Physiological reactivity moderates the association between parental directing and young adolescent friendship adjustment.

Abstract

This study examined whether the longitudinal association between parental directing of friendships (i.e., encouraging or discouraging certain friendships) and young adolescents’ friendship adjustment (i.e., friendship quality and friends’ positive characteristics) was moderated by skin conductance level reactivity (SCLR) to peer stress. Participants included 123 young adolescents (M age = 12.03 years at T1; 50% boys; 58.5% European Americans). At T1 (summer before the transition to middle school), parents reported on the extent to which they directed adolescents toward or away from certain peers, and adolescents’ SCLR was assessed during a lab-based peer evaluation task. At T1 and T2 (spring of the first year of middle school), adolescents reported on the quality of their friendships and positive peer affiliations. Controlling for T1 friendship adjustment, parental directing predicted higher friendship quality and more positive peer affiliations, but only among young adolescents with lower SCLR, which was conceptualized as a marker of under-arousal and insensitivity to stress. Results are discussed with reference to the developmental period of early adolescence and related research on interactions between parental control and child characteristics as predictors of adolescent adjustment.

Parental management of peers and autonomic nervous system reactivity in predicting adolescent peer relationships.

“…Supportive of this notion, we found that low levels of directing predicted the highest levels of friends’ deviant behavior and adolescents’ peer rejection over one year at low levels of arousal reflected in low SCLR and RSA augmentation. These findings corroborate the results of another study in which young adolescents with the lowest levels of friendship support and positive peer affiliations were those with low parental directing and lower SCLR to peer-evaluative stress (Tu et al, 2014). Further, findings are consistent with results from a prior study utilizing the same sample (Hinnant et al, 2016), in which high levels of permissive parenting were concurrently associated with more deviant peer affiliations among adolescents exhibiting cardiac (pre-ejection period) and electrodermal sympathetic under-arousal to a challenge task (i.e., star tracing).…”

“…Notably, these findings are consistent with findings from Tu et al (2014), in which higher levels of parental directing predicted better friendship quality and more positive peer affiliations over time at low levels of SCLR to peer-evaluative stress. Similar patterns of associations have also been found in other studies examining Parenting x Child interactions.…”

“…Studies have revealed inconsistent associations linking parental directing and dimensions of directing with adolescent peer relationships. For instance, studies examining composites of guiding and prohibiting, including parental mediating (which also includes a supporting dimension; Mounts, 2004; see also Mounts, 2007) and parental directing (Tu et al, 2014), have revealed both positive associations with adolescents’ friendship quality (Mounts, 2004) as well as null direct associations with friendship quality and positive peer affiliation (Tu et al, 2014). …”

“…Indeed, one study revealed that parental directing of friendships predicted better friendship quality and more positive peer affiliations among young adolescents who exhibited lower SCLR to peer-evaluative stress, but not among youth who exhibited higher SCLR (Tu et al, 2014). Youth with low SCLR may be more risk-prone and less sensitive to social cues and consequences, and therefore more susceptible to lower-quality friendships with adolescents who engage in risky behaviors.…”

“…Similarly, drawing from the same data as the present study, we found that the concurrent association between permissive parenting and adolescent deviant peer affiliations was stronger at low levels of electrodermal and cardiac sympathetic arousal (Hinnant, Erath, Tu, & El-Sheikh, 2016). However, another study found that non-negative parental control in the form of parental directing of friendships predicted positive friendship quality and prosocial peer affiliations among young adolescents with relatively low SCLR (Tu, Erath, Pettit, & El-Sheikh, 2014). …”