The quality of lifelong relationships between siblings influences their individual mental and physical health, social functioning and general well-being.

"It is not just the absence of hostility but also the presence of warmth in these relationships that helps define the quality and, thus, the long-term success or failure of one sibling's relationship with another," write book chapter authors of ºÙºÙÊÓƵ, Chalandra Bryant of Iowa State University and Jennifer Meehan Brennom of Kirkwood Community College.