Family Legacies Research Project
The Family Legacies Research Project is a unique 40-year longitudinal study of families with adolescents in the U.S. and Japan. Wave 1 of the study included 99 families in the U.S. and 59 in Japan. 88 second-generation families were also interviewed. The study measured family systems and family relationships across the generations and their effect on individual health.
Linda completed the project with David C. Bell. Other important contributors include Lena Ericksen, Connie Cornwell, Lisa Salazar, and Yojiro Nakata.
The project started in 1974 at the University of Chicago, funded by a postdoctoral research fellowship to Linda by the National Institute of Mental Health. Small and large research grants from NIMH followed. Over the following 30 years, several small grants and a sabbatical leave allowed for the continued research.
Questionnaires were completed by students in three high schools asking sociometric questions and questions about family structure. Girls from 2-3 child families completed additional questionnaires after school (with parental permission) – including questions about their mental health (California Psychological Inventory; Loevinger’s Ego Development). Home interviews with 99 families followed. Couples and families did a revealed difference exercise in which they discussed differences of opinion, and families did a projective exercise in which they made a "picture" of the family as a group. Marital and family exercises were audiotaped and coded on a global coding scheme.
Twenty years later, Linda was able to locate 85 of the original 99 families. Wave 2 included telephone interviews with the now-adult adolescents and their elder parents. The focus was on the psychological wellbeing of the then adult adolescents and the relationships between the adolescents and their parents. Wave 3 followed. It included 88 now-adult adolescents with their own adolescents in a repeat of the original home interview, as well as 44 interviews with the now-elderly parents. These interviews were videotaped.
The Wave 1 and Wave 2 interviews were also completed in Japan with support from the Japanese NIMH. These interviews were videotaped and then coded on a translation of the global coding scheme.
About thirty research articles and two books came out of this research. The data set has been archived.
