Relationships between patterns of family interaction and child development are investigated in this study on how family environment and quality of interaction relate to an adolescent's psychological and social functioning. A sample of 99 white middle-class families participated in a 2-hour structured interview in their homes. The interview consisted mainly of revealed difference exercises for parents and for the entire family, and a projective task in which family members described their family system as to: (1) patterns of communication, (2) approach to conflict, (3) degree of individuation, and (4) affective climate. Each family contained an adolescent teenage girl who had previously completed Loevinger's measure of ego development, the California Personality Inventory, and a sociometric questionnaire. This paper presents some preliminary results of the study of 30 families comparing families of the 15 girls who scored highest on the psychological and sociometric measures with families of the 15 girls who scored lowest. Results show that adolescents in the high-scoring group come from families more likely to describe themselves as flexible and trusting in their interpersonal lifestyle. High-scoring adolescents' perceptions of their families tend to be closer to those of their parents than those of low scorers. Differences in the interaction patterns between parents of the two groups suggest that parents of the high scorers may have more functional approaches to problem-solving situations than do parents of low scorers. (Author/BF)