The Typological Approach in Child and Family Psychology: A Review of Theory, Methods, and Research

The purpose of this paper was to review the theoretical underpinnings, major concepts, and methods of the typological approach. It was argued that the typological approach offers a systematic, empirically rigorous and reliable way to synthesize the nomothetic variable-centered approach with the idiographic case-centered approach. Recent advances in cluster analysis validation make it a promising method for uncovering natural typologies. This paper also reviewed findings from personality and family studies that have revealed 3 prototypical personalities and parenting styles: Adjusted/Authoritative, Overcontrolled/Authoritarian, and Undercontrolled/Permissive. These prototypes are theorized to be synonymous with attractor basins in psychological state space. The connection between family types and personality structure as well as future directions of typological research were also discussed.