Predicting Mother-Teen Informant Discrepancies in Discussion Motives

• In Event: Poster Session 04
  In Poster Session: PS 04 Topic - Parenting & Parent-Child Relationships

Abstract

There is often a large discrepancy between parent and adolescent perceptions of their interactions (Laird & De Los Reyes, 2013) and these discrepancies can indicate relationship difficulties (De Los Reyes et al. 2019). Parent-adolescent discrepancies have been examined in terms of interaction behaviors themselves (e.g., parental warmth, adolescent disclosure; De Los Reyes & Ohannessian, 2016) but rarely in terms of attributed motives for those behaviors. However, the motivations underlying a behavior help define the meaning and impact of those behaviors for the people involved (Temmen & Crocket, 2020). Attributions of person’s motives for their prosocial behaviors, from both them and those affected by them, mediate the relationship between the behavior and its outcomes (Kim et al., 2018). Indeed, research on attributions in romantic relationships shows that discrepancies in the perceived motive for a behavior and the actual reason for it aligns with worse relationship outcomes (Hagemeyer et al., 2013). Moreover, there is little research on factors that moderate the extent of these attributional discrepancies. Of the extant research, both relational context (e.g., warmth, conflict) and individual perspective taking abilities have been shown to alter the perceived meaning of behaviors or the accuracy of such perceptions (Huelsnitz et al., 2020; Gasiorek, 2015). The purpose of this research was to examine the accuracy of mothers and teens’ attributions about the motives underlying each other’s behavior during guilt discussions and factors that predict such accuracy.
Participants were 123 mothers (Mage = 43.06) and adolescents (Mage = 13.97, ages range from 12-17; 53.66% female, 52.85% White, 28.46% Black) from mid-Florida in the United States. Participants engaged in a discussion task focusing on an issue the mother makes the teen feel guilty about. Following the discussion, each person separately rated their own and their partners’ motives to guilt the other person, teach the other person, and compromise, on 1 (not at all) to 5 (completely) scales. Six fully identified path models (one for each mother- and teen-reported motive) were run in Mplus 8.4 (Muthén & Muthén, 1998-2017). In each model, a person’s attributed motive for their partner’s behavior; their self-reported perspective-taking, relational discord, and support; and interactions between those factors and the attributed motive were used to predict their partner’s self-reported motive (see Table 1 for results). Gender, age, and race were examined as potential covariates but did not have significant effects and were eliminated from final models.
Overall, mothers and teens attributions for one another’s discussion behavior motives were somewhat accurate but differed in accuracy depending on the motive. Significant interactions showed that teen attributions of maternal guilting and compromise motives were more accurate at higher levels of perspective taking and mother attributions of teen guilting were less accurate at higher levels of mother-reported discord (see Figure 1). This shows that both relationship and individual variables need to be accounted for when assessing the accuracy of perceived motivations between parents and teens

Authors

• Jared Martin Welker, University of South Florida
  Presenting Author

• Wendy M Rote, University of South Florida
  Non-Presenting Author