Poster #97 - Measurement Invariance of Maternal and Peer Warmth and Hostility Across Adolescence and Young Adulthood

• In Event: Poster Session 09

Abstract

Warmth and hostility have been defined as two fundamental dimensions of interpersonal relationships. However, there has been little research into whether these two dimensions function in the same way across development. In addition, most research on warmth and hostility has focused on parenting relationships, without consideration of other important relationships such as peers. The current study aimed to investigate the measurement invariance of relationship warmth and hostility across a period in which both parent and peer relationships hold significant developmental importance (i.e., adolescence and young adulthood). The current sample included 1,216 justice-involved adolescents who were involved in a 7-year study using an accelerated cohort design. In the current study, data was structured by age, resulting in a sample ranging from 15 to 21 years of age. The developmental measurement invariance across these seven ages was investigated in separate models for maternal warmth, maternal hostility, peer warmth, and peer hostility. Strict measurement invariance was attained for both maternal and peer warmth, indicating that relationship warmth has similar factor structures, loadings, intercepts, and residuals across adolescence and young adulthood. However, maternal and peer hostility did not attain configural invariance across ages, suggesting differences in factor structure. Upon investigation of the factor structure and modification indices, hostility was separated into verbal hostility and physical hostility factors. Verbal hostility then obtained strict measurement invariance for both maternal and peer relationships (with one item regarding bossiness being removed for peer verbal hostility). On the other hand, physical hostility continued to have poor fit in configural invariance models for both relationships, indicating that physical hostility does not have similar factor structure across adolescence and young adulthood. These findings provide significant insight into the measurement of relationship warmth and hostility. Relationship warmth and verbal hostility appear to operate in similar ways across adolescence and young adulthood. Therefore, changes in these constructs can be meaningfully interpreted in longitudinal research. Further, findings suggest that relationship hostility should be separately measured as verbal and physical hostility and the items that best represent physical hostility in relationships seem to change over this developmental period.

Authors

• Erin Vaughan, Louisiana State University
  Presenting Author

• Courtney Goetz

• Paul J. Frick, Louisiana State University

• Toni M. Walker

• Emily L Robertson, Florida International University

• Tina D. Wall Myers

• James Ray, University of Texas at San Antonio

• Laura C. Thornton

• Laurence Steinberg, Temple University

• Elizabeth Cauffman, University of California, Irvine