Revisiting the Concept of Adaptive Familial Roles and Adult Children of Alcoholics (ACOA): Forty Years Later

Simple item page
dc.contributor.advisorWintre, Maxine A. G.
dc.creatorDhami, Navneet Kaur
dc.date.accessioned2019-03-05T14:48:58Z
dc.date.available2019-03-05T14:48:58Z
dc.date.copyright2018-08-29
dc.date.issued2019-03-05
dc.date.updated2019-03-05T14:48:58Z
dc.degree.disciplinePsychology(Functional Area: Clinical-Developmental)
dc.degree.levelDoctoral
dc.degree.namePhD - Doctor of Philosophy
dc.description.abstractThe term adult children of alcoholics (ACOAs) refers to adults who have grown up in a home with at least one alcoholic parent. ACOAs have often been studied as a homogenous group without examining type of family dysfunction. The present study investigated the relation between demographics, personality, and parenting measures and Wegscheiders (1981) ACOA adaptive familial roles of Hero (responsible overachiever), Mascot (family clown), Scapegoat (rebellious/disruptive behaviours), and Lost Child (withdrawn/isolated). Data were collected from 327 participants (M age = 35.3 years) who self-identified and were grouped as ACOA, Abused, ACOA+Abused, or Control. Generally, the ACOA group was similar to the Control group in terms of family roles and measures of personality and parenting but differed from both the Abused and the ACOA+Abused groups, with the exception of the Lost Child role. Higher scores were found for the positive Hero and Mascot roles in the Control and ACOA groups compared to the Abused and ACOA+Abused groups. Conversely, higher scores for the negative Scapegoat role were found among the Abused and ACOA+Abused groups compared to the Control and ACOA groups. There was a strong influence of personality related to the adoption of family roles whereas the influence of parenting was small in comparison. Individuals from the family type groups were more likely to adopt the Lost Child role compared to the Control group but the influence of family type group was negligible for the other family roles. The significance of this studys findings and clinical relevance are discussed.
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10315/35847
dc.language.isoen
dc.rightsAuthor owns copyright, except where explicitly noted. Please contact the author directly with licensing requests.
dc.subjectPsychology
dc.subject.keywordsACOA
dc.subject.keywordsAdult Children of Alcoholics
dc.subject.keywordsAbuse
dc.subject.keywordsFamily Role
dc.subject.keywordsPersonality
dc.subject.keywordsParenting
dc.subject.keywordsParenting Styles
dc.subject.keywordsReciprocity
dc.subject.keywordsHero
dc.subject.keywordsMascot
dc.subject.keywordsScapegoat
dc.subject.keywordsLost Child
dc.titleRevisiting the Concept of Adaptive Familial Roles and Adult Children of Alcoholics (ACOA): Forty Years Later
dc.typeElectronic Thesis or Dissertation

Files

Original bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
Thumbnail Image
Name:
Dhami_Navneet_K_2018_PhD.pdf
Size:
1.04 MB
Format:
Adobe Portable Document Format
Download
License bundle
Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
No Thumbnail Available
Name:
license.txt
Size:
1.83 KB
Format:
Plain Text
Description:
Download
No Thumbnail Available
Name:
YorkU_ETDlicense.txt
Size:
3.38 KB
Format:
Plain Text
Description:
Download

Collections

Psychology (Functional Area: Clinical-Developmental)

All items in the YorkSpace institutional repository are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved except where explicitly noted.