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. 2016 Mar;25(3):790-797.
doi: 10.1007/s10826-015-0275-7. Epub 2015 Aug 23.

Developmental Changes in Discrepancies Between Adolescents' and Their Mothers' Views of Family Communication

Andres De Los Reyes  1 , Christine McCauley Ohannessian  2 , Robert D Laird  3
Affiliations

Developmental Changes in Discrepancies Between Adolescents' and Their Mothers' Views of Family Communication

Andres De Los Reyes et al. J Child Fam Stud. 2016 Mar.

Abstract

Prior work indicates that adolescents perceive the family more negatively than do their parents. These discrepant views comprise some of the most robust observations in psychological science, and are observed on survey reports collected in vastly different cultures worldwide. Yet, whether developmental changes occur with these discrepant views remains unclear. In a sample of 141 adolescents and their mothers, we examined 1-year developmental changes in discrepancies between parents' and adolescents' views of family functioning. We focused on discrepant views about a relatively covert domain of family functioning (i.e., internal views of open communication) and a relatively overt domain of such functioning (i.e., views about observable communication problems). We observed significant developmental changes in discrepant views for open communication, but not for communication problems. These findings have important implications for research examining links between discrepant views of family functioning and whether these discrepancies serve as risk or protective factors for adolescent psychosocial functioning.

Keywords: Family functioning; Informant discrepancies; Multiple informants; Operations Triad Model; Polynomial regression.

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