ABSTRACT
This
study investigated the influence of communication on attitude towards
mother-in-law among female married adults in Lagos Metropolis.
In
carrying out the study, four null hypotheses were postulated to provide
direction. The study consisted of one hundred randomly selected samples. The
instrument used for data collection was a self-designed questionnaire by the
researcher of a 4 point Likert format. Both one-way Analysis of Variance
(ANOVA) and Independent t-test Statistical Techniques were used for data
analysis. The results of the analysis showed that:
1. Communication
style does not have a significant influence on the attitude of daughter-in-law
towards their mother-in-law.
2. Cultural
background does not have a significant influence on the attitude of
daughter-in-law towards their mother-in-law.
3. Educational
background does not have a significant influence on the attitude of
daughter-in-law towards their mother-in-law.
4. Ethnic
background has a significant influence on the attitude of daughter-in-law
towards their mother-in-law.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAGE
TITLE PAGE i
CERTIFICATION ii
DEDICATION iii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT iv
ABSTRACT v
CHAPTER ONE- INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background
of the Study
1.2 Theoretical
Background
1.3 Statement
of Problem
1.4 Purpose
of the Study
1.5 Research
Questions
1.6 Research
Hypotheses
1.7 Significance
of the Study
1.8 Scope
and Limitations of the Study
1.9 Definition
of Terms
CHAPTER TWO-
LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Effective
Communication
2.3 Ineffective
Communication
2.4 Effect of
Communication Style on Attitude
2.5 Mother-In-Law
and Daughter-In-Law
2.6 Family,
Education and Cultural Background and Effect on Communication
CHAPTER THREE- RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Research
Design
3.3 Population of
the Study
3.4 Sampling
Procedure
3.5 The sample
3.6 Instrumentation
3.7 Validity and
Reliability of the Instrument
3.8 Administration
of Instrument
3.9 Data Analysis
CHAPTER FOUR- DATA ANALYSIS, INTERPRETATION AND
SUMMARY OF FINDINGS
4.1 Introduction
4.2 Hypotheses
Testing and Interpretation of Results
4.3 Summary of Findings
CHAPTER FIVE- DISCUSSION OF FINDINGS, SUMMARY,
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
5.1 Introduction
5.2 Discussion of
Findings
5.3 Summary of the
study
5.4 Conclusion
5.5 Counselling
Implications
5.6 Recommendation
5.7 Suggestion for
further research
REFERENCES
APPENDIX
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY
Marriage is a choice. That
may not be a definition of marriage, but that is nevertheless a fact of
marriage (Warren, 1990). “You don’t marry a person, you marry a family”. So
goes the conventional folk wisdom neatly summing up a fact of life. The
institutions of marriage and family are inevitably intertwined. When two people
choose to get married, they are also choosing the integration of two families
(Lau, 2005). Sociologically, that is what a marriage is about: the integration
of twp families. After marriage, her family and his family will likely come to
be considered jointly as “our folks”. That is the intended meaning of marriage.
In practical terms, a brother-in-law is treated as a brother, a sister-in-law
is treated as a sister, and a mother-in-law is treated as one’s own mother
(Byng-Hall, 1980).
The US Bureau of the Census (1986:116) defines
the term family as “a group of two persons or more (one of whom is the
householder) related by birth, marriage, or adoption, and residing together.
Most of us live out a large share of our lives in some form of family or
another. We can easily see that family cannot be ignored if we want to
understand the societal patterns and processes all around us. This is because
the social relationships called family is such an important part of the
society. In fact no society has existed without some sort of social
arrangements that may be labelled kinship or family.
Family
relationships are never fixed; they change as the self and the significance of
other family members grow older, and as the changing society influences their
respective lives (Riley, 1983). Family experts report that in reality the most
difficult relationship is the one between the mother-in-law and her
daughter-in-law. Conflicts between wives and their mothers-in-law do not just
happen. They need an arena, just as germs and viruses need an environment to
breed (Lau, 2005). There must first be a common area in which both the wife and
her mother-in-law are in constant contact. If the wife and her mother-in-law do
not meet each other at all and each of them just lives her own life, there
would, in theory, be no problem at all between them, because there is no
contact. No contact, no conflict. It’s as simple as that. It is like saying if
there were no marriages, there would be no divorces (Philips, 1995).
When you play
badminton or tennis, there is hardly any chance of you crashing into your
opponent unless you are playing like a chimpanzee. This is because each of you
has your own court. When you play a game like squash, however, you have to be
very careful not to crash into your opponent, or smash his head with your
racquet (Lau, 2005). The interaction between the wife and her mother-in-law is
like the game of squash, where there are lots of opportunities for both players
to be in contact with and crash into each other (Silverstein, 1992).
Interpersonal
communication is an integral part of human experience. Moreover, our
interpersonal skills are highly relevant to adjustment, because they can be
critical to our happiness and success in life. There is a need to be aware that
communication can be effective or ineffective depending on what transpires
between the speaker and the hearer and care should be taken not be an
ineffective communication (Byng-Hall, 1980).
Communication
can be defined as the process of sending and receiving messages that have
meaning. Berlo (1960) has divided the interpersonal communication process into
four basic components: the source of the message, the message itself, the
channel in which the message is sent and the receiver of the message.
The source is
the person who initiates, or sends the message. The message is the information
or meaning that is transmitted from one person to another. The channel refers
to the medium through which the message reaches the receiver and the receiver
is the person to whom the message is targeted.
Communication
is more effective and less problematic when people have similar frames of
reference (Clark, 1985). Communication with others- friends, lovers, parents,
spouses, children, employers, in-laws- is such an essential and common place
aspect of our lives that it’s hard to overstate the importance of being able to
communicate effectively. Moreover, many of life’s satisfactions and
frustrations and heartaches as well hinge on our ability to communicate effectively
with others. For examples, research has shown that married couples who perceive
themselves as effective communicators are more likely to be happily, rather
than unhappily married (Yelsma, 1984). Conversely, poor communication is
reported to be the most common problem among couples who seek marriage counselling
(Beck & Jones, 1973).
Communication
is effective when the message we intend to convey is the message that is
actually received. Therefore, it entails both the accurate transmission of a
message and the accurate reception of a message (Hahn, 2000).
A
communication barrier is anything in the communication process that inhibits or
blocks the accurate transmission and reception of messages. Barriers to
effective communication can reside in the source, the receiver or sometimes in
both. Common barriers to effective communication include defensiveness,
carelessness, self-preoccupation, collusion and instigation of unnecessary
conflict.
The most basic
barrier to effective communication is defensiveness-an excessive concern with
protecting oneself from being hurt. We are prone to react defensively when we
feel threatened (Gibb, 1961). When a person consistently instigates unnecessary
conflict with others, this contentiousness sets up barriers to effective
communication. Such behaviours come in a variety of forms (Nye, 1973). Some
people tend to deliberately annoy and provoke others to get a “rise” out of
them.
When
intergenerational conflicts occur, it typically involves the wife and her
mother-in-law. In fact, in-law trouble has been characterized as a “female
problem”, perhaps because women have traditionally shouldered the
responsibility for maintaining kinship ties (Marotz-Baden & Cowan, 1987).
Fischer (1983) found that wives tend to turn to their own mothers for help
after giving birth. Yet they may regard their mother-in-law’s concern over her
new grandchild as “interference”.
The
mother-in-law/daughter-in-law impasse is a tragedy, dividing women who have
much in common, and who could benefit from one another’s friendship. It causes
great unhappiness to mother-in-law, who feels her overtures of friendship are
rebuffed, and who fear their connection with their son and grandchildren may be
threatened by the daughter’s-in-law hostility. It causes distress to the
daughter-in-law, who feels judged and pressured, particularly on matters
involving her role as a woman in the family (Apter, 1991).
Simmel (1955) made another important point by
stressing that both conflict and cooperation are ways human beings relate to
each other. When there is conflict between the wife and the mother-in-law, this
should not create a rift if there is effective communication between the two.
If information is shared between the two women at all times as necessary, there
will be an understanding of self which will create a positive attitude by the
wife towards the mother-in-law.
Communication
is the key to any friendship especially with the one woman in the world who
loves your husband as much as you do. After investing 18 years or more of her
life in this man, she’s unprepared for him to “disappear” into the world you
two create. Beginning the habit of communication with your mother-in-law can be
as easy as responding to her efforts hence the study.
1.2 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
Social psychologists like
Kurt Lewin (1947) define a close relationship as a relatively long-lasting
relationship in which two people interact frequently and engage in a variety of
mutual activities and in which the impact of their interactions is strong.
There are many different types of close relationships. Closeness may occur in
friendships, work relationships and family relationships.
Social
exchange theory postulates that interpersonal relationships are governed by
perceptions of the rewards and costs exchanged in interactions. According to
this theory, interactions between acquaintances, friends, lovers and in-laws
are likely to continue as long as the participants feel that the benefits they
derive from the relationship are reasonable in comparison to the costs (Kelley
& Thibaut, 1978).
Scholars have
conceptualized social change in multiple ways. Social science scholars of
communication focus on persuasion, including how beliefs, attitudes, and/or
behaviours in a society are created, modified, or reinforced (O’Keefe, 1990).
To bring change, persuasion scholars have grappled with filling what is called
the KAP gap- that is, the gap between an individual’s knowledge, attitudes, and
practices (Rogers, Vaughan, Swalehe, Rao, Svenkerud, & Sood 1999).
Reciprocity involves
liking those who show that they like us. In general, it does appear that liking
breeds liking and loving (Byrne & Murnen, 1988). Studies suggest that we
like people more when they give us positive evaluations that match our
self-concepts as opposed to positive evaluations that contradict our
self-concepts (Berscheid, 1985; Shrauger, 1976).
To George
Simmel (1950), reciprocity was the stuff of everyday life. He observed how
people give to each other, receive from each other and take from each other. One
person acts, the other reacts, and the actions and attitudes of each. Levine et
all 1976, says “all human interactions should be viewed as kinds of exchange”.
He thus laid the ground work for the sociological approach that has come to be
known as exchange theory (Simmel, 1950).
Attribution
theory tries to explain human behaviour. Heider
(1958) was the first to
propose a psychological theory of
attribution, but Weiner and
colleagues (Jones et al, 1972;
Weiner, 1986) developed a
theoretical framework that has become a major
research paradigm of social psychology. Heider (1958) discussed what he
called ‘naive’ or ‘commonsense’ psychology. In his view, people were like
amateur scientists, trying to understand other people’s behaviour by piecing
together information until they arrived at a reasonable explanation or cause.
Attribution
theory is concerned with how individuals interpret events and how this relates
to their thinking and behaviour. Attribution theory assumes that people try to
determine why people do what they do. A person seeking to understand why
another person did something may attribute one or more causes to that
behaviour.
According to
Heider (1958) a person can make two attributions:
1. Internal attribution: the
inference that a person is behaving in a certain way because of something about
the person, such as attitude, character or personality.
2. External attribution: the
inference that a person is behaving a certain way because of something about
the situation he or she is in.
Our
attributions are also significantly driven by our emotional and motivational
drives. Blaming other people and avoiding personal recrimination are very real
self-serving attributions. We will also make attributions to defend what we
perceive as attacks.
Attribution theory can be
applied to the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law relationship. The
daughter-in-law who already has a stereotyped idea of dealings between
mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law will be biased in her interaction with her
mother-in-law. Any occasion to attribute behaviour to the stereotype will be an
opportunity to portray the mother-in-law in a bad light. The mother-in-law is
not free from such set ideas about her daughter-in-law. For instance,
mothers-in-law believe the wives want to displace them totally out of their
son’s life as soon as they are married. If the wife should exhibit any
behaviour which threatens the mother-in-law, this will be seen as an affront
and attributed to the typical behaviour of wives and no deeper reflection would
be entertained to see if there is an unseen reason for that behaviour.
Attitude is a
hypothetical construct that represents an individual’s like or dislike for an
item (Jung, 1966). Attitudes are positive, negative or neutral views of an
‘attitude object’, that is, a person, behaviour or event. People can also be
‘ambivalent’ towards a target, meaning that they simultaneously possess a
positive and a negative bias towards the attitude in question.
Attitudes come
from judgements. Attitudes develop on the ABC model (affect, behavioural change
and cognition). The affective response is a physiological response that
expresses an individual’s preference for an entity. The behavioural intention
is a verbal indication of the intention of an individual. The cognitive
response is a cognitive evaluation of the entity to form an attitude. Most
attitudes in individuals are a result of observational learning from their
environment. The link between attitude and behaviour exists but depends on
human behaviour, some of which is irrational. For example, a person who is in
favour of blood transfusion may not donate blood. This makes sense if the
person does not like the sight of blood, which explains this irrationality.
Unlike
personality, attitudes are expected to change as a function of experience.
Tesser (1993) has argued that hereditary variables may affect attitudes-but
believes that they may do so indirectly. For example, if one inherits the
disposition to become an extrovert, this may affect one’s attitude to certain
styles of music. There are numerous theories of attitude formation and attitude
change.
Consistency
theory implies that we must be consistent in our beliefs and values. People
expect consistency; we have a strong preference for consistency in our lives. We
want things to work the same way every time they happen. Thus, we have ‘mental
worlds’ of our expectancies about the world, the people in them, and our
relationships with the world and other people. The glue that holds all these
mental relationships together is consistency. Consistency becomes like a form
of human gravity. It helps us to understand the world and our place in it.
The most famous example of
Consistency Theory is Dissonance Theory associated with Leon Festinger.
Dissonance is as a result of inconsistencies. According to Festinger (1957), as
much as we need consistency, there are many occasions where things occur in
surprising and unexpected ways. There is an inconsistency between what we
expected and what we got. Dissonance is simply a technical term for the
cognitive, emotional, physiological and behavioural state that arises when
things do not go the way we expected them to.
Dissonance is
an unpleasant experience which we want to get rid of when we have it. We want
to get back to the state of consistency, back to where things make sense.
We can get rid
or reduce dissonance by denying it and pretending like it didn’t happen and
swamping the dissonance and acknowledging that things didn’t work out like we
expected at this time, but remembering all those other times when it did. The
goal here is to overload all that bad dissonance with lots of good memories and
thoughts. Also we can change our expectancy and here we try to alter in some
real way something that really did happen and lastly we can change our
evaluation of the event. Instead of responding with dissonant thoughts, we
actually change our evaluation and find the best possible outcome.
Dissonance theory is
applicable to mother-in-law and daughter-in-law relationship. There are certain
expectations of the wife by the mother-in-law. Such attitude as submissiveness,
respect, obedience and dedication especially when she is on a visit to the
family. The daughter-in-law also has a certain expectations of the
mother-in-law. Some of these are being a role model to her, a support within
the husband’s family, being there for the grandchildren etc. When these
expectations are not being fulfilled by both women, there is a state of
dissonance. They would have to deal with these situations by denying that
anything is amiss, swamping the dissonance with good memories and thoughts of
their mother and daughter, changing their expectancy and sometimes changing the
evaluation of events between them to see a brighter side of it.
FACTORS THAT AFFECT ATTITUDE CHANGE
Attitudes can be changed
through persuasion. In Hovland’s (1960) view, we should understand attitude
change as a “response to communication”. He and his colleagues did experimental
research into the factors that can affect the persuasiveness of a message and
enumerated the following:
1. Target characteristics are
characteristics that refer to the person who receives and processes a message.
The first is intelligence trait and the result is that more intelligent people
are less easily persuaded by one-sided messages. Another variable is self
esteem and there is some evidence that the relationship between self-esteem and
there is some evidence that the relationship between self-esteem and
persuasibility is actually curvilinear, with people of moderate self-esteem
being more easily persuaded than both those of high and low self-esteem levels
(Rhodes & Woods, 1992).
2. Source characteristics-
the major source characteristics are expertise, trustworthiness and
interpersonal attraction/attractiveness. The credibility of a perceived message
has been found to be a key variable here (Hovland & Weiss, 1951); if one
reads a report on health and believes it comes from a professional medical
journal, one may be more easily persuaded than if one believes it is from a popular
newspaper.
3. Message characteristics-
here the nature of the message plays a role in persuasion. Sometimes presenting
both sides of a story is useful to help change attitudes.
4. Cognitive routes- A
message can appeal to an individual’s cognitive evaluation to help change an
attitude. In the central route to persuasion the individual is presented with
the data and motivated to evaluate the data and arrive at an attitude changing
conclusion. In the peripheral route to attitude change, the individual is
encouraged to not look at the content but at the source. This is commonly seen
in modern advertisements that feature celebrity/celebrities. In some cases,
physician/doctors and experts are used. In other cases film stars are used for
their attractiveness.
Attitudes are
defined as a mental predisposition to act that is expressed by evaluating a
particular entity with some degree of favour or disfavour. Individuals
generally have attitudes that focus on objects, people or institutions.
Attitudes are also attached to mental categories. Mental orientations towards
concepts are generally referred to as values. Attitudes comprise four
components:
a. Cognitions are our beliefs, theories, expectations, cause and effect
beliefs and perceptions relative to the focal object.
b. Affective component refers to our feeling with respect to the focal
object such as fear, liking or anger.
c.
Behavioural Intentions are our goals,
aspirations and our expected responses to the attitude object.
d. Evaluations are often considered the central component of
attitudes. Evaluations consist of the imputation of some degree of goodness or
badness to an attitude object. When we speak positive or negative towards an
object, we are referring to the evaluative component. Evaluations are function
of cognitive, affective and behavioural intentions of an object. It is most
often the evaluation that is stored in memory, often without the corresponding
cognitions and affect that were responsible for its formation (Hovland &
Weiss, 1951).
Persuasive Communication and Attitude Change
There are several
ingredients for persuasive communication with regards to attitude change.
First, the source must be credible. Second, it is implied that a message should
be repetitive to be effective. Known as the sleeper effect, researchers have
found that a persuasive message may have a greater delay impact than initial
effect on receiver attitudes (Rajecki, 1999). A persuasive message aimed at
attitude change must also be different than the receiver’s opinion. This is a
straight forward concept-an attitude cannot be changed if it mimics the message
attitude.
1.3 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
The modern couple sees
marriage solely as an integration of two individuals-just the husband and the
wife. That seems to be the modern perception of a marriage. When the modern
couple gets married, they often forget that it is not just a relationship
between the two of them that has begun, but the relationship between the
husband’s family, no matter how large, and the wife’s family, no matter how
large. Problems somehow arise from this modern but much distorted perception of
a marriage, because based on it; in-laws do not play important roles. Thus,
brothers-in-law are not treated as brothers, sisters-in-law are not treated as
sisters and mother-in-law is not treated as mother. When this happens, the
relationship has begun on a wrong footing (Duval, 1954).
This is why in
some societies, marital partners are chosen based on parental arrangements and
there is a restriction on the range of acceptable partners along religious and
class lines (Bumiller, 1989)
The issue of
mother-in-law has often times generated serious conflict especially among
female married adults. Most married women tend to believe that their
mother-in-law intrude into their family by ‘babying’ the son or presenting
herself as weak and therefore be ‘mothered’ by the son (Apter, 1990).
Also some mothers-in-law
are perceived to be overbearing, getting involved with the childcare of their
grandchildren and housework in their son’s home. Some wanted to be in charge
and expected to be treated as the head of the family even in their son’s home.
The wife is treated not as a daughter but as an outsider whilst the son and all
he represents is given a preference over and above what the wife might desire.
A question to
be raised is why daughters-in-law are so sensitive to what they perceive as
lapses in a mother’s-in-law recognition of them. The answer may lie in the high
demands they put on the response of a mother figure. Indeed, the touchiness or
sensitivity often displayed by daughters-in-law to a mother’s-in-law behaviour
is close to that of an adolescent’s to her mother (Apter, 1990). Many tensions,
too, take place in the broader context of the work/family dilemma that is
etched into so many of these women’s lives. They want to resist certain roles,
but to protect others. So both a mother-in-law deference within the home
(through offers to help) and her presumption of control within the home
(playing hostess at a family meal, commenting on and controlling young
children’s behaviour) are resented. However, a woman naturally have vested
interests in the well-being of her son and grandchildren; and when the
daughter-in-law perceives her remarks and behaviour within the home as attempt
to manipulate the daughter-in-law into her ‘proper place’, the daughter-in-law
perceptions may be accurate.
1.4 PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
The primary purpose of
this study is to investigate the attitudes of mother-in-laws towards
daughter-in-laws as a determinant factor in marital stability in some selected
families in Lagos State. But specifically, the study will among other things
seek to:
i.
Determine the role of effective communication on the attitude
of mother-in-laws towards their daughter-in-laws,
ii.
Discuss the consequences of ineffective communication between
mother-in-laws and daughter-in-laws in marital stability,
iii.
To recommend ways to improve marital stability.
1.5 RESEARCH QUESTIONS
In order to
provide direction for this study, the following questions are asked:
i.
To what extent does
communication style influence the attitude of daughter-in-laws towards their
mother-in-laws?
ii.
Is there any difference
in attitude and communication of daughter-in-laws from different cultural
background towards their mother-in-laws?
iii. Do
married women with different educational background differ in their
communication and attitude towards their mother-in-laws?
iv. Is
there any difference in the attitude of daughter-in-laws towards their
mother-in-laws due to ethnic background?
1.6 RESEARCH HYPOTHESES
From the research
questions, the following hypotheses are formulated to guide the study.
1. There
is no significant influence of communication styles on attitude of
daughter-in-laws towards their mother-in-laws.
2. The
communication pattern of married women from different cultural background does
not significantly influence their attitude towards their mother-in-laws.
3. There
is no significant difference in the communication and attitude of married women
with different educational background towards their mother-in-laws.
4. There
is no significant difference in the attitude towards daughter-in-laws due to
ethnic background from mother-in-laws.
1.7 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
This study is
significant because many people will find it useful. Such as:
Married women who
are having problems with their mother-in-laws will benefit from this study as
it will expose them to other peoples experiences and give them insight into
solving their own problems.
Married men who
have to continually mediate between their mother and wife will benefit from
this study as it will help to find a way round the problems.
Mother-in-laws who
have been having a continual conflict with their daughter-in-laws will be able
to use this study to resolve their differences.
Marriage
counsellors, psychologists and clergymen will also find this work beneficial in
their respective fields since they provide both pre-marital and post-marital
counselling to couples to be and couples.
The
society at large will also benefit from this study in the sense that their level
of understanding of the conflict that could arise between mother-in-law and
daughter-in-law is raised and the resolution is provided.
It will further be
useful for future researchers in related discipline.
1.8 SCOPE AND LIMITATIONS
OF THE STUDY
This
study will be carried out among married women in Lagos State. It will study the
attitude of mother-in-laws towards daughter-in-laws as a determinant factor in
marital stability. The limitation of the study is that it will not include
single ladies and men in Lagos State.
1.9 DEFINITION OF TERMS
The
following terms are defined as used in the study:
Attitude: it
is an opinion or general feeling about something. It is a physical posture,
either conscious or unconscious especially when interacting with others. It
could also be referred to as an arrogant or assertive manner assumed as a
challenge or for effect.
Mother-in-law: she
is the mother of one’s spouse.
Click “DOWNLOAD NOW” below to get the complete Projects
FOR QUICK HELP CHAT WITH US NOW!
+(234) 0814 780 1594
Login To Comment