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Early Adolescents’ Unique Perspectives of Maternal and Paternal Rejection: Examining Their Across-Dyad Generalizability and Relations with Adjustment 1 Year Later

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Abstract

Parental rejection is linked to deep and enduring adjustment problems during adolescence. This study aims to further clarify this relation by demonstrating what has long been posited by parental acceptance/rejection theory but never validated empirically—namely that adolescents’ unique or subjective experience of parental rejection independently informs their future adjustment. Among a longitudinal, multi-informant sample of 161 families (early adolescents were 47 % female and 40 % European American) this study utilized a multitrait–multimethod confirmatory factor analysis to isolate for each early adolescent–parent dyad, the adolescent’s distinct view of parental rejection (i.e., the adolescent unique perspective) from the portion of his or her view that overlaps with his or her parent’s view. The findings indicated that adolescents’ unique perspectives of maternal rejection were not differentiated from their unique perspectives of paternal rejection. Also, consistent with parental acceptance–rejection theory, early adolescents’ unique perspectives of parental rejection were associated with worse adjustment (internalizing and externalizing) 1 year later. This study further demonstrates the utility and validity of the multitrait–multimethod confirmatory factor analysis approach for identifying and examining adolescent unique perspectives. Both conceptually and analytically, this study also integrates research focused on unique perspectives with a distinct but related line of research focused on discrepancies in perspectives.

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Notes

  1. These covariances account for variance unique to the adolescent that is not dyad-specific but is specific to a given facet of rejection.

  2. These covariances capture any shared variance across mother and father reports that is independent of shared variance across mother and father reports already accounted for via the covariance between adolescent–mother and adolescent–father dyad perspectives.

  3. Although there is evidence to support the validity of the interactive multiple regression approach (Laird and De Los Reyes 2013), recent work (Laird and Des Los Reyes 2013; De Los Reyes et al. 2013) strongly questions the validity of the discrepancy score approach. Consequently, we caution researchers against using the discrepancy score approach to examine adolescent–parent discrepancies.

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Acknowledgments

DP and MB were supported by the Intramural Research Program of the NIH, NICHD. This research has been funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development grant RO1-HD054805.

Author Contributions

JJ conceived of the study, designed the analyses plan, carried out a bulk of the analyses, and drafted the majority of the manuscript; AM assisted in the design of the study and performed statistical analyses; DA helped craft the manuscript; DP assisted in the design of the study and helped craft the manuscript; MB assisted in the design of the study and helped craft the manuscript; JL provided feedback on the manuscript and is a principal investigator of the project that produced the data used here; KD is a principle investigator of the project that produced the data used here; AS provided feedback on the manuscript and is a principle investigator of the project that produced the data used here; KDD provided feedback on the manuscript and is a principle investigator of the project that produced the data used here. All authors read and approved the final version of the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. T. Denny Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics, Arizona State University, PO Box 873701, Tempe, AZ, 85287-3701, USA

    Justin Jager & Danming An

  2. Department of Psychology and Social Behavior, University of California, Irvine, 5300 Social and Behavioral Sciences Gateway, Irvine, CA, 92697-7050, USA

    Alissa Mahler

  3. Child and Family Research, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, 6705 Rockledge Drive, Bethesda, MD, 20892, USA

    Diane L. Putnick & Marc H. Bornstein

  4. Center for Child and Family Policy, Duke University, Box 90545, Durham, NC, 27708-0545, USA

    Jennifer E. Lansford, Kenneth A. Dodge & Ann T. Skinner

  5. Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, 441 Tobin Hall, Amherst, MA, 01003, USA

    Kirby Deater-Deckard

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  1. Justin Jager
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  2. Alissa Mahler
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  3. Danming An
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  4. Diane L. Putnick
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  9. Kirby Deater-Deckard
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Correspondence to Justin Jager.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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All parents signed statements of informed consent, and all adolescents signed statements of assent.

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Jager, J., Mahler, A., An, D. et al. Early Adolescents’ Unique Perspectives of Maternal and Paternal Rejection: Examining Their Across-Dyad Generalizability and Relations with Adjustment 1 Year Later. J Youth Adolescence 45, 2108–2124 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-016-0509-z

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