Parent-adolescent agreement on ratings of social anxiety: Concurrent and longitudinal relations

• In Event: Poster Session 12
  In Poster Session: PS 12 Topic - Parenting & Parent-Child Relationships

Abstract

While informant disagreements were once regarded as measurement error or noise, recent research suggests that patterns of agreement can provide critical information in their own right. Understanding parent-youth reporting discrepancies may be particularly important in adolescence when parents have fewer opportunities to directly observe their children in peer contexts (Achenbach et al., 1987) and adolescents become more adept at masking emotions and internalized information (Grills & Ollendick, 2002). The goals of this study are to examine: (1) patterns of agreement/disagreement in parent and adolescents’ ratings of behavioral inhibition (BI) and social anxiety (SA), and (2) the relations between patterns of agreement/disagreement and concurrent behavior in early adolescence with unfamiliar peers and their longitudinal reports of anxiety at mid-adolescence.
In an ongoing longitudinal study of temperament and social/emotional development, adolescents were evaluated at 12 (N=172, M=13.20, SD=0.66, 55.2% female) and 15 years (N=164, M=15.90, SD=0.51, 56.7% female). At 12, adolescents and parents completed self- and parent-report versions of the Behavioural Inhibition Questionnaire (BIQ; Bishop et al, 2003) and the Social Anxiety Scale for Adolescents (SAS-A; La Greca & Lopez, 1998). At the same age, participants were observed in the lab interacting with two unfamiliar age/gender-matched peers. Of interest was their behavior during the Get to Know You task, the first 5-minutes of the visit where dyads were left alone to get acquainted. Interactions were coded from video to quantify participants’ levels of openness, social ease, and the appropriateness of their behaviour. At 15, adolescents reported on their own SA using the Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale (LSAS; Liebowitz, 1987).
At 12 years, parent and adolescent reports were highly correlated on both the BIQ and SAS (r=.228, to r=.468, all ps < .003), demonstrating good amount of agreement. Despite this rank-order agreement, parents reported lower mean levels of adolescent overall behavioural reactivity (as measured by the BIQ; M=94.48, SD=32.28), compared to adolescents’ self-reports (M=101.98, SD=29.13), t(158)=-.273, p=.007. In contrast, parents did not show a consistent pattern of under-reporting on the SAS-A. Parent-reports of their adolescents’ generalized social distress (SAS-A) were associated with lower levels of observed social ease during the unfamiliar peers interaction, b=-.085, p=.013. Importantly, beyond this effect, higher parent-adolescent agreement on ratings were associated with higher levels of observed social ease, b=.022, p=.032. Longitudinally, parent and adolescent ratings of adolescents’ BI in novel situations (BIQ) at 12 years independently predicted increased self-reported SA at 15 years (b=.258, p=.027 and b=.443, p<.001, respectively). Again, beyond these effects, higher parent-adolescent agreement was associated with lower SA ratings three years later, b=-.017, p=.029.
Parent-adolescent reporting discrepancies have broad implications for adolescents: concurrent and longitudinal; behavioural and emotional. Parent-adolescent agreement on overall, rather than specific, reactions to novelty were protective. These general tendencies may be more stable over time and easier for parents to recognize and offer support around. Discussion will focus on distal/proximal mechanisms that may link informant discrepancies in SA to socioemotional well-being across adolescence.

Authors

• Emma Sophia Green, University of Waterloo
  Presenting Author

• Maureen Bowers, University of Maryland - College Park
  Non-Presenting Author

• Claudia Labahn, University of Waterloo
  Non-Presenting Author

• Nathan A Fox, University of Maryland - College Park
  Non-Presenting Author

• Heather Henderson, University of Waterloo
  Non-Presenting Author