| This study examined the combined responses of both husband and wives within Navy families on measures of family values and attitudes, life stress events, and deployment-specific attitudes, values, and emotional responses in relation to four stages of the deployment cycle. The survey responses of 785 married male Navy personnel and their spouses, with a total 1,575 children, were selected from the Archer and Cauthorne (1986) investigation for further evaluation and study. Respondents were from the U.S. Navy Atlantic Submarine, Surface, Aviation, and Shore Duty Commands. The survey included items concerning the families' environment and functioning from the Moos and Moos (1981) Family Environment Scale, attitudes towards deployment developed by Archer and Cauthorne (1986), levels of life stress as developed by Sarason, Johnson and Siegel (1978), and demographic variables.;Among the major findings, Navy families reporting high levels of life stress were found, in contrast to low life stress families, to report significantly lower mean scores on measures of family coping and functioning, lower scores related to positive deployment attitudes, and to indicate greater concerns regarding their children's coping ability. Also, Navy couples reporting that their children were coping well were characterized by lower mean life stress and family conflict scores, and higher socioeconomic levels, family expressiveness scores, and family cohesiveness scores, than families reporting greater concerns regarding their children's coping ability.;Additional findings indicated that Navy couples in the shore duty group reported significantly lower levels of mean life stress than those in the remaining groups. Also, couples assigned to ship, but not deployed had significantly lower stress levels than reunion period sailors and spouses. Further findings showed that those Navy personnel who had made the Navy a career, i.e., had been in the Navy more than 14 years, reported more positive deployment attitudes, higher mean control scores, better children coping, lower mean cohesiveness, and higher mean family coping levels than sailors who had been in the Navy for less than six years. Implications of the results were discussed in addition to suggestions for further research. |
