Family Typologies

Family typologies in interpersonal communication scholarship group families that exhibit unique and distinguishing characteristics of relationship and communication behaviors into different types. Ideally, such categorizations, while often based on some external characteristic such as family membership, reveal important differences in the communication behaviors and relationships of different family and thereby clarify general principles that underlie communication and relationship processes. This entry reviews two types of typologies—typologies based on structure and typologies based on processes—with particular attention paid to the basic communication and interpersonal dynamics that these typologies help to clarify.