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The connection of observed hostile family conflict to adolescents' developing autonomy and relatedness with parents

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 March 2009

Joseph P. Allen ,
Stuart T. Hauser ,
Thomas G. O'Connor ,
Kathy L. Bell  and
Charlene Eickholt
Joseph P. Allen*
Affiliation:
University of Virginia
Stuart T. Hauser
Affiliation:
Harvard Medical School
Thomas G. O'Connor
Affiliation:
University of Virginia
Kathy L. Bell
Affiliation:
University of Virginia
Charlene Eickholt
Affiliation:
University of Virginia
*
Joseph P. Allen, Department of Psychology, Gilmer Hall, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22903.
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Abstract

This study examined the link between hostile conflict in families with adolescents and adolescents' efforts to establish autonomy and relatedness in interactions with parents in both normal and psychiatrically impaired groups. Longitudinal, observational data were obtained by coding family interaction tasks involving 53 adolescents and their two parents at age 14 and age 16 years. Measures were obtained for hostile adolescent-parent conflict, hostile marital conflict, and indices of adolescents' success or difficultly in establishing autonomy and relatedness in interactions with parents. Relative increases in adolescent-parent hostile conflict from age 14 to 16 years were predicted by adolescents' behaviors actively undermining autonomy in disagreements with parents at age 14 years. Hostile marital conflict observed by the adolescent at age 14 years predicted adolescent withdrawal from the hostile parent over time, a prediction that was not mediated by observed parenting behaviors. Difficulties in establishing autonomy and relatedness were linked to prior history of psychiatric difficulty. A developmental view of conflict as both reflecting and predicting difficulties in adolescents' establishing autonomy and relatedness in interactions with parents is proposed.

Type
Articles
Information
Development and Psychopathology , Volume 8 , Issue 2 , Spring 1996 , pp. 425 - 442
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996

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