Associations Between Subjective Ratings of Parent and Adolescent Behaviors During Interactions and Adolescent Disclosure

• In Event: 3-222 - Is it a Six or a Nine? Quantifying Parent-Adolescent Perspectives in Dynamic Interpersonal Interactions

Integrative Statement

Research over the past two decades regarding adolescent information management has consistently found that youth are more likely to disclose information to parents in the context of close, trusting, supportive relationships and across a variety of social-cognitive domains (e.g., Stattin & Kerr, 2000; Smetana et al., 2006). However, this information has typically been garnered through adolescent self-report questionnaires about their relationships in general, and not about specific behaviors that parents, or youth, engage in while they are having conversations. Additionally, Campione-Barr and colleagues (2015) have found differences in youth disclosure to parents based on their birth order within the family. Therefore, the present study examines youth and parent perceptions of their own and the other’s behaviors during observed conversations and their associations with youth self-reported domain differentiated disclosure in both parent-older sibling, and parent-younger sibling relationships.

The sample consisted of 123 predominantly White and middle class families (246 parent-child dyads; Mfirst-borns=13.93, SD=.95 years; Msecond-borns=11.47, SD=1.32 years). Parents and each child separately participated in an 8-minute disclosure interaction task in the lab. After each discussion, parents and youth separately completed a subjective ratings questionnaire regarding how they and their partner behaved during the interaction (6 items per target covering listening, supportiveness, positivity, explaining positions, freedom to discuss opinions & involvement in the task). Mean scores were created for: child of self, child of parent, parent of child, and parent of self (all alphas above .80). Adolescent disclosure to parents was assessed using a youth self-report, domain-differentiated disclosure measure (Smetana, et al. 2006) with acceptable reliability across all 5 domains (i.e., personal, prudential, multifaceted, conventional, and moral). Separate multilevel models were conducted for each domain as the dependent variable, with all possible interactions between adolescent gender, birth order and the four subjective ratings examined; non-significant higher order interactions were removed until lower order interactions were significant, or the main effects model was reached (see Table 1).

For the personal domain, a significant Adolescent Sex X Parent Perception of Child interaction was evident. Simple slopes indicated that the more positively parents rated their daughters during the task, the more those girls disclosed personal information to parents (t=3.04, p=.003). For both multifaceted (significantly) and prudential (marginally) issues, the more parents rated their children positively during in the interaction, the more youth disclosed to them, but the more parents rated themselves positively, the less youth disclosed about these issues. Relatedly, the more youth rated themselves positively during the interactions, the more they disclosed about conventional issues, while the more they rated their parents positively, the less they disclosed. Finally, for moral issues, two significant interactions, Birth Order X Parent Perception of Self and Birth Oder X Parent Perception of Child, were evident. Simple slopes indicated that the more parents perceived themselves positively during the interaction, the less younger siblings disclosed (t=-2.70, p=.01), while the more parents perceived younger siblings positively, the more younger siblings disclosed to moral issues parents (t=3.09, p=.003). Important differences across domain, birth order and gender will be further discussed.

Authors

• Nicole Campione-Barr, University of Missouri
  Presenting Author

• Christopher Odudu, University of Missouri
  Non-Presenting Author

• Sonia E. Giron, University of Missouri
  Non-Presenting Author

• Sarah Killoren, University of Missouri
  Non-Presenting Author