Drawing on the family systems framework, this study investigated the reciprocal prospective associations between marital relationship quality, parent-adolescent closeness and conflict, and adolescent depressive symptoms among families in Taiwan. Background: The family systems theory posits reciprocity between family subsystems. However, the direction of influences between marital relationship quality, parentadolescent relationship quality and adolescent well-being may be more unidirectional in Chinese societies due to hierarchical family values. Method: Data were from a longitudinal survey of 2292 parent-youth dyads in the Taiwan Youth Project. Crosslagged path models were used to test the bidirectional associations between marital relationship quality, parentadolescent closeness and conflict, and adolescent depressive symptoms from ages 12 to 18. Results: Our primary hypothesis that marital relationship quality predicts parent-adolescent relationship quality, which then predicts adolescent depressive symptoms in a unidirectional manner was partially substantiated. Moreover, marital relationship quality directly predicted fewer depressive symptoms from middle to late adolescence and indirectly from early to late adolescence via parentadolescent relationship quality in middle adolescence. We also found that child depressive symptoms predicted less parent-adolescent closeness, and more conflicts which Shou-Chun Chiang, Ph.D. Student The Pennsylvania State University Human Development & Family Studies

Introduction: Identifying specific contextual factors that contribute to the development of internalizing symptoms in adolescents in poverty is critical for prevention. This study examined the longitudinal effects of neighborhood disadvantage, family cohesion, and teacher-student relationship on adolescent internalizing symptoms from economically disadvantaged families. Methods: Participants were 1404 Taiwanese adolescents (49% female) in the nationally representative Taiwan database of children and youth in poverty. Youth were enrolled in the seventh, eighth, or ninth grades (Time 1; M age = 14.85, SD = 0.95) and completed biennial follow-up assessments 2 (Time 2; M age = 16.47, SD = 0.74) and 4 years after baseline (Time 3; M age = 18.21, SD = 0.70). Latent growth models examined longitudinal associations between contextual factors and internalizing symptoms over time. Results: Adolescents reported declines in neighborhood disadvantage and teacher-student relationship but increases in family cohesion over the 4 years. At baseline, greater neighborhood disadvantage was associated with higher levels of internalizing symptoms, whereas higher family cohesion was associated with lower levels of internalizing symptoms. Over time, an increase in family cohesion was associated with a decrease in internalizing symptoms. Conclusion:This study provides empirical support that family cohesion plays a critical role in shaping the development of adolescent internalizing symptoms despite poverty. There was an increase in family cohesion from early to late adolescence among Taiwanese adolescents in poverty and such change was correlated with decreases in youth internalizing symptoms. Family cohesion may be a key target of prevention programs aiming to reduce internalizing symptoms for youth in poverty.

Although the sensitization hypothesis posits that heightened reactivity to interparental conflict is linked to adolescent psychopathology, limited studies tested whether sensitization would emerge in parent‐adolescent conflict and across ethnicity or culture. This study revisits the sensitization hypothesis by examining adolescent emotional reactivity to interparental and parent‐adolescent conflicts on a daily timescale. The sample included 163 adolescents (55% girls; Mage = 12.79) and their parents (78% females; Mage = 45.46) who completed a 10‐day reports in Taiwan. Multilevel modeling results showed that, instead of interparental conflict, adolescents with greater histories of parent‐adolescent conflict exhibited higher emotional reactivity when parent‐adolescent conflict was higher. The findings underscore the importance of parent‐adolescent conflict in evaluating adolescent developmental risk.

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