Early and middle adolescents' disclosure to parents about activities in different domains

Abstract

Disclosure, disclosure strategies, and justifications for nondisclosure for prudential, peer, multifaceted, and personal acts were assessed using a sorting task with 118 lower‐middle class early and middle adolescents (Ms = 12.77 and 15.68 years). Adolescents were less involved in prudential than other behaviors, although prudential behavior was greater among middle than early adolescents; adolescents disclosed more about prudential and personal than multifaceted and peer behaviors. Nondisclosure was primarily due to concerns about parental disapproval (for prudential acts), claims that acts were personal or not harmful (for personal acts), and their mixture (for peer and multifaceted acts). When concerned about parental disapproval, older adolescents fully disclosed less (and lied somewhat more) than younger adolescents, whereas adolescents primarily avoided discussing the issue when they viewed acts as personal. Full disclosure was associated with better relationships with parents and less depressed mood; lying was associated with more parental behavioral control over personal issues and poorer relationships with fathers.

Exploring Adolescent-parent Relationships in Asian American Immigrant Families: An Ecological Perspective

“…Overall, this transformation in parent-child relationships isviewed as a positive and necessary step as adolescents develop into adulthood (Laursen & Collins, 2009;Youniss & Smollar, 1985;Steinberg, 1990Steinberg, , 2001). Many researchers have seen these changes in adolescence, especially in regards to potential parent-adolescent challenges, as being associated with the issues of autonomy and renegotiation of parental authority in adolescent's lives (McElhaney, Allen, Stephenson, & Hare, 2009;Smetana & Asquith, 1994;Smetana, Villalobos, Tasopoulos-Chan, Gettman, & Campione-Barr, 2009;Steinberg & Silverberg, 1986). In the following section, we discuss how these specific factors are related to changes in parent-child relationships during adolescence.…”

“…Research shows that adolescents' conceptions of parental authority are differentiated according to conceptual domain of their life (i.e., in terms of what adolescents consider their parents have the right to regulate), and are renegotiated during adolescence (Darling, Cumsille, & Martinez, 2008;Smetana & Asquith, 1994;Smetana et al, 2009;Tisak, 1986). Research indicates that adolescents' perception of endorsement of parental authority is important in shaping their interactions with their parents (Smetana & Asquith, 1994;Smetana et al, 2009). For example, adolescents are more responsive to their parents when they perceive them as having the "right" to exercise influence based on social definitions about what's "appropriate" (Smetana & Asquith, 1994).…”

“…Whereas autonomy indicates adolescents' separateness and self-directedness, renegotiation of parental authority between adolescents and their parents explores adolescents' level of embeddedness or relatedness to their parents (Kwak, 2003). Research shows that adolescents' conceptions of parental authority are differentiated according to conceptual domain of their life (i.e., in terms of what adolescents consider their parents have the right to regulate), and are renegotiated during adolescence (Darling, Cumsille, & Martinez, 2008;Smetana & Asquith, 1994;Smetana et al, 2009;Tisak, 1986). Research indicates that adolescents' perception of endorsement of parental authority is important in shaping their interactions with their parents (Smetana & Asquith, 1994;Smetana et al, 2009).…”

Early adolescent disclosure and parental knowledge regarding online activities: Social anxiety and parental rule-setting as moderators

“…For instance, when adolescents report about their obligations to disclose to parents, they feel more obliged to tell parents about behaviors regarding multifaceted issues compared with moral, conventional, or personal matters (Smetana et al 2006). In another study, however, voluntary disclosure to parents was greater for prudential and personal than for multifaceted issues (Smetana et al 2009). The seemingly contradictory results from these two studies might have arisen because the items about online activities were grouped together with other items such as staying out late at night, making it difficult to discern how these processes would work for online activities in particular.…”

“…Previous research using the social-cognitive domain theory framework specifically has examined parental legitimacy of authority to set boundaries about some online activities such as visiting websites, chatting with others, and the content of chatting, grouped together into a multifaceted category (Smetana et al 2006(Smetana et al , 2009. Nonetheless, research on authority over online activities using the social-cognitive domain theory framework is generally scarce.…”