The influence of parent negative emotional expression on adolescents' perceptions of their relationships with their parents

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between parent affective expression in interactions and adolescent perceptions of their relationship. Observational and self‐report data were collected on 85 intact families with adolescents in grades 5 to 9 (n = 44 males, 41 females). Each parent and adolescent took part in two 8‐minute conversations–one about an activity they reported enjoying together and one about a disagreement or area of conflict. Conversations were coded on a speaker turn basis for positive, negative, neutral, mixed, and altered affect (kappa = .76). Physical maturation was related to adolescent perceptions of increased negative communication quality in all parent‐adolescent dyads. Stepwise regression analyses indicated that expression by fathers of negative and mixed affect significantly predicted adolescent perceptions of communication quality, psychological autonomy, and firm/lax control, in addition to the effects of adolescent pubertal maturation. Mother affective expression in interactions was less consistently related to adolescent perceptions of relationship satisfaction. Implications for the salience of father versus mother affective expression in interactions with adolescents are discussed.

Adolescent Vulnerability following the September 11th Terrorist Attacks: A Study of Parents and their Children

“…Consistent with the findings of other studies (e.g., Flannery et al, 1994;Gecas & Schwalbe, 1986), fathers played an important role in the psychological outcomes of their children. Specifically, higher levels of perceived support from fathers was associated with higher levels of positive affect among their adolescents.…”

“…Although adolescents spend more time with their mothers than with their fathers, boys and girls report greater satisfaction in activities that involve fathers than in activities involving mothers (Montemayor & Brownlee, 1987). When compared to maternal expression of negative emotion, paternal expression of negative emotion and adolescents' perceptions of paternal behavior appear to have a greater impact on adolescents' satisfaction with the parent-child relationship and their self-esteem (Flannery, Montemayor, & Eberly, 1994;Gecas & Schwalbe, 1986). Therefore, we could expect that parental gender might modify the impact of parental involvement on youths' adjustment following stressful events.…”

Emotional expression in adolescent -parent communication.

“…In fact, of the multitude of projects looking at parent-adolescent communication in the previous 30 years, only ten have employed the dyadic design (Beaumont, 1995(Beaumont, , 2000Beaumont & Cheyne, 1998;Beaumont et al, 2001;Flannery et al, 1994;Hakim-Larson & Hobart, 1987;Kahlbaugh Emotional Expression 23 et al, 1997;Montemayor et al, 1993;Rodick et al, 1986;Whalen et al, 1996). Of these ten studies, only three have considered both the mother-adolescent and father-adolescent dyads (Flannery et al, 1994;Montemayor et al, 1993;Whalen et al, 1996).…”

“…Montemayor, Eberly and Flannery (1993) and Flannery, Montemayor, and Eberly (1994) investigated the possible effect of the adolescent's pubertal status on emotional expression in adolescent-parent conversations. For both of these reports, the participants included a sample of 85 two-parent families with adolescents in grades five through nine (average age =12.8 years).…”

“…This finding is consistent with research by Montemayor at al. (1993) and Flannery et al (1994) in which affect expressed in adolescent-parent communication was compared for unpleasant and pleasant conversation topics. These researchers found that although more negative affect was expressed in the unpleasant context as compared to the pleasant context, there was no difference in the amount of negative and positive affect displayed in the unpleasant conversations.…”