Going Through the Motions? Development of Parent-Adolescent Relationships and Psychosocial Problems during Adolescence

Abstract

Adolescence is a developmental phase that is marked by profound transformations in parent-adolescent relationships and it is a rather sensitive period for the development of psychosocial problems. The purpose of the current dissertation was to understand longitudinal associations between parent-adolescents relationships and adolescents’ psychosocial problems over the course of adolescence. We employed two distinct levels of conceptualization. A macro-level perspective was used to describe rather stable aspects of parent-adolescent relationship quality and adolescents’ psychosocial problems across a longer period of time. A micro-level perspective was used to describe the variability of emotional patterns displayed by parent-adolescent dyads during real-time interactions. Our first aim was to examine on a macro-level bidirectional associations between aggressive behavior and depressive symptoms from early to middle adolescence. Results revealed that aggressive behavior and depressive symptoms were concurrently and longitudinally linked for boys and girls during early adolescence. Over time, early adolescents’ aggressive behavior predicted subsequent higher levels of depressive symptoms. It may be recommended to consider cross-domain associations between aggressive behavior and depressive symptoms for prevention and intervention efforts. Our second aim was to examine on a macro-level bidirectional associations between perceived autonomy support from both parents and friends and adolescents’ depressive symptoms from early to late adolescence. Findings showed that only perceived parental autonomy support was negatively associated with the existence and development of early and middle adolescent boys’ and girls’ depressive symptoms. Longitudinal associations were bidirectional, yet paths from depressive symptoms to parental autonomy support (child effect) tended to be stronger than paths from parental autonomy support to adolescents’ depressive symptoms (parent effect). As such, prevention and treatment programs should focus on the mutual interplay between adolescents’ depressive symptoms and their perceptions of parental autonomy support. Our third aim was to investigate the role of emotional variability in mother-adolescent conflict interactions on a micro-level for mother-adolescent relationship quality and adolescents’ psychosocial problems on a macro-level. Emotional variability reflects the ability of mother-adolescent dyads to flexibly switch among a broad range of emotional states from moment-to-moment during conflict interactions. The current dissertation revealed that higher levels of emotional variability in early adolescence were associated with less aggressive behavior of adolescents, fewer internalizing problems of adolescents and mothers, more perceived autonomy support and adolescent disclosure, and less perceived conflict frequency and maternal control. These associations were irrespective of the types of emotions expressed during the conflict interactions. Altogether, more emotional variability of mother-adolescent dyads during conflict interactions in early adolescence seems to be adaptive for dealing with psychosocial and relational challenges that arise during adolescence. As such, prevention and treatment efforts should focus on teaching mother-adolescent dyads to learn to express, share, modulate and shift out of a wide variety of positive and negative emotions during conflict interactions. In sum, we demonstrated longitudinal associations between parent-adolescent relationships and adolescents’ psychosocial problems during adolescence. In particular, how mother-adolescent dyads handle emotions from moment-to-moment during conflict interactions can provide important information about the development of adolescents’ relationships and well-being.