Parental Monitoring, Anger, and Externalizing Behaviors in Adolescence: an Experience Sampling Study in Italy and Colombia

• In Event: Parenting, Peer Victimization, and Youth Emotional Experience Predicting Adolescent Adjustment: Effects of Culture and Ethnicity

Abstract

Previous studies support the detrimental role of lack of parental monitoring on adolescents’ externalizing behaviors (e.g., Dishion & McMahon, 1998) and a connection between adolescents’ dysregulated expression of anger and externalizing problems (e.g., Kim & Deater-Deckard, 2011). However, parental monitoring and youth anger have been rarely examined together in predicting adolescent adjustment. This study examined the role of the day-to-day variability (instability) of both parental monitoring and emotional experience on adolescent externalizing problems. The overall goal was to examine the relations between mean levels and instability of both parental monitoring and youth daily anger and externalizing behaviors. The external validity was promoted by the involvement of two community samples (part of an ongoing longitudinal study called Parenting Across Cultures; e.g., Lansford et al., 2018) of adolescents from Colombia and Italy.For 7 days, 103 Italians and 67 Colombians (overall: 51% females, Mage = 16.77, SD = .78) were prompted via mobile-phones to respond to questions about their perception of parental monitoring (e.g., in this moment do your parents know where you are?) and their anger. Instability scores were examined with the root mean square of successive differences (Ebner-Priemer & Trull, 2012). Externalizing behaviors were examined with Youth Self-Reports (Achenbach, 1991). All variables presented adequate internal reliability (above .70). A path analysis was implemented with Mplus 7.
Lack of parental monitoring and high instability in parental monitoring were positively related to adolescent anger. In turn, adolescent anger and its high instability were related to externalizing behaviors. Results held controlling for country, child gender, and the stability of the outcome. These results advance knowledge about the interaction between parental monitoring and adolescent anger in relation to adolescents’ externalizing problems.

Authors

• Carolina Lunetti, Sapienza University of Rome
  Presenting Author

• Laura Di Giunta, Sapienza University of Rome
  Non-Presenting Author

• Irene Fiasconaro, Sapienza University of Rome
  Non-Presenting Author

• Liliana Uribe Tirado, Universidad de San Buenaventura
  Non-Presenting Author

• Reout Arbel, University of Haifa
  Non-Presenting Author

• Giulia Gliozzo
  Non-Presenting Author

• Emanuele Basili, Sapienza University of Rome
  Non-Presenting Author

• Eriona Thartori, Sapienza University of Rome
  Non-Presenting Author

• Ainzara Favini, Sapienza University of Rome
  Non-Presenting Author

• Concetta Pastorelli, Sapienza University of Rome
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jennifer E. Lansford, Duke University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Nancy Eisenberg, Arizona State University
  Non-Presenting Author