Parent-Adolescent Discrepancies Regarding Adolescents’ Peer-Related Loneliness: Associations with Adolescent Adjustment

Because loneliness is a subjective experience, it is often examined using self-reports. Yet, researchers have started to use other-reports to examine loneliness. As previous research suggests that discrepancies between self- and other views might have important implications for adolescents’ mental h...

Full description

Saved in:

Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Journal of youth and adolescence Vol. 46; no. 5; pp. 1104 - 1116
Main Authors:	Spithoven, Annette W. M., Vanhalst, Janne, Lodder, Gerine, Bijttebier, Patricia, Goossens, Luc
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	English
Published:	New York Springer US 01.05.2017 Springer Nature B.V
Subjects:	Adjustment Adolescent Adolescent Behavior - psychology Adolescent Development Adolescents Aggression Aggression - psychology Aggressiveness Behavior Behavior Rating Scales Behavioral Science and Psychology Behavioral Science Research Behavioral Sciences Check Lists Child and School Psychology Child Behavior Child development Children & youth Clinical Psychology Emotional Adjustment Emotional Response Empirical Research Female Health Psychology History of Psychology Humans Interpersonal Competence Late Adolescents Law and Psychology Loneliness Loneliness - psychology Male Mental health Mothers Mothers - psychology Observer Variation Parents Parents & parenting Parents - psychology Peers Prosocial Behavior Psychology Psychology, Adolescent Questionnaires Regression analysis Researcher subject relations Researchers Resistance (Psychology) School Psychology Self Report Social Adjustment Social behavior Social research Teenagers New York Netherlands Belgium United States > US Loneliness Parent-reports Discrepancies Aggressive behavior Adolescents Prosocial behavior
ISSN:	0047-2891, 1573-6601, 1573-6601
Online Access:	Get full text
Tags:	Add Tag No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!

Description
Summary:	Because loneliness is a subjective experience, it is often examined using self-reports. Yet, researchers have started to use other-reports to examine loneliness. As previous research suggests that discrepancies between self- and other views might have important implications for adolescents’ mental health, the current study examines discrepancies in multi-informant reports on adolescents’ loneliness in relation with prosocial behavior, aggression, and adolescents’ parent-related loneliness. The sample consisted of 374 mother-adolescent dyads and 318 father-adolescent dyads (41.80% male, M age = 15.67 years, SD = 1.25). Results indicated that informants used different reference points to assess adolescents’ peer-related loneliness, but were otherwise comparable. Moreover, informant discrepancies were associated with greater adolescents’ reported parent-related loneliness. The current study did not provide evidence that discrepancies were related to prosocial or aggressive behavior. The current study adds to the notion that other-reports on loneliness show substantial convergence with self-reports. In addition, this study indicates that the discrepancy between other- and self-reports on loneliness holds valuable information for adolescent socio-emotional adjustment.
Bibliography:	ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 14 content type line 23
ISSN:	0047-2891 1573-6601 1573-6601
DOI:	10.1007/s10964-017-0662-z