三世代同居家族における祖母―母親―子どもの感情的相互作用に関する実験的研究

抄録

This study aimed at examining experimentally wide-range functions of the affection of love in their relationships among kindergarten children, mothers, and grandmothers, using the psychological and physiological measures. We chose as subjects families in which three-generations live together in the same household (including four-generation families ). For a control group, nuclearfamilies were chosen. In our study, special attention was given to find out how living together with grandmothers affect grandchildren's affectional behavior in relation to their mothers.
Four experiments were conducted. In Experiment 1, mothers and grandmothers were shown a video film in color in which their real child (grandchild) and unrelated children appeared one by one, and were asked to self-evaluate their moods by R.Plutchik's Mood Scale when looking at each of the 4 children. Positive ratings were significantly higher when looking at their own children, but in the physiological indices such as heart rates (HRs), blood pressures (BPs) and skin temperatures of the face, there were significant differences between mothers and grandmothers. In Experiment 2, an affective arousal stimulus (animation video film in color for children) was shown to mothers, grandmothers, and children together, and changes of their HRs (whether they showed the same tendencies or not) were checked. Then, families in which all three members registered similar HRs when watching video scenes, and those in which 3 member registered different HRs when watching video scenes were selected, and their affective interrelations were examined with the Rorschach test. In Experiment 3, the affective arousal process of grandmothers, mothers, and children family by family, especially skin temperatures of their faces, when they were shown the affective stimulus (the same as in Experiment 1) was examined. The results showed that all three members registered lower temperatures of the skin at the tip of the nose when they watched a sad scene, than the scene just before.In Experiment 4, mothers' and grandmothers' attitudes toward children, those of mothers in the three generation families and those in nuclear families, were examined. The results showed the following: Grandmothers' attitudes were evaluated according to the 10 types, such as rejective type, strict type, doting type, etc. The results showed that grandmothers' percentages of scores were lower on an average than those of mothers', and that mothers of three-generation families were at a marginally significant level as to the percentages of scores of the 10 attitudes.
All through the four experiments, grandmothers' love toward grandchildren, and childrens' affectional behaviors in three - generation families, and those in nuclear families, were compared and discussed.