Lecture 6 Family relations 

Part 1 

• How and why do (dynamics of) parents-adolescent relationships change during adolescence? 

• How are adolescents affected by (changing) experiences in the parent-adolescent relationship, and vice versa? 

What is family? 

• Dictionary definition: married, 2-parent, biological offspring 

• But: different forms and sizes 

• Definition may be culture-dependent 

• Structures common ‘historically’ are not as common today 

• Ruggles:  

• Fragmentary household (1 parent, divorced etc.): increased 

• Extended households (multiple generations, family-units): decreased 

• In white and in non-white. But different slope of decrease and increase 

• In all societies, the family fulfills similar functions: 

• Socialization of children/adolescents 

• Enduring source of (practical/economic & emotional/social) support 

• Continuity of relationships across the life course = social embedding 

The family as a system 

• Focus traditionally on mother (primary caregiver)-child/adolescent relationship 

• Family systems theory: an organized whole, consisting of interrelated parts that influence each other 

• System: set of elements standing in interrelation among themselves and with the environment 

• Interrelation: not A affects B, but A & B affect each other 

• Changing, self-organizing, and adapting to (changes in) its members and the outside environment  

• System is flexible, but strives for stability (= equilibrium: each person a particular role) 

• Family = cohesive emotional unit (emotional bond) 

Three aspects – family system theory 

• Holism 

• To understand family, not enough to look at members separately 

• Roles (e.g., caretaker) 

• Illustration of depression: mother can't take her role > influences the system > the child takes the ‘mother'-role 

• ‘hierarchy’/structure 

• Organized into subsystems 

• By gender or generations 

• Dyadic relationship 

• Marital relationship 

• Parent-child relationship 

• Sibling relationship 

• Triadic level 

• Particular with both her parents 

• Family level/whole 

• Boundaries 

• At every level (subsystems, inside/outside) 

• Permeability varies across families 

• Permeability evolves over time 

• How much what happens when a specific subsystem of the family affects other subsystems or the entire family? 

• Spillover vs. Compensation 

• Associations between dyadic relationships within the whole family 

• When there are loose boundaries between subsystems 

• Spillover: do we see that what happens in a systems, affects what happens in other systems? 

• Compensation: do we see that what happens in a particular system, is compensated in another system? 

• Compartmentalization: systems are quite independent from each other 

• Sherill:  

• Interparental conflict > more than 2 times likely to also report higher levels of parent-adolescent conflict (within a day) 

• Interparental conflict > 2 times likely to also report higher levels of parent-adolescent conflict (1 day later) 

• Parent-adolescent conflict > 1,82x more likely interparental conflict 

• Presence of interparental conflict increases the odds of parent-adolescent conflict at a later moment in time, and vice versa = “spillover” 

• Mastrotheodoros: 

• Interparental conflict associated with higher levels of mother + adolescent anger > mother-adolescent conflict 

• Spillover  

• Conflict > mood > mother-adolescent conflict 

• Interparental conflict > mother + adolescent anger > mother-adolescent conflict = spillover 

• Kouros 

• Mother- & father-reports! 

• Marital quality > parent-adolescent relationship quality 

• “spillover” (same day) 

• Also vice versa: parent-adolescent relationship quality > marital quality 

• Lower marital quality > mother-adolescent relationship   

• “compensation” (next day) 

• “spillover” can be positive as well + some evidence for “compensation” in the family system 

The family as a system 

• Adolescence: disruption of homeostasis 

• New balance/equilibrium needs to be found 

• Process of (family) adaption 

• 3 influences: 

• Genotype 

• Shared environment 

• Unshared environment 

Part 2 

Parenting styles 

• Warmth/support - responsiveness 

• Control-demandingness 

• Combine > 4 parenting styles 

• Authoritative 

• High level of control, high level of responsiveness 

• Engage in adolescent in decision making (e.g., rules) 

• Encourage autonomy & independence 

• Involved & monitoring (positive way) 

• Open communication & trust 

• Authoritarian 

• High levels of control, low level of responsiveness 

• Strict rules & expectations 

• Discourage autonomy & independence 

• Punishment-heavy 

• Low open communication and trust 

• Lot of conflict in adolescence (they want to explore and make their own decisions) 

• Indulgent 

• Low levels of control, high levels of responsiveness 

• Very responsive to needs 

• Insufficient parental guidance 

• No behavioral expectations = no control/punishment 

• Adolescents require little self-regulation 

• Indifferent 

• Low levels of responsiveness, low levels of control 

• Not responsive to needs 

• Insufficient parental guidance 

• Provide basic needs, no more 

• Uninvolved, detached & disengaged 

• No communication & trust 

• Stability across time/development, specific behaviors change! 

Parenting styles can have a huge impact on adolescent development/functioning. 

• They want more autonomy, make own decisions.  

• Authoritative 

• Independent & autonomous 

• Responsible 

• High confidence 

• Strong emotional parent-adolescent bond maintained 

• Problem solving & critical thinking 

• Authoritarian 

• Individuation interfered 

• Dependent & obedient 

• Low confidence 

• Low social competence 

• Rebellious adolescents 

• Passivity & lack of school interest 

• Indulgent 

• Less mature & responsible (not used to rules) 

• Conforming to peers 

• High confidence, but misbehavior 

• Impulsive 

• But: could be emotionally secure & independent 

• Indifferent 

• Impulsive 

• Delinquent 

• Early experimentation with sex, drugs, alcohol 

• Mature earlier (provide for themselves, no parent-role) 

• Academic underachievement 

Important methodological considerations 

• Control vs. Control 

• Control in the context of high support/involvement vs. Low support/involvement 

• With high support/involvement: “monitoring” 

• With low support/involvement: “psychological control” 

• Psychological control vs. Behavioral control 

• Parental control in different environments 

• Example: safe environment or war (dangerous outside) 

• Cultural considerations 

• Are Asian parents authoritarian? (or protective/”strict-affectionate”?) 

• Adolescents accept more strict rules 

• Correlation between ethnic (minority) background and family environment 

• Still: “even though authoritative parenting is less common in ethnic minority families, its effects on adolescent development are beneficial in all ethnic groups” 

Parenting styles & adolescent functioning 

• Cross-cultural comparison on: substance use, self-esteem, school performance, personal disturbances 

• Parenting styles relate to these outcomes in the same way in different countries. 

• Authoritative parenting more positive outcomes 

• Authoritarian parenting more negative outcomes 

Part 3 – Changes in the (dynamic of the) parent-adolescent relationship 

Parents and adolescents? 

• Challenge to deal with for parents 

• Teenage years are portraited as survival years for parents 

• “storm and stress” 

Storm and stress  

• Hall & Freud  

• Detachment inside family > parent-adolescent conflict 

• Normal, healthy and inevitable 

• Universal/across cultures 

• Current scientific view 

• Yes: 

• Increase in conflict 

• Decreases in closeness 

• Adolescence perceived as most difficult developmental period 

• No: 

• Average, but variation across individuals 

• Minor arguments, do not undermine attachment (no universal detachment) 

• Not in all cultures (not universal) 

• Study: large individual differences in family constellations + change over time 

• Turbulent: low levels of support, high levels of negative interactions, parents more powerful than adolescents 

• Harmonious: relatively stable, followed by increase 

• Turbulent: increase, then decrease 

• Adolescent development isn't a vacuum 

• Developmental history of parent-child interaction patterns and relationship quality before adolescence = important predictor of how parents and adolescents go through adolescence period. 

• Laursen: perceived support 

• Most negative group decreased most in support compared to other relationships 

• Low negative group: decreased much less 

• The worse you go in adolescence, the worse you come out 

Normative developmental changes 

• Longitudinal study De Goede in NL 

• Adolescents from high school 

• Support/warmth 

• Mother:  

• Early-mid adolescence: decreased support  

• Mid-late adolescence: increase by girls, stable by boys  

• Father: 

• Early-mid adolescence: decreased support 

• Mid-late adolescence: increase by girls, stable by boys 

• Conflict/negative interaction 

• Mother: 

• Steep increase in early-mid adolescence, particularly for girls 

• Mid-late: decrease for boys and girls 

• Fathers: similar pattern 

• Power 

• Mother: 

• Early-mid-late: decreases in both boys and girls 

• Fathers: similar pattern 

• Parent-adolescent relationship becomes more egalitarian over time 

Normative developmental changes in sum: 

• From vertical to horizontal 

• From asymmetrical to symmetrical 

• From dependent to interdependent 

Normative developmental changes: why? (particularly conflict) 

• What do parents and adolescent fight about? 

• Autonomy-related issues (control-issues) 

• Adolescents develop their autonomy (sense of independence, but different than independent). Autonomy is cognitive (opinions, discover who they are). Independence: behavioral 

• Making independent choices and decisions, having independent thoughts and feelings (> increased need for privacy) 

• Predictors/driving forces > autonomy > parent-adolescent conflict 

• Separation-individuation theory:  

• De-individualize from their parents 

• Evolutionary perspective: 

• Pubertal development (hormonal changes + individuation > sexual partner) 

• Parent-adolescent conflict as a predictor of reorganization/realignment of the parent-adolescent relationship 

• Maturational perspective 

• Cognitive development (question parental legitimacy of ‘control’ + egalitarian) 

• Expectancy violation-realignment theory 

• Discrepancies in autonomy/independence expectations initially, particularly timing autonomy <> self-regulation 

• Social domain theory 

• Parental control is effective depending on domain 

• Discrepancies in personal vs. Prudential/social-convention/moral domain issues 

Is it indeed that higher level of conflict go together with lower levels of power? 

• Early – middle adolescence: Greater increase conflict = greater decrease support & smaller decreases in power (so, more power) 

• Middle to late adolescence: greater decrease conflict = greater increase support & greater decrease power 

• Individual differences in support, conflict & power co-occur 

• Conflict doesn't appear to drive more equality 

• We don’t know: conflict resolution/open communication vs. Conflict? 

Important methodological consideration 

• Who is the best informant for information on the parent-adolescent relationship/parenting? 

• Also concerning parenting style! 

• What do you think? 

• Parent self-report? 

• Other parent 

• Adolescent self-report? 

• Observant 

• Study Mastrotheodoros 

• Findings typically suggest that adolescents experience less support than parents report to provide 

• But, these results: mothers and fathers report less support than adolescents 

• Maybe it is because of this sample 

• Findings typically suggest that adolescents experience higher control than parents report to provide 

• But, these results: parents report higher control than adolescents 

• From early to late adolescence: increasing convergence in parent and adolescent views of their relationships. At the end, the reporters are more on the same line. 

Birth order 

• Assumption ‘traditionally’ that within each family the same process are at play for all parent-child dyads = siblings 

• But: family systems theory! 

• Parental differential treatment (PDT)? 

• Parent-adolescent relationship as unshared environment 

• Adolescence = increase parent-adolescent conflict > for all siblings when the eldest enters adolescence, or for each sibling when entering adolescence? 

• Individual development theory: each sibling experiences peak in conflict when they reach adolescence.  

• Learning from experience: only 1st-born experiences peak. 2nd-born trajectory is flatter (because they have already come through this experience and learn from their other children). 

• Spillover: 2nd-borns' peak happens at the same period in time as 1st-borns' peak. Higher conflict occurs when 2nd-borns are younger 

• Results: support for learning from experience + spillover 

• Why learning from experience? 

• Parents have better coping skills and new conflict resolution strategies 

• Areas of disagreement already resolved for 2nd-born 

• All motivated to avoid the stress of conflict with 1st-born 

• Why spillover? 

• Increase in conflict > spills over to relationship of parents with younger siblings 

Part 4 – Changes in the parent-adolescent relationship & adolescent adjustment 

Do parents matter for adolescent adjustment? 

• Yes: stage-environment fit theory 

• Parental behavior that does not fit with adolescents’ (changing) developmental needs = adolescent maladjustment 

• Parents need to be: 

• Sensitive/responsive 

• Involved 

• Encourage open communication 

• Trustful 

• Support autonomy & independence 

• > authoritative parenting 

• Empirical evidence (meta-analyses) 

• Rejection + control important for internalizing symptoms 

• In varying degrees for anxiety and depression 

• Anxiety: autonomy-granting 

• Depression: aversiveness 

• But: parent factors are not the only important factors (18/11%) 

• Externalizing symptoms 

• Warmth almost as important for internalizing and externalizing 

• Hostility more important for externalizing 

• Behavioral control important for both 

Parents matter for adolescent adjustment, but... 

• Family systems theory: an organized whole, consisting of interrelated parts that influence each other 

• System = set of elements standing in interrelation among themselves and with the environment 

• Interrelation: not A affects B, but A & B affect each other 

• Bidirectional/reciprocal/transactional effects 

• Adolescents react to parents and changes in the parent-adolescent relationship 

• And vice versa: parents react to adolescents and adolescents may evoke changes in the parent-adolescent relationship 

• What is the strongest direction? Study Nelemans:  

• Maternal criticism leads to higher levels of adolescent depression, but also results for reverse effect = “vicious developmental cycle” 

• Longitudinal “child effects” for adolescents GAD symptoms. GAD symptoms > higher levels of perceived criticism = relationship erosion effect. 

• Bidirectional longitudinal associations for adolescent delinquency = vicious developmental cycle 

• Parenting needs to be: sensitive/responsive (both for adolescent internalizing and externalizing symptoms) 

• “spillover” from marital relationship > parent-adolescent relationship > adolescent adjustment (internalizing and externalizing) 

• Or: marital conflict > parent harsh discipline > externalizing problems 

• Impact of the parent-adolescent relationship can depend on:  

• Discrepancies in perceptions of the parent-adolescent relationship 

• NI: negative interaction/conflict 

• Mother: 

• Low levels of conflict adolescent + low levels of conflict mother > lowest levels of depression symptoms 

• Both agree high levels of conflict > highest levels of adolescent depressive symptoms (cumulative effect) 

• Father: 

• Both low levels of conflict > lowest levels of depressive symptoms 

• Adolescent high levels of conflict + father low levels of conflict > highest levels of depressive symptoms 

• When the father and adolescent are not on the same line > problem for adolescent 

• Other social relationships (e.g., peers) 

• Study:  

• Highest levels of externalizing behavior: high levels of power imbalance + low friendship quality and high friend externalizing behavior 

• High friendship quality, high friend antisocial + high friendship quality, low friend antisocial > lower levels of externalizing behavior (with both low and high levels of power imbalance) 

• Reitz: 

• Higher levels of positive parenting associated with lower levels of adolescent externalizing problems 

• Higher levels of friends externalizing problems associated with higher levels of adolescent externalizing problems 

• Long time: adolescent externalizing behaviors predicted of lower levels of positive parenting but when taking friends externalizing behaviors that was only significant related with higher levels of adolescent externalizing problems, but the parenting did not predict to this outcome anymore.  

• Thus: positive parenting wasn't associated with adolescent externalizing problems when friends’ externalizing problems were taken into account.  

• So: the impact of parenting can depend on other relationships 

• Genetic make-up > individual differences in sensitivity to parenting 

• Gene-environment correlation versus gene-environment interaction 

• Diathesis-stress/dual risk model: vulnerable individuals: negative environment > negative developmental outcomes 

• Differential susceptibility model: not genetic vulnerability, but genetic sensitivity: better or worse 

• Negative parenting > negative outcomes 

• Positive environment/parenting > positive outcomes 

• Graph 

• Low levels of parental criticism > genetics don't have impact  

• Combination of high genetic risk of MDD + high parental criticism > highest level of depressive symptoms 

• In line with diathesis-stress/dual risk model 

In sum: parent matter for adolescent adjustment. But: within a larger system.