Practice Article Summary

The article titled “Emerging Adults’ Use of Relational Maintenance Behaviors with Their Parents,” conducted by Scott A. Myers and Natica P. Glover raised the question, “To what extent do emerging adults report using relational maintenance behaviors with their parents?” (p.258) Although before going through with their experiment, they predicted that among emerging adults, the use of relational maintenance behaviors would be related directly with perceived commitment, trust, and control mutuality with their parents (p.259). Myers and Glover found it interesting that individuals emerge into adults between the ages of 18 to 25 years, and at that time the parent-child relationship starts to fade and grow stronger in certain ways. “Perhaps the most intimate and enduring relationship in which an individual engages is the parent-child relationship…identifying the extent to which emerging adults attempts to maintain their relationships with their parents is warranted” (p.257). Their study involved 273 undergraduate students, 147 men and 126 women, registered in an introductory course at a large mid-Atlantic university (p.259). Their ages were from 18 to 23 years and the participants reported on one parent aging from 38 to 60 years (p.259). In conducting their research, students were told to identify one parent (by initials) and complete four instruments (Measure of Relational Maintenance Behaviors, Measure of Commitment, Dyadic Trust, and Measure of Control Mutuality) in reference to the recognized parent (p.259). All student responses were answered using a seven-point Likert scale ranging from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree” (p.259). This is a quantitative study, simply because the study was done using statistical analysis to test their philosophy, comparing their studied instruments to each other (p.260, 261). The based their study from which family members maintain their relationships, through the use of relational maintenance behaviors, which are the