Parent-adolescent hostility: a family systems approach

Hostile parent-adolescent relationships have negative implications for youth well-being (Laursen & Collins, 1994; Steinberg & Silk, 2002). However, predictors of parent-adolescent hostility have received modest empirical attention, and investigations of the effects of multiple family subsystems on parent-adolescent hostility are even fewer (Montemayor, 1983). Thus, family systems theory was used to examine the associations among adolescent fear of negative evaluation, parental intrusiveness, coparental support, and family cohesion during 6th grade and parent-adolescent hostility during 8th grade. Prospective and change-oriented analyses were conducted among a sample of 416 two-parent families. Mother-adolescent and father-adolescent hostility were examined in separate models. Using structural equation modeling, prospective results indicated that adolescent fear of negative evaluation during 6th grade was associated with mother-adolescent, but not father-adolescent, hostility during 8th grade. Significant associations were also found among parental intrusiveness and coparental support during 6th and 8th grade mother- and father-adolescent hostility. Change-oriented analyses indicated that only parent-adolescent hostility at 6th grade was associated with changes in parent-adolescent hostility across middle school for both mother-adolescent and father-adolescent models. Youth gender differences in prospective and change-oriented analyses were examined. Overall, the results contribute to previous research by demonstrating that the functioning among multiple family subsystems are important to investigate during early adolescence as they may be important predictors of parent-adolescent hostility.