No abstract

Disclosure, or revealing personal information to others, is important for the development and maintenance of close relationships (Jourard, 1971; Rotenberg, 1995). More recently within developmental psychology, however, the focus has been the study of adolescent disclosure to parents as a means of information management regarding their daily activities. This research assumes that a) disclosure between multiple adolescents and parents within the same family are similar, and b) only information transmitted from adolescents to parents is important for adolescent well-being. Thus, this article presents the findings of 2 within-family studies to investigate differences in the amount and social domain (Smetana, 2006; Turiel, 2002) of youth disclosure to mothers versus siblings, and the influence of disclosure to siblings on relationship quality and youth emotional adjustment. Study 1 utilized 101 sibling dyads with youth ranging in age from 11-21 years, but all siblings living together. Study 2 investigated a sample of 58 sibling dyads in which all first-borns were first-year college students and all second-borns were in high school. All participants completed questionnaire measures to assess study variables. Findings revealed that while youth disclosed more to mothers than siblings, this difference disappears by emerging adulthood, particularly depending on the domain of the issue. Additionally, while greater disclosure among siblings was positive for the quality of the relationship, sibling disclosure was differentially associated with emotional adjustment depending on whether youth were the disclosers or being disclosed to, the domain of the issues disclosed, and the gender composition of the dyad.

Little is known about the role of parents in promoting their children's successful transition to adulthood, particularly for college students who may maintain stronger ties to parents than other emerging adults. The present study therefore investigated longitudinal implications of parent-child relationship qualities during emerging adults' first year of college for their feelings about the upcoming transition to adulthood 3 years later, as well as implications of 3 types of parental control (behavioral control, psychological control, helicopter parenting) for these associations. Multilevel models indicated that emerging adults who reported less negativity in their relationships with mothers and fathers felt more like adults 3 years later compared with emerging adults with low-quality relationships, while high levels of psychological control and helicopter parenting had detrimental implications for their vocational identity development and perceived competence regarding their transition to adulthood. However, nuanced interactions between parent-child relationship quality and parental control indicated that behavioral control had positive implications for outcomes if it occurred within the context of high-quality relationships, or when utilized with sons. The present study highlights the complex role that parents may play during college students' transition to adulthood, and future work should continue to examine ways that clinicians can incorporate parents as a potential resource for promoting emerging adults' successful transition to adulthood and the workforce. (PsycINFO Database Record

Family researchers have acknowledged the importance of sibling relationships across the life span, but little is known about how this relationship functions during the transition from adolescence to emerging adulthood. The present study therefore examined how two domains of adolescent sibling conflict (equality and fairness issues and personal domain invasions) are related to sibling relationship quality after firstborns leave home to attend college, from the perspectives of firstborn and secondborn siblings from the same families. Our findings suggest that frequent or intense sibling conflicts during adolescence may be related to more positive and less negative sibling relationships the first year after older siblings leave home, and that conflicts surrounding issues of equality and fairness may facilitate more egalitarian relationships during emerging adulthood for some siblings. It therefore seems that the sibling relationship during the adolescent years may have important implications for its long-term functioning into adulthood.

An important task for emerging adults is the effective maintenance of sibling relationships given their importance for well‐being later in adulthood. However, little is currently known about how siblings maintain communication with one another during this developmental stage when they often live apart for the first time, or about whether different communication patterns have unique relational implications. Using a sample of first‐year college students (n = 250), the present study identified four distinct groups of emerging adults who used information and communication technologies differently in communicating with their siblings. Emerging adults who frequently used synchronous communication methods (as opposed to more passive methods) generally had more positive and self‐disclosive relationships with their siblings about a variety of topics, although there were important gender and birth order differences. Implications for college administrators and mental health professionals are discussed.