Authors
Background
Parent-adolescent conflict can be intense, but parents and adolescents do not always agree on the intensity of conflict. Conflict intensity tends to change during adolescence and this change is thought to be an indicator of how the parent-adolescent relationship transforms. However, parents and adolescents might differently perceive change in conflict intensity, resulting in informant discrepancies in conflict intensity. Such informant discrepancies may develop across adolescence, as the parent-adolescent relationship is restructured. Also, personality characteristics of parents and adolescents might affect the development of parent-adolescent conflict intensity, as well as the extent to which there are discrepancies in perceptions of conflict intensity. This multi-informant longitudinal study investigated a) the trajectories of parent-adolescent conflict intensity, b) the trajectories of informant discrepancies, and c) the prediction of these trajectories by parental and adolescent personality.
Method
Dutch adolescents (N = 497, 43.1% female, Mage = 13.03 at T1), their mothers, and their fathers reported on parent-adolescent conflict intensity and personality for six years. Latent Growth Curve Modeling was applied to investigate the trajectories of parent-adolescent conflict intensity. Latent Congruence Modeling along with Latent Growth Curve Modeling were applied to investigate informant discrepancies, as well as the trajectories of informant discrepancies. These analyses revealed curvilinear changes in conflict intensity, as well as in the trajectories of informant discrepancies. In addition, Latent Class Growth Analyses were applied to investigate personality profiles of mothers, fathers, and adolescents. These analyses replicated the well-established three-class personality typology consisting of Resilients, Undercontrollers, and Overcontrollers. Finally, the personality types were used as predictors of the trajectories of conflict intensity, and of informant discrepancies.
Results
Conflict intensity was found to increase from early to middle adolescence, and remain stable from middle to late adolescence, according to adolescents’ reports for both mothers and fathers. In contrast, parental perceptions of conflict intensity remained stable from early to middle adolescence, and decreased from middle to late adolescence. Discrepancies also followed a curvilinear pattern, increasing from early to middle adolescence and then remaining stable (mother-adolescent dyads) or increasing at a lower rate (father-adolescent dyads). Most importantly, two cycles of discrepancies emerged. First, the increase in discrepancies from early to middle adolescence reflected that adolescents’ perceived conflict intensity increased, whereas parents’ perceptions remained stable. Second, from middle to late adolescence, father-adolescent discrepancies increased further, reflecting that fathers’ perceptions of conflict decreased.
Resilient adolescents, mothers, and fathers reported lower levels of conflict intensity than Undercontrollers and Overcontrollers, but personality was not associated with the rate of change in conflict intensity. Finally, undercontrolling fathers and overcontrolling adolescents showed higher father-adolescent discrepancies.
Conclusion
This study showed that parents and adolescents differentially perceive conflict intensity. In addition, the increasing trajectory of informant discrepancies calls for further research to investigate whether this may be linked to negative outcomes for adolescents. Finally, in the adolescent -father relationship, the extent of the informant discrepancies depends on adolescent and father personality.
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