Domain differentiated disclosure to mothers and siblings and associations with sibling relationship quality and youth emotional adjustment.

Abstract

Disclosure, or revealing personal information to others, is important for the development and maintenance of close relationships (Jourard, 1971; Rotenberg, 1995). More recently within developmental psychology, however, the focus has been the study of adolescent disclosure to parents as a means of information management regarding their daily activities. This research assumes that a) disclosure between multiple adolescents and parents within the same family are similar, and b) only information transmitted from adolescents to parents is important for adolescent well-being. Thus, this article presents the findings of 2 within-family studies to investigate differences in the amount and social domain (Smetana, 2006; Turiel, 2002) of youth disclosure to mothers versus siblings, and the influence of disclosure to siblings on relationship quality and youth emotional adjustment. Study 1 utilized 101 sibling dyads with youth ranging in age from 11-21 years, but all siblings living together. Study 2 investigated a sample of 58 sibling dyads in which all first-borns were first-year college students and all second-borns were in high school. All participants completed questionnaire measures to assess study variables. Findings revealed that while youth disclosed more to mothers than siblings, this difference disappears by emerging adulthood, particularly depending on the domain of the issue. Additionally, while greater disclosure among siblings was positive for the quality of the relationship, sibling disclosure was differentially associated with emotional adjustment depending on whether youth were the disclosers or being disclosed to, the domain of the issues disclosed, and the gender composition of the dyad.

What parents don't know: Disclosure and secrecy in a sample of urban adolescents

“…Further, emerging research suggest that secrecy and disclosure should be evaluated within the context of other important relationships, like friends and siblings, along with the traditional parent-child dyad (e.g., Campione-Barr et al, 2015; Laird et al, 2013b; Villalobos Solís et al, 2015). Future work should investigate how these longitudinal relations vary when other key players are involved.…”

How Mental Health Interviews Conducted Alone, in the Presence of an Adult, a Child or Both Affects Adolescents’ Reporting of Psychological Symptoms and Risky Behaviors

“…The normative process of autonomy development in adolescence involves changes in adolescents’ information management typically characterized by decreasing disclosure and increasing concealment of information (Campione-Barr et al 2015; Tilton-Weaver 2014). These changes may have an important impact on the early detection and timely treatment of mental health conditions and risky behavior.…”

“…The increasing autonomy of adolescence has important implications for adolescents’ information management; in other words, how much, what, to whom and under what conditions adolescents disclose or conceal information (Campione-Barr et al 2015; Tilton-Weaver 2014). Autonomy development through the realignment of parent–child relationships in adolescence is achieved through a process of lessening parental control, and reduced parental knowledge and adolescent willingness to disclose (Keijsers and Poulin 2013).…”

“…Adolescents fail to disclose prudential behaviors for fear of disapproval or punishment (Smetana et al 2009) whereas they fail to disclosure personal information because they consider such information legitimately under their personal control and they do not feel obliged to share this domain of information with parents (Smetana and Asquith 1994). Additionally prior research has found that U.S. adolescents disclose more to mothers than to fathers (Smetana et al 2006) and more to mothers than to siblings (at least in early adolescence, although this gap between mothers and siblings narrows toward emerging adulthood; Campione-Barr et al 2015). Both depressive symptomatology and risky behaviors have been negatively associated to disclosure with both parents and siblings (Campione-Barr et al 2015; Kerr and Stattin 2000; Laird et al 2013).…”

“…Additionally prior research has found that U.S. adolescents disclose more to mothers than to fathers (Smetana et al 2006) and more to mothers than to siblings (at least in early adolescence, although this gap between mothers and siblings narrows toward emerging adulthood; Campione-Barr et al 2015). Both depressive symptomatology and risky behaviors have been negatively associated to disclosure with both parents and siblings (Campione-Barr et al 2015; Kerr and Stattin 2000; Laird et al 2013). …”