Adolescents’ and Parents’ Views and Expectancies After Finishing J. Gowert

1. Adolescents’ and Parents’ Views and Expectancies After Finishing J. Gowert Download: http://www.tu-darmstadt.de/fb/fb3/psy/diffpsy/05srcd.ppt  E-mail: masche@psychologie.tu- • Question • Individuation theorists assume an increase of autonomy and a stable and increasingly symmetric parent-adolescent connectedness over age. Do adolescents and parents expect this, too? • What expectancies do family members have during a developmental transition, i.e. school-to-work transition? • Do actual changes follow these expectancies? • Do the changes adhere to the concept of developmental tasks? • Methods • Sample: 52 intact families (adolescents, mothers, fathers) with adolescents leaving middle school 3 months after Time I (mean age about 17). Time II at begin of professional training (school-to-work transition, 42% of sample) or of further school (no transition). Time III 3 months later. 63% of adolescents females. German, mostly urban sample. • Interview questions asked twice: Present view & expectancy for six months later. • Factor analyses for each family member, separately for time and present view/expectancy. Two factors explained 50% of variance on average. • Factor solution for adolescents, Time I, present view: • Family members expected increase in autonomy *** • Increase of perceived and expected autonomy especially towards Time II when the new school or apprenticeship started *** • If status transition from school to work, greater increase expected * • (***p<.001, *p<.05) • Is increasing autonomy a developmental task? • If so, change should follow expectations. This is tested in two ways: • On average, the difference between concurrent expectancy and present view should be larger than the difference between expectancy and present view at the subsequent time of measurement. •  From Time I to Time II, significant for adolescents and fathers, approaching significance for mothers. • The difference between present view and expectancy should be correlated with the actual change between adjacent times. •  Always significant in both time intervals for all family members (r = .35-.60). Items set in italics were later excluded from analyses in order to improve scale properties. In spite of the small sample, the factor solution was highly stable. After target rotation, all factor analyses (separately for time, family member, and present/expectancy) showed a median similar-ity of .88 (range: .70-.93), except for parents’ expectancies at Time I (mothers: .53, fathers: .65). Family members used concepts of autonomy and connectedness. Parents partly adopted these concepts from adolescents. Family members expected increasing autonomy with time and after school-to-work transition, and the autonomy actually increased. As hypothesized, if adolescents’ autonomy increase is a developmental task, autonomy change followed the expectations of all family members.

2. for the Development of Autonomy and Connectedness Middle School Masche darmstadt.de (watch the “ie”) URL: http://www.tu-darmstadt.de/fb/fb3/psy/diffpsy/jgmfrme.htm Summary and Discussion The study investigated what changes of their relationships adolescents and parents expect after adolescents finish school. Second, actual changes were compared to these expectancies. Third, it was tested if developmental tasks could explain the results. • Like theorists, also adolescents and their parents used the concepts of autonomy and con-nectedness. Parents’ expectancies, however, did at Time I not fully fit these concepts, i.e., parents adopted their children’s concepts after the first time of measurement. • The family members – in part especially adolescents – expected increases of autonomy and declines of parent-adolescent connectedness with time and in the course of school-to-work transition. The perceived changes of relationships met these expectations. With increasing autonomy, further increases were expected. The decline of connectedness, on the contrary, did not lead to the expectancy of further declines. • For autonomy, the results were consistent with predictions made if autonomy increase was a mutual developmental task of all family members. The decrease of connectedness did not appear as a developmental task but just “happened”. • Family members expected decline in connectedness *** • Adolescents expected greater decline than fathers *** • Over time, present view approached expectancy ** • Mothers assessed connectedness higher than adolescents *** • If status transition from school to work, greater decline expected ** • (***p<.001, **p<.01) • Is declining connectedness a developmental task? • If so, change should follow expectations. This is tested in two ways: • On average, the difference between concurrent expectancy and present view should be larger than the difference between expectancy and present view at the subsequent time of measurement. •  In general, not significant • The difference between present view and expectancy should be correlated with the actual change between adjacent times. •  Only valid for fathers (r = .37* and .42** between Times I/II and II/III, resp.) Family members’ expectancies and actual changes of autonomy were consistent with Individua-tion Theory (Youniss & Smollar, 1985). In contrast to Individuation Theory, parent-adolescent connectedness declined after school-to-work transition. That is, families did not expect and undergo the proposed process of individuation, but rather a modest process of detachment. The measure of connectedness was focused on the issue of being together with family mem-bers, which may limit the generalizability of findings. However, also earlier studies did not find indicators of the peer-like mutuality that is proposed by Individuation Theory: Adolescents’ influence on parents kept limited to adolescents’ own needs (Masche et al., 2003), and emo-tional support and advice for parents were rare and did generally not increase by young adult-hood (Masche & van Dulmen, 2004). Conclusions: (a) Adolescents as well as their parents aimed at promoting adolescents’ autonomy after leaving school and during school-to-work transition (shared developmental task). (b) Parent-adolescent connectedness decreased as expected by the family members, confirming a process of partial detachment rather than individuation. Family members, especially adolescents, expected declining connectedness with time and after school-to-work transition and underwent such a decline. This, however, “happened” and did not appear as an individual developmental task.