engleski

Parental Behaviors in the Context of Adolescent Disclosure (PBAD): Instrument Development and Validation

Parental knowledge originates mainly from adolescents’ spontaneous disclosure (Stattin & Kerr, 2000 ; Kerr, Stattin & Burk, 2010). Although self-disclosure is certainly a voluntary activity, it is reasonable to question whether certain parental behaviors can encourage or discourage this process. Previous research has addressed contributions of general parenting dimensions in predicting adolescents’ disclosure, but less is known about the links of self-disclosure with particular parental behaviors specifically involved in disclosure-related interaction. Only a few studies explored parental reactions to youths’ disclosures (Kerr et al., 1999 ; Tilton-Weaver et al., 2010), and in addition to reactions following adolescents’ disclosures, there might be certain parental emotional states or behaviors taking place prior to actual self-disclosure that may invite or prevent adolescents' opening up. On the basis of adolescents’ accounts collected through focus groups (Tokić & Pećnik, in press), we have developed an instrument for measuring Parental Behaviors in the Context of Adolescent Disclosure (PBAD), consisting of 2 subscales: 1. PBAD – A (antecedents) and 2. PBAD – R (reactions to disclosures). In order to validate the instrument, the preliminary version of PBAD has been implemented on 1074 adolescents (13 years old) from 50 schools in Croatia (probabilistic cluster sample). Adolescents also reported on disclosure about daily activities (Stattin & Kerr, 2000), feelings and concerns (Kerr, Stattin & Trost, 1999). Youth gave estimations for mothers and fathers separately. Principal components analyses of PBAD-A resulted in four-factor solution for mothers: 1. Intrusiveness (e.g. When she wants to find out something, she interrogates me until I tell), 2. Unavailability (e.g. She’s in a hurry), 3. Inviting self-disclosure (e.g. She says that I can tell her anything, no matter what) and 4. Parental self-disclosure (e.g. She tells me about daily happenings in her life). Analyses on the estimates for fathers revealed three-factor solution (3rd and 4th factor merged). As expected, mothers’ and fathers’ “inviting self-disclosure” and “parental own self-disclosure” positively and rather highly correlate with adolescents’ actual disclosure, while the correlations of actual disclosure with “unavailability” are negative and rather small, but significant. For the “intrusiveness” factor, correlations with actual disclosure are insignificant (except for disclosing feelings and concerns to mothers). Principal components analyses of PBAD-R resulted in four-factor solution for both mothers and fathers: 1. Attention and support (e.g. He listens to every detail with interest), 2. A let-down (e.g. He devaluates the accomplishments I tell him about), 3. Punishment (e.g. He yells at me) and 4. Respectful guidance (e.g. He calmly expresses disapproval). As expected, adolescents’ actual disclosure rather highly correlates with mothers’ and fathers’ “attention and support” as well as with “respectful guidance”. Correlations of “a let-down” and “punishment” factors with actual disclosure are negative and small to moderate. Latent structures of PBAD-A and PBAD-R are interpretable and reasonably congruent for mothers and fathers. Internal consistence coefficients for all factors are acceptable (0.68 – 0.90). Most of the extracted factors of PBAD correlate with actual disclosure to parents significantly and in predicted direction, which supports the predictive and construct validity of the instrument.

instrument development; parental behaviors; self disclosure; adolescents; perceptions; emotional states; inhibitors; inviters; negative reactions; positive reactions

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