Maternal psychological control and mother-adolescent conflict discussion quality: Different perceptions are key.

Abstract

Parental psychological control is associated with poor adolescent outcomes, but little research has examined discrepancies between observed and perceived psychological control in predicting conversational outcomes. The present study used a multimethod, multi-informant approach to examine whether independent and joint associations between observer, adolescent, and mother perceptions of maternal psychological control during mother-adolescent conflict discussions were associated with adolescents' and mothers' perceptions of the quality of these conversations. Mother-adolescent dyads (N = 123 dyads) participated in a conflict discussion and subsequently reported on their satisfaction with the process and outcome of the discussion. Mothers' behavior was coded for psychological control and mothers and adolescents separately reported on mothers' psychological control during the discussion. Findings indicate that higher adolescent-perceived psychological control was associated with poorer adolescent- and mother-reported discussion quality controlling for overall relationship discord. Central to our hypotheses, observer, adolescent, and mother perceptions of psychological control significantly interacted with one another to predict discussion quality, though the specific pattern of findings varied across mother- and adolescent-reported discussion quality. Findings suggest that adolescent perceptions of discussion quality are poorest when adolescents attribute psychologically controlling behavior to mothers, particularly when mothers and outside observers report relatively lower levels of psychological control. This study highlights the importance of adolescent perceptions of parents' behavior and of obtaining information about behavior during parent-adolescent conversations from multiple reporters (observers, adolescents, and parents) to develop targeted interventions with parents and adolescents managing conflict. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).