Abstract
The purpose of this investigation was to examine discrepancies among three informants’ (adolescents, mothers, and observers) reports of maternal consulting in regard to peer relationships and the relation of the discrepancies to four social adjustment variables (prosocial behavior, loneliness, positive friendship quality, and physical victimization). An ethnically diverse sample of 70 early adolescents (51 % female) and their mothers participated in this multimethod investigation. Adolescent reports of parental consulting, but not mother or observer reports, were significantly associated with adolescent reports of four psychosocial outcomes. Recognizing that comparison of equivalent regression models can inform interpretations of the data such as the monomethod associations found in this study, this article describes and discusses a strategy for analyzing data from multiple informants. The associations of adolescent reports of parental consulting with loneliness and physical victimization could be fully explained in terms of adolescent bias or other systematic variance uniquely associated with adolescent reports, but those with prosocial behavior and positive friendship quality could not. The view that discrepancies between mother and adolescent reports of parental consulting reflect poor relationship quality appeared most applicable in models of positive friendship quality, somewhat applicable in models of prosocial behavior and physical victimization, and not applicable in models of loneliness. The view that discrepancies might reflect normative and adaptive autonomy was not supported. In addition to adding to our understanding of maternal consulting in regard to peer relationships, it is also hoped that the analytic approach developed for this study will stimulate developments in research that uses multiple informants.
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Notes
Two dimensional examples are the second simplest type of functionally equivalent sets of predictors. The simplest type is when we have one predictor of an outcome, but many readers are not likely to find one dimensional examples particularly instructive. The correlation of the predictor with an outcome can be examined. Alternatively, that predictor can be reverse-scored; examining the correlation of the reciprocal of that predictor with the outcome constitutes an alternative conceptualization of the correlation.
Level-and-difference has sometimes been referred to as “level-and-discrepancy” (e.g., Mounts 2007). We chose to reserve the use of “discrepancy” in this paper to refer to analytic approaches that incorporate interaction terms to test whether the association of an outcome with reports from one informant varies as a function of reports from another informant (e.g., Laird and De Los Reyes 2013).
The term “direct measure regression analyses” refers to regressing the standardized outcome (e.g., loneliness) on the standardized adolescent informant score, the standardized mother informant score, and the standardized observer informant score. We use the term “direct measure” here to differentiate it from regressions which used “derived” indices, but not to mean “unstandardized” or “raw score.”
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Acknowledgments
The authors wish to thank the adolescents and mothers for their participation; Cara Allen, Haeli Gerardy, Hayley Love, Taylor Nelson, Elizabeth Rusnak, and Braima Salaam for assistance with data collection and coding; and Dennis Cook for commenting on an earlier version of this manuscript.
Funding
This investigation was supported, in part, by a research grant from the Collaborative on Early Adolescence at Northern Illinois University.
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The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
Author’s Contributions
DV conceptualized the analyses for the study and drafted portions of the manuscript. NM conceived of the study, designed and coordinated the study, and drafted portions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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All procedures performed in the investigation were in accordance with the Institutional Review Board at Northern Illinois University and in accordance with the ethical standards as laid down in the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.
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Mothers provided informed, written consent prior to participating in the research investigation for themselves and their children. Adolescents provided informed written assent prior to participating in the investigation.
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Valentiner, D.P., Mounts, N.S. Method Variance in Adolescents’, Mothers’, and Observers’ Reports of Peer Management: Nuisance or Information?. J Youth Adolescence 46, 1038–1056 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-016-0595-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-016-0595-y