Parental Invasive Behaviors and Emerging Adults' Privacy Defenses: Instrument Development and Validation

Abstract

Building from previous efforts by Petronio (1994) and Ledbetter, Heiss, Sibal, Lev, Battle-Fisher, and Shubert (2010), the chief purposes of this investigation were to (a) develop instruments measuring parental invasive and children's defensive privacy behaviors and (b) validate the instruments by examining associations with family satisfaction and family communication patterns. Confirmatory factor analysis identified three dimensions of parental invasion (verbal, spatial, and mediated) and five dimensions of children's defense (secrecy, mediated, avoidance, direct, and peer). Both parental invasions and children's defenses were negatively associated with family satisfaction and conversation orientation, and positively associated with family conformity orientation. High family conversation mitigated against the positive contribution of conformity to secrecy, direct, and peer defenses.