engleski

How do parents facilitate or inhibit adolescent disclosure? The role of adolescents’ psychological needs satisfaction

The aim of the study was to test whether the correlation between parental behaviors in the context of adolescent disclosure and adolescents’ self-reported disclosure could be explained by fulfillment of adolescents’ basic psychological needs within their relationships with mothers and fathers (Ryan & Deci, 2000). The cross-sectional data were collected from a representative sample of 1, 074 seventh-graders in Croatia. Parental facilitating behaviors (initiating conversation, support and respectful guidance) and some of the inhibiting behaviors (unavailability, punishment) were shown to be indirectly associated with adolescents’ disclosure through the perceptions of their needs satisfaction. The assumption about the unique contribution of the need-for- relatedness satisfaction in mediating the link between parental behaviors and disclosure was consistently supported, whereas the specific contribution of the need-for-autonomy was apparent only in data about mothers, but not fathers. The results are equivalent for routine disclosure and self- disclosure, suggesting that the processes through which parents facilitate or inhibit both are rather comparable.

adolescent disclosure, parental reactions to self-disclosure, psychological needs satisfaction, facilitating and inhibiting disclosure, parent-adolescent communication

DOI: 10.1177/0265407517705228 ; Article first published online: April 30, 2017 ; FAQ 8, 7 i 1, 2017-05-12, admin