Relational support in families with adolescents.

Abstract

To better understand what determines the support that family members perceive in dyadic family relationships, this study tested to what extent the perceiver, the partner, their specific relationship, and the family determine perceived support, and whether these effects differ for horizontal (i.e., marital and sibling) versus vertical (i.e., parent-child) relationships, or for different types of perceivers (i.e., parents versus adolescents). Two parents and two adolescents in 288 Dutch families judged the support perceived from each other. Social relations model analysis showed support perceptions to be more determined by the perceiver than by the partner, partly relationship specific, partly generation specific, and partly family specific. Relationship-specific support and reciprocity are more important in horizontal relationships than in vertical ones. Adolescents' support perceptions were more perceiver determined than were parents' perceptions.