Strategies and Reasons for Nondisclosure in Close Relationships During Adolescence

• In Event: Poster Session 06
  In Poster Session: PS 06 Topic - Social Relationships

Abstract

Nondisclosure, or keeping information from others, is typically studied within the parent-child relationship. We know that keeping secrets becomes more common as adolescents get older (Keijsers et al., 2010), and adolescents tend to keep secrets about personal issues the most (Villalobos Solis et al., 2015). At least with parents, adolescents may keep secrets to assert independence or avoid punishment or disapproval (Smetana, 2010), and nondisclosure seems to have overall negative implications for individual adjustment (e.g. higher levels of delinquency and depression, as well as lower and self-esteem; Engels et al., 2006). However, there is comparatively little research on nondisclosure in the context of other close relationships during adolescence, such as with siblings, friends, or romantic partners.
The present study examines strategies and reasons for nondisclosure in the context of multiple close relationships (parents, siblings, best friends, and romantic partners). Differences in gender and social domain (personal, prudential, moral, conventional, and multifaceted domains; Smetana, 2006) will also be analyzed. Data comes from a longitudinal study of 244 adolescents aged 9 to 16 (M = 12.71, SD = 1.66) from primarily White and middle-class families who completed surveys about their nondisclosure yearly for three years. All data has been collected and is currently being cleaned and organized for analysis.
Descriptive data analysis shows that the most frequently used strategy for nondisclosure seems to be “telling only when asked,” followed by “avoiding or changing the topic” (see Table 1). The least frequently used strategy is “lie or make up a story,” though adolescents tend to lie more about topics in the moral domain than other domains. In contrast, full disclosure is noticeably used less for topics in the moral domain than other domains, though it still seems to be used more than lying overall.
Based on percentages, the top reasons that adolescents give for not disclosing to close others are “it doesn’t harm anyone,” especially for the personal and multifaceted domains (overlapping between personal and another domain), followed by “it’s a private matter” (see Table 2). However, “it doesn’t harm anyone” is noticeably less endorsed for moral domain topics compared to other domains. For keeping information from parents, another reason that adolescents endorse frequently is “they would not approve,” especially for topics in the moral and conventional domains, both of which are considered socially constructive.
In general, adolescent responses are similar for both parents. Percentages for romantic partners may appear to vary widely because only a small subset of participants were in romantic relationships. Planned analyses include calculating proportion scores for each participant of their strategy use and reasons, and multivariate ANOVAs will model how strategies and reasons differ based on relationship type, social domain, and gender, to be completed by the beginning of 2021. Results will provide a greater understanding of patterns of nondisclosure during adolescence, which may in turn have implications for adolescent adjustment and relationship quality.

Authors

• Yue Guo, University of Missouri - Columbia
  Presenting Author

• Nicole Campione-Barr, University of Missouri - Columbia
  Non-Presenting Author

• Sarah Killoren, University of Missouri - Columbia
  Non-Presenting Author