Abstract
Mothers and adolescents hold distinct albeit correlated views of their relationship and of one another. The present study focuses on disentangling these independent views. Concurrent associations between maternal psychological control and children’s adjustment are examined at two time points in order to identify the degree to which associations reflect (a) views that are shared by mothers and adolescents, and (b) views that are unique to mothers and adolescents. A total of 123 (56 % female) U.S. Latino/a adolescents (M = 10.4 years old at the outset) and their mothers reported on maternal psychological control, children’s conduct problems, and children’s anxiety, twice within a 5-month period. Data were collected at the close of primary school when the adolescents were in grade 5 and again at the beginning of middle school, when they were in grade 6. Results from conventional correlations indicated that mother- and adolescent-reports yielded similar associations between maternal psychological control and adolescent adjustment. Common fate model analyses partitioned results into variance shared across mother and adolescent reports and variance unique to mother and adolescent reports. Results differed for anxiety and conduct problems. Shared views indicated that greater maternal psychological control was associated with heightened child conduct problems; there were no associations unique to either reporter. In contrast, unique reporter views indicated that greater maternal psychological control was associated with child anxiety; there were no associations involving shared views. Although mother- and adolescent-reports agree that maternal psychological control is correlated with children’s adjustment, there is considerable divergence in results when associations are partitioned according to shared and unique reporter views. Associations between maternal psychological control and children’s anxiety are more apt to be inflated by same-reporter variance bias than are associations between maternal psychological control and children’s conduct problems.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Anderman, E. M., Maehr, M. L., & Midgley, C. (1999). Declining motivation after the transition to middle school: Schools can make a difference. Journal of Research & Development in Education, 32(3), 131–147.
Barber, B. K., Stolz, H. E., Olsen, J. A., Collins, W. A., & Burchinal, M. (2005). Parental support, psychological control, and behavioral control: Assessing relevance across time, culture, and method. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 70(4), 58–72.
Barber, B. K., Xia, M., Olsen, J. A., McNeely, C. A., & Bose, K. (2012). Feeling disrespected by parents: Refining the measurement and understanding of psychological control. Journal of Adolescence, 35(2), 273–287.
Bögels, S. M., & van Melick, M. (2004). The relationship between child-report, parent self-report, and partner report of perceived parental rearing behaviors and anxiety in children and parents. Personality and Individual Differences, 37(8), 1583–1596.
Bronstein, P. (1994). Patterns of parent-child interaction in Mexican families: A cross-cultural perspective. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 17(3), 423–446.
Burk, W. J., & Laursen, B. (2010). Mother and adolescent reports of associations between child behavior problems and mother–child relationship qualities: Separating shared variance from individual variance. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 38(5), 657–667.
Cardona, P. G., Nicholson, B. C., & Fox, R. A. (2000). Parenting among Hispanic and Anglo-American mothers with young children. The Journal of Social Psychology, 140(3), 357–365.
Cui, L., Morris, A. S., Criss, M. M., Houltberg, B. J., & Silk, J. S. (2014). Parental psychological control and adolescent adjustment: The role of adolescent emotion regulation. Parenting, 14(1), 47–67.
Fuller, B., & García Coll, C. (2010). Learning from Latinos: Contexts, families, and child development in motion. Developmental Psychology, 46(3), 559–565.
Goodman, R. (1997). The strengths and difficulties questionnaire: A research note. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 38(5), 581–586.
Gray, M. R., & Steinberg, L. (1999). Unpacking authoritative parenting: Reassessing a multidimensional construct. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 61(3), 574–587.
Hafen, C. A., & Laursen, B. (2009). More problems and less support: Early adolescent adjustment forecasts changes in perceived support from parents. Journal of Family Psychology, 23(2), 193–202.
Holtrop, K., Smith, M., & Scott, J. C. (2015). Associations between positive parenting practices and child externalizing behavior in underserved Latino immigrant families. Family Process, 54(2), 359–375.
Hughes, E. K., & Gullone, E. (2010). Reciprocal relationships between parent and adolescent internalizing symptoms. Journal of Family Psychology, 24(2), 115–124.
Karver, M. S. (2006). Determinants of multiple informant agreement on child and adolescent behavior. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 34(2), 242–253.
Karver, M. S., & Steding, L. (2012). Problems in using diagonisis in child and adolescent mental health services research. Journal of Methods and Measurement in the Social Sciences, 3(1), 1–26.
Kenny, D. A. (1995). The effect of nonindependence on significance testing in dyadic research. Personal Relationships, 2(1), 67–75.
Kenny, D. A., Kashy, D. A., & Cook, W. L. (2006). Dyadic data analysis. New York, NY: Guilford Press.
Kenny, D. A., & La Voie, L. (1985). Separating individual and group effects. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 48(2), 339–348.
Laursen, B. (2005). Dyadic and group perspectives on close relationships. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 29(2), 97–100.
Laursen, B., & Collins, W. A. (2009). Parent–child relationships during adolescence. In R. M. Lerner & L. Seinberg (Eds.), Handbook of adolescent psychology (pp. 3–42). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
Laursen, B., & Hafen, C. A. (2010). Future directions in the study of close relationships: Conflict is bad (except when it’s not). Social Development, 19(4), 858–872.
Ledermann, T., & Kenny, D. A. (2012). The common fate model for dyadic data: Variations of a theoretically important but underutilized model. Journal of Family Psychology, 26(1), 140–148.
Lindahl, K. M., & Malik, N. M. (1999). Marital conflict, family processes, and boys’ externalizing behavior in Hispanic American and European American families. Journal of Clinical Child Psychology, 28(1), 12–24.
Luebbe, A. M., Bump, K. A., Fussner, L. M., & Rulon, K. J. (2014). Perceived maternal and paternal psychological control: Relations to adolescent anxiety through deficits in emotion regulation. Child Psychiatry and Human Development, 45(5), 565–576.
Meunier, J. C., Roskam, I., & Browne, D. T. (2011). Relations between parenting and child behavior: Exploring the child’s personality and parental self-efficacy as third variables. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 35(3), 246–259.
Murray, K. W., Dwyer, K. M., Rubin, K. H., Knighton-Wisor, S., & Booth-LaForce, C. (2014). Parent–child relationships, parental psychological control, and aggression: Maternal and paternal relationships. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 43(8), 1361–1373.
Muthén, L. K., & Muthén, B. O. (2016). Mplus user’s guide (7th ed.). Los Angeles, CA: Muthén & Muthén.
Noller, P., & Callan, V. J. (1988). Understanding parent-adolescent interactions: Perceptions of family members and outsiders. Developmental Psychology, 24(5), 707–714.
Pettit, G. S., Laird, R. D., Dodge, K. A., Bates, J. E., & Criss, M. M. (2001). Antecedents and behavior-problem outcomes of parental monitoring and psychological control in early adolescence. Child Development, 72(2), 583–598.
Raghunathan, T. E., Rosenthal, R., & Rubin, D. B. (1996). Comparing correlated but nonoverlapping correlations. Psychological Methods, 1(2), 178–183.
Reynolds, C. R., & Richmond, B. O. (1978). What I think and feel: A revised measure of children’s manifest anxiety. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 6(2), 271–280.
Schaefer, E. S. (1959). A circumplex model for maternal behavior. The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 59(2), 226–235.
Schwarz, J. C., Barton-Henry, M. L., & Pruzinsky, T. (1985). Assessing child-rearing behaviors: A comparison of ratings made by mother, father, child, and sibling on the CRPBI. Child Development, 56(2), 462–479.
Seiffge-Krenke, I., & Kollmar, F. (1998). Discrepancies between mothers’ and fathers’ perceptions of sons’ and daughters’ problem behaviour: A longitudinal analysis of parent–adolescent agreement on internalising and externalising problem behaviour. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 39(5), 687–697.
Steinberg, L. (1990). Interdependency in the family: Autonomy, conflict, and harmony in the parent–adolescent relationship. In S. S. Feldman & G. R. Elliott (Eds.), At the threshold: The developing adolescent (pp. 255–276). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Tein, J. Y., Roosa, M. W., & Michaels, M. (1994). Agreement between parent and child reports on parental behaviors. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 56(2), 341–355.
Wang, Q., Pomerantz, E. M., & Chen, H. (2007). The role of parents’ control in early adolescents’ psychological functioning: A longitudinal investigation in the United States and China. Child Development, 78(5), 1592–1610.
Yaban, E. H., Sayıl, M., & Tepe, Y. K. (2014). Are discrepancies in perceptions of psychological control related to maladjustment? A study of adolescents and their parents in Turkey. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 36(6), 550–562.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank our research team (Eloy Ortiz, Yethzéll Díaz, Seow Ling Ong, Giselle Padilla, Sylvia Reyes, and Gina Lepore), the children and mothers who participated, and the teachers and school staff who assisted with recruitment. Todd Little provided helpful comments on an initial draft.
Author Contributions
OV performed the statistical analyses and drafted the manuscript; BL conceived of the study, interpreted the data, critically revised the manuscript, and was co-PI on the funded grant; FG participated in the statistical analyses and helped draft the manuscript; AH was involved in the concept and design of the study and helped draft the manuscript; JD participated in the design and supervised the collection of the data, and was PI on the funded grant of the study. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
Funding
This project was supported by a grant to Jill Denner and Brett Laursen from the U.S. National Science Foundation (1248598). Brett Laursen also received support from the U.S. National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (HD068421).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding authors
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
The authors report no conflict of interest.
Ethics Approval
Data for the MATH PATHWAYS study were collected in a manner consistent with the ethical guidelines of the American Psychological Association and the Society for Research in Child Development. The project received local IRB approval.
Informed Consent
All measurements were carried out with their adequate understanding and written consent.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Valdes, O.M., Laursen, B., Guimond, F.A. et al. Maternal Psychological Control and Its Association with Mother and Child Perceptions of Adolescent Adjustment: More Evidence on the Strength of Shared Perspectives. J Youth Adolescence 45, 2151–2163 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-016-0467-5
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-016-0467-5