title: A review of 50 years of research on naturally occurring family routines and rituals: cause for celebration?
abstract: This article is a qualitative review of 32 publications appearing since J. Bossard and E. Boll's (1950) seminal work on family rituals was conducted. Definitions are offered whereby a distinction is made between family routines as observable practices and family rituals as symbolic representations of collective events. The relative occurrence of family routines, as described in the literature, appears to follow a developmental course and is affected by the cultural environment. Family routines and rituals were found to be related to parenting competence, child adjustment, and marital satisfaction. The studies were limited by inconsistent methods of assessing family routines, reliance on samples of convenience, and a failure to distinguish between direct and indirect effects. Recommendations are made to better integrate theory with empirical efforts to demonstrate the importance of family routines and rituals in contemporary life.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York 13244, USA. bhfiese@psych.syr.edu
authors.forename: Barbara H
authors.initials: BH
authors.lastname: Fiese
authors.forename: Thomas J
authors.initials: TJ
authors.lastname: Tomcho
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Douglas
authors.forename: Kimberly
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Josephs
authors.forename: Scott
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Poltrock
authors.forename: Tim
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Baker
mesh_terms: D002562:Ceremonial Behavior; D005190:Family / Q000523:psychology*; D005195:Family Relations; D006801:Humans