Longitudinal Discrepancy in Adolescent Aggressive Behavior Problems: Differences by Reporter and Contextual Factors

Abstract

Little is known about the developmental course of informant discrepancies in adolescent aggressive behavior problems, though whether aggression increases or decreases over time depends on reporter. Evaluating discrepancies longitudinally can uncover patterns of agreement/disagreement between reporters across time and determine contexts that give rise to these differences. This study addresses longitudinal informant discrepancies by examining parent-report and adolescent report of adolescent aggressive behavior problems over time and further investigates possible contextual factors related to the longitudinal discrepancy. Five-waves (from age 11.5 to 15) of multi-informant data from the PROSPER project (N = 977; 52% female; 87% Caucasian) were used to test longitudinal change in informant discrepancies between mother-, father-, and adolescent-reported aggressive behavior problems. Results showed that parents reported more aggression than their adolescents at age 11.5 and that the discrepancy at first converged over time before diverging. By age 15, adolescents reported more aggression than their parents. Parental hostility, family status, and adolescent gender predicted change in informant discrepancies. Practical and developmental implications are discussed for assessing and determining accurate change in adolescent aggressive behavior problems.

Longitudinal Within-Family Association Between Parental Monitoring and Adolescent Aggressive Behaviors: Mothering versus Fathering

“…It is possible that the correlations may be somewhat inflated by using the same reporter. However, there is evidence that adolescent aggression differs when using parent report compared to adolescent report (Yang et al, 2021), which could make associations more difficult to detect using parent report if parents are not fully aware of their adolescents’ aggressive behaviors. In addition, during adolescence the relationship between parents and children was found to have increasing conflict and decreasing closeness (De Goede et al, 2009; McGue et al, 2005); and children increasingly spend less time with their parents and more time with their peers (Larson et al, 1996).…”

Parent–Child Recurring Conflict: A Mediator between Parental Anger Management and Adolescent Behavior

“…Both family systems theory and previous research guided our decision to capture adolescents' overall experiences with both parents within the family (Bortz et al., 2019; Mandak et al., 2017). Previous scholars have averaged mothers' and fathers' parenting scores within a family context (Fosco et al., 2014; Halgunseth et al., 2013; Yang et al., 2021). However, future research should consider analyzing mothers and fathers scores separately on these variables, which might provide nuanced findings.…”

“…Participants rated items on a 5‐point scale (1 = Never true , 5 = Always true ). Mothers' and fathers' total sum of the four items were averaged ( α = .69) in order to capture the overall parenting experiences in the family system (Bortz et al., 2019; Mandak et al., 2017) and in line with past studies (Fosco et al., 2014; Halgunseth et al., 2013; Yang et al., 2021). Higher mean scores reflected greater combined parental anger management.…”

“…Mother and father responses for variables of parental anger management and parent–child recurring conflict were averaged in order to capture the overall parenting of adolescents within the family systems (Bortz et al., 2019; Mandak et al., 2017). Previous scholars have averaged mothers' and fathers' parenting scores within a family context (Fosco et al., 2014; Halgunseth et al., 2013; Yang et al., 2021).…”

“…Thus, we used a composite score that averages across mothers' and fathers' reports of parental anger management and parent–child recurring conflict. Like others before us (Fosco et al., 2014; Halgunseth et al., 2013; Yang et al., 2021), we aimed to capture adolescents' overall parental experiences in the family context, in which adolescents observe, learn, and later generalize conflict management styles such as problem‐solving or deviant behaviors (Parke & Buriel, 2006; Staats et al., 2017; Van Doorn, Branje, & Meeus, 2011).…”