Disclosure and Secrecy in Adolescent–Parent Relationships

Abstract

Beliefs about parents' legitimate authority and adolescents' obligations to disclose to parents and actual disclosure and secrecy in different domains were examined in 276 ethnically diverse, lower middle-class 9th and 12th graders (Ms=14.62 and 17.40 years) and their parents (n=249). Adolescents were seen as more obligated to disclose prudential issues and less obligated to disclose personal than moral, conventional, and multifaceted issues; parents viewed adolescents as more obligated to disclose to parents than adolescents perceived themselves to be. Adolescents disclosed more to mothers than to fathers, particularly regarding personal issues, but mothers overestimated girls' disclosure. Greater trust, perceived obligations to disclose, and, for personal issues, more parental acceptance and psychological control predicted more disclosure and less secrecy.

Living Together Apart: Perceived Concealment as a Signal of Exclusion in Marital Relationships

“…First, they emerged when controlling for perceived disclosure (Finkenauer et al, 2002;Finkenauer & Hazam, 2000;Larson & Chastain, 1990;Smetana et al, 2006). In the present study, we assessed secrecy and concealment by asking marital partners to rate the extent to which they thought their partner concealed information from them.…”

“…They found that both mothers and fathers who perceived their child to conceal information from them were less satisfied with their relationship with their child and less responsive to their child's needs. These associations held even when controlling for perceived disclosure, suggesting that secrecy and disclosure can be simultaneously present in a relationship (Finkenauer et al, 2002;Frijns, Finkenauer, Vermulst, & Engels, 2005;Smetana et al, 2006). To illustrate, when telling Mary about his new colleague, John may disclose her qualifications, what she said, and what her background is.…”

Two Sides of a Story: Mothers’ and Adolescents’ Agreement on Child Disclosure in Immigrant and Native Families

“…The level of adolescents' disclosure was found to differ between various domains. Adolescents disclose more about school-related topics Mother-Adolescent Agreement 4 and less about peers or personal issues, and they disclose more information to mothers than to fathers (Smetana et al 2006). We used probably the most renowned conceptualization of children's disclosure -that developed by Kerr and Stattin (2000).…”

“…Third, we only focused on a very specific area of disclosure in adolescents' lives -school and spare time -so the results may differ for other contexts, as adolescents disclose different issues depending on the domain (Smetana et al 2006). Moreover, we only focused on two specific outcomes: conflicts and depressive symptoms.…”

“…It would be highly informative to compare the result patterns regarding mother-adolescent agreement with those for father-adolescent agreement, because processes of trust and communication may differ between mothers and fathers (Smetana et al 2006). We might expect similar associations for fathers as for mothers, despite the fact that the absolute level of disclosure may be lower in father-adolescent dyads.…”