The present study examined adoption-related family conversation as a mediator of the association between adoptive parents’ facilitation of contact with birth relatives and adolescent adoptive identity formation. The sample consisted of 184 adoptive families. Data were collected in two waves from adoptive mothers and fathers, and adoptees (M = 15.68 years at adolescence; M = 24.95 years at emerging adulthood) using semistructured interviews and questionnaires. Structural equation models showed a good fit to sample data, and analyses supported the hypothesized mediation model. Contact with birth relatives is associated with more frequent adoption-related family conversation, which in turn is associated with the development of adoptive identity. These results highlight the importance of supporting activities such as contact that lead to adoption-related family conversation.
Background-This study examined the relation between three variables related to adoptive family relationships (post-adoption contact between adoptive and birth family members, adoption communicative openness, and satisfaction with contact) and adoptee externalizing behavior in adolescence and emerging adulthood.
Parents and adolescents (mean age, 15.7 years) from 177 adoptive families participating in the second wave of the Minnesota/Texas Adoption Research Project were interviewed about their post-adoption contact arrangements. The sample included families with no contact, stopped contact, contact without meetings, and contact with face-to-face meetings between the adolescent and birth mother. Openness arrangements were dynamic, and different openness arrangements were associated with different experiences and feelings. Adoptive families with contact reported having higher levels of satisfaction about their openness arrangements, experiencing more positive feelings about the birth mother, and possessing more factual and personal knowledge about the birth mother than did families without contact. Adolescents and adoptive mothers in the contact with meetings group reported the greatest satisfaction with their openness arrangements; those with no contact or stopped contact reported the least satisfaction with their arrangements. Participants having no contact were more likely to want the intensity of contact to increase in the future rather than stay the same. Many participants already having contact wanted it to increase in the future. Fewer than 1 percent of all participants wanted to see the intensity of contact decrease.
The Adoption Communication Pathway(ACP) model was used to test the potential mediating effect of curiosity on adoption information seeking in a sample of 143 emerging adult adoptees (mean age = 25.0 years) who were adopted as infants within the United States by parents of the same race. Adoptees were interviewed about their intentions and actions taken to gather new information about their birth mothers and fathers. As expected, level of curiosity was positively associated with information seeking behavior. Moreover, level of curiosity was influenced by adoptees’ perceptions of barriers and facilitators toward information-dseeking. In fact, curiosity partially mediated the impact of internal and external barriers on information seeking about birth mothers. Curiosity fully mediated the impact of external barriers and partially mediated external facilitators on birth father information seeking. This study provides important support for the ACP, which describes context, motivation, and behavior relating to seeking new adoption-related information.
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