Adolescents' intimacy with parents and friends.

Field, Tiffany ; Lang, Claudia ; Yando, Regina 等

Separate literatures support the importance of intimate relationships of adolescents with parents and peers. In studies on adolescents' relationships with parents, the majority of adolescents have been noted to feel close to and get along with their parents (Richardson, Galambos, Schulenberg, & Petersen, 1984). The parent relationship literature, however, contains very little data on the association between adolescents' intimacy with their parents and other psychological variables such as self-esteem and depression or problem behaviors characteristic of adolescence including drug use and risk-taking.

In contrast, in the literature on adolescents' relationships with peers, those adolescents with supportive friendships are noted to have greater self-esteem, less depression, and better adjustment to school (Berndt & Savin-Williams, in press). Because the parent and peer relationship literatures do not overlap, little is known about the relative relationships between intimacy with parents and friends and these other important psychological and problem-behavior variables.

The purpose of the present study was to determine how intimacy with mother, father, and close friend varied as a function of demographic variables (sex, ethnicity, and SES), social and school variables (family responsibility-taking, sex of friends, presence of boyfriend/girlfriend, interest in school, and academic expectations), psychological variables (self-esteem and depression), and problem behaviors (drug use and risk-taking). Several of these variables were categorical, and others were submitted to median splits with intimacy scale scores as dependent measures.

METHOD

Subjects

A questionnaire comprised of several scales was administered to 455 adolescents ranging in age from 14 to 19 years (M = 16.6). Half the adolescents were female (54%), and their ethnicity consisted of 33% white non-Hispanic, 48% Hispanic, 12% black, and 5% Asian, with the remaining 2% from a variety of ethnic backgrounds. Distribution of their socioeconomic status was 17% low to low middle, 50% middle, and 33% upper middle to upper class.

Procedure

The questionnaire was administered anonymously to the students in their classrooms near the end of the school year. Students were informed that the purpose of the study was to learn more about their interpersonal relationships and how they felt about different areas affecting their lives. The scales required 45 minutes to complete, and answers were checked on computer scan sheets.

Measures

The questionnaire tapped the following areas of interest:

Background and Lifestyle (Field & Yando, 1991). This section includes questions on demographics (gender, ethnicity, and self-perceived socioeconomic status), relationships (number of close friends, gender of friends, and presence of boyfriend/girlfriend), school (interest in school and academic expectations), problem behaviors (suicidal thoughts and drug/alcohol use), and self-contentment.

Intimacy (Blyth & Foster-Clark, 1987). This scale (Cronbach's alpha = .85; test-retest reliability = .81) assesses level of intimacy with mother, father, and best friend. Examples of the 24 questions, which are divided into 3 subscales (one for mother, one for father, and one for best friend) are: How important is your mother/father/best friend) to you? The five-choice answers vary from "Not at All" to "Very Much." High scores signify greater intimacy.

Family Responsibility (Field & Yando, 1991). This 10-item scale (Cronbach's alpha = .65; test-retest reliability = .81) was developed to tap students' feelings of responsibility within the family. Examples of the questions include inquiries about doing housework, making mother/father (to whomever the student feels closest) feel better when she/he is "down," and having more responsibilities than peers. Likert-type answers with four choices range from "Rarely" to "Very Often."

Self-Esteem (Field & Yando, 1991). On this scale students are asked to compare themselves to their peers on the following 20 descriptors: confident, anxious, happy, fearful, competitive, ambitious, hard-working, good-looking, good in sports, creative, independent, angry, honest, generous, caring, expressive, outgoing, sentimental, good at school work, and moody (Cronbach's alpha = .66; test-retest reliability = .83). The questions were asked as follows: Compared to my peers I would say I am generally (e.g., confident: a) Less; b) The Same; c) More).

Depressed Mood (Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale, CES-D; Radloff, 1991). This 20-item scale was included to assess depressive symptoms. The subject is asked to report on his/her feelings during the preceding week. The scale has been standardized for high school populations (Radloff, 1991), and has adequate test-retest reliability (.80 - .90) internal consistency, and concurrent validity (Wells, Klerman, & Deykin, 1987). Test-retest reliability over a one-month period for the current sample was .79.

Risk-Taking (Field & Yando, 1991). The risk-taking scale was designed to tap sports-related and danger-related risk-taking behavior, and was accordingly divided into these two subscales (Cronbach's alpha = .69; test-retest reliability = .84). Thirteen items comprise the "sports-related" risk-taking subscale, and nine items comprise the "danger-related" risk-taking subscale.

Drug Use. Four items, taken from the background information, were used to assess drug abuse. These included questions on smoking and the use of alcohol, marijuana, and cocaine. The answers to these four-choice Likert-type questions range from "Regularly" to "Never," with higher scores signifying more drug use. The questions are asked in the past tense so that students even though the scale was anonymous, would not feel incriminated by their answers.

RESULTS

For these analyses categorical variables and median splits were used to define high and low groups. MANOVAs on the three different clusters (demographic variables, family and school variables, and psychological variables) yielded significant effects. These were followed by univariate ANOVAs on the individual variables within clusters. These analyses were performed with intimacy scale scores as dependent measures.

Demographic Variables

As can be seen in Table 1, intimacy varied as a function of demographic factors as follows: (1) females vs. males reported greater intimacy with their mothers and friends; (2) white and Hispanic vs. black students reported greater intimacy with their fathers and friends; and (3) middle- and upper-class vs. lower-class students reported greater intimacy with their mothers and fathers

Family, Friends, and School Variables

As can be seen in Table 2, the following effects emerged: (1) family responsibility-taking: students with high scores on this scale reported greater intimacy with their mothers, fathers, and best friends; (2) same-sex friends: students with same-sex friends were more intimate with their mothers than were students with opposite-sex friends, and students who had friends from both sexes reported being more intimate with their friends than did students with friends exclusively from the same or opposite sex; (3) boyfriend/girlfriend: students who had a boy/girlfriend reported being less intimate with their friends; (4) interest in school: students who were interested in school some or most or the [TABULAR DATA FOR TABLE 1 OMITTED] [TABULAR DATA FOR TABLE 2 OMITTED] time vs. hardly ever were more intimate with their mothers; and (5) higher education: students who reported that they would expect to finish high school, college or a graduate degree indicated greater intimacy with their mothers and fathers than did students who said they would quit school as soon as possible.

Psychological Variables

As can be seen in Table 3, all of the psychological variables related to intimacy with mothers (except drug use) and fathers (except drug use and risk-taking) as follows: (1) self-esteem: students with high self-esteem had more intimate relationships with their mothers and fathers; (2) depression: students with higher depression scores had less intimacy with their mothers and fathers; (3) suicidal thoughts: [TABULAR DATA FOR TABLE 3 OMITTED] students who regularly had suicidal thoughts had less intimacy with their mothers and fathers vs. those who never had suicidal thoughts; (4) drug use: no drug use effects were noted; and (5) danger risk-taking: students who scored low on danger risk-taking reported more intimacy with their mothers than did students who scored high on danger risk-taking. None of the psychological variables differentiated students with high and low intimacy with friends.

To further explore the relationship between psychological variables and intimacy with mothers, fathers, and friends, correlation analyses were performed. As can be seen in Table 4, the greatest number of significant correlations involved the "intimacy with mother" variable. This was correlated with all variables: measures of well-being including positive relationships with self-esteem and happiness with self and negative relationships with depression, danger risk-taking, and drugs. Intimacy with fathers was correlated with the same measures of well-being excluding danger risk-taking and drug consumption. While intimacy with friends was correlated with intimacy with mothers and with happiness, and negatively correlated with danger risk-taking, intimacy with friends was not correlated with the other measures. Table 4 Correlations Between Psychological and Intimacy Variables Variables Intimacy Intimacy Intimacy with Mother with Father with Friends r r Intimacy w/ Mom 1.00 Intimacy w/ Dad .41(*) 1.00 Intimacy w/ Friends .15(*) .05 1.00 Family Responsibility .39(*) .30(*) .06 Self-Esteem .24(*) .22(*) .08 Happiness w/ Self .42(*) .37(*) .16(*) Depression -.23(*) -.31(*) -.02 Risk (Danger) -.14(*) .07 -.16(*) Drugs -.12(*) .04 .03 * (p [less than] .01)

DISCUSSION

Not surprisingly, adolescents' perceived intimacy varied as a function of demographic variables including gender and socioeconomic status. Greater perceived intimacy on the part of females with mothers and friends is consistent with the literature on adults who report greater intimacy among females, perhaps related to their greater tendency to self-disclose and greater interest in relationships. Greater intimacy with parents among middle- and upper-class students may relate to the greater accessibility of parents in smaller families, with lower-class families being notably larger and with father frequently absent.

The association between parental intimacy and family responsibility-taking as well as greater interest in school and higher education are probably related to social desirability factors and concern about pleasing parents. Having friends exclusively from the same or opposite sex (boyfriend/girlfriend) as in an "exclusive relationship," limited intimacy with both parents and friends.

The relationships between parental intimacy and psychological variables were not surprising given similar findings in the literature (Leung & Leung, 1992; Richardson et al., 1984). However, the apparent lack of relationship between peer intimacy and psychological variables was surprising, not only because others have noted positive effects of peer intimacy (Berndt & Savin-Williams, in press), but because adolescence is typically considered a time when students are becoming increasingly autonomous from parents while moving closer to their peers. Students in this sample who had higher self-esteem, less depression, and no suicidal thoughts felt more intimate with their parents (and those low on danger risk-taking were more intimate with their mothers). None of these variables differentiated high and low peer intimacy, and no effects were noted for drug use. However, in a correlation analysis, greater risk-taking was marginally but negatively related to mother and peer intimacy, and drug taking was marginally negatively related to intimacy with mother.

The greatest number of relationships for family, school, and psychological well-being variables were noted for intimacy with mother. Students who felt greater intimacy perceived themselves as having more socially desirable behaviors/aspirations and reported greater well-being. If the maternal relationship can be thought of as the most stable (in terms of duration and/or exposure) in a person's life, that relationship could in turn be contributing to greater perceived stability in the adolescent.

The authors thank the students and teachers who participated in this study. This research was supported by an NIMH Research Scientist Award (#MH00331) and an NIMH Research Grant (#MH40779) to Tiffany Field.

REFERENCES

Berndt, T. J., & Savin-Williams, R. C. (in press). Variations in friendships and peer-group relationships in adolescence. In P. Tolan, & B. Cohler (Eds.), Handbook of clinical research and practice with adolescents. New York: Wiley.

Blyth, D. A., & Foster-Clark, F. S. (1987). Gender differences in perceived intimacy with different members of adolescents' social networks. Sex Roles, 17, 689-719.

Field, T. M., & Yando, R. (1991). Adolescents' Self-Perceptions scales. Unpublished Scales.

Leung, J., & Leung, K. (1992). Life satisfaction, self-concept, and relationship with parents in adolescence. Journal of Youth & Adolescence, 21(6), 653-665.

Radloff, L. S. (1991). The use of the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale in adolescents and young adults. Special Issue: The emergence of depressive symptoms during adolescence. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 20(2), 149-166.

Richardson, R. A., Galambos, N. L., Schulenberg, J. E., & Petersen, A. C. (1984). Young adolescents perceptions of the family environment. Journal of Early Adolescence, 4, 131-153.

Wells, V. E., Klerman, G. L., & Deykin, E. Y. (1987). The prevalence of depressive symptoms in college students. Social Psychiatry, 22, 20-28.