Transactional Theories but Individual Assessment: A Frequent Discrepancy in Family Research

Spiegel's ( 20 ) distinction between studies of relations and studies of transactions are reviewed and applied to the tendency of current research to assess transactional theory using methods that are focused on individual elements. Several of the complexities of transactional research are reviewed with a call for the utilization of methods that are more commensurate with the level of theory under test.