Publications

Mother-adolescent interactions are important contexts for teens to develop essential autonomy and relatedness skills. The Autonomy and Relatedness Coding System was designed to measure these behaviors and is based on four a priori theoretical categories, including behaviors promoting autonomy, behaviors undermining autonomy, behaviors promoting relatedness, and behaviors undermining relatedness. The current study used Exploratory Graph Analysis (EGA) to examine the underlying dimensional structure of autonomy and relatedness behaviors in mother-adolescent interactions and compare this structure to the theoretical categories. Participants were 184 mother-adolescent dyads participating in a larger longitudinal study of adolescent social development. Mothers and adolescents (M_age = 13.35, SD = 0.64) discussed an area of disagreement. These interactions were coded for nine different autonomy and relatedness behaviors displayed by mothers and adolescents. EGA results revealed a three-dimensional structure for both adolescents' behaviors toward mothers and mothers' behaviors toward adolescents. These three-dimensional models fit the data significantly better than the theoretical four-dimensional model. Bootstrap EGA results further replicated the three-dimensional structure. These findings suggest that EGA is a useful tool for examining the dimensional structure of autonomy and relatedness behaviors in mother-adolescent interactions and provide more nuanced insights into the developmental differences of these behaviors in mothers versus teens.

Adolescence is a period of important neurobiological, social and cognitive changes. Under optimal conditions, adolescents are supported by parents who allow autonomy seeking while maintaining involvement and a strong relationship with their adolescent. Pubertal and neurobiological changes, alterations in adolescents’ sleep cycles, and changes in adolescents’ relationships with parents, peers, and schools (e.g., transitions to middle or high school), as well as increases in risk-taking are but a few of the changes that provide challenges to healthy adolescent development. These are exacerbated for adolescents in foster care who often experience changes in caregivers and transitions between neighborhoods and schools. The foster care system often fails to support navigating developmental challenges successfully. This consensus statement on youth in foster care makes a case for a developmentally informed system of care. Although we avoid making specific policy and practice recommendations, we identify general areas where research can inform change.

Adolescent friendships offer a crucial context for learning to seek social support. Through repeated social support encounters, adolescents take in social information and shape their own development. The current study characterizes adolescents’ support-seeking discussion topics with close friends, how the topics are influenced by adolescent age and gender, and how they are related to interpersonal processes in close friendships. A community sample of 184 adolescents (85 boys, 99 girls; 58% white, 29% Black, 13% other identity groups) participated annually from age 13 to 18. Through these six waves of data collection, participants completed a total of 859 support-seeking interactions, from which 10 thematic codes were identified. Support-seeking about socially oriented topics (e.g., conflicts with peers, romantic interests) appeared consistently across adolescence, while participants increasingly discussed future-oriented topics (e.g., considering college or work plans) with their friends as they aged. Selection of socially-oriented topics was more common among female dyads and was associated with higher friendship quality, self-disclosure, and emotional support in conversations between adolescent close friends.

This study examines the development of vulnerable self-disclosure in supportive interactions from ages 13 to 29. A diverse community sample (N = 184; 85 boys 99 girls; 58% white, 29% Black, 13% other identity groups) participated in annual observed interactions with close friends and romantic partners. Participants were observed as they sought and provided support to their best friends each year from age 13 to 18, and as they sought support from their romantic partners from age 19 to 29. Random intercept cross-lagged panel models were used to parse markers of within-individual change in vulnerable self-disclosure observed annually across ages 13 to 18. A follow-up regression model also investigated cascading associations from vulnerable self-disclosure in adolescent friendships to vulnerable self-disclosure in adult romantic relationships. When adolescents sought support, they demonstrated greater-than-expected increases in self-disclosure each year when their best friends demonstrated relatively high self-disclosure. For girls in this sample, when providing support, they demonstrated greater-than-expected decreases in self-disclosure each year when their best friends demonstrated relatively high self-disclosure. Adolescents whose friends disclosed highly to them also tended to express more vulnerability with romantic partners in adulthood. Post-hoc analyses investigate the role of friendship stability and gender as potential moderators of self-disclosure development. The best friendship, a key source of emotional support, serves as a foundational context for learning appropriate use of vulnerable self-disclosure when seeking and providing emotional support, which persists across time and relationships.

The present study examines greater use of the word “you” (i.e., you-talk) during couple’s conflict as linked to conflict behaviors and relational aggression. The way couples navigate relationship conflict is a key risk factor for relational aggression, and investigating conflict microprocesses can inform intervention efforts. In this study, 184 target participants (86 men, 98 women; 58% White, 29% African American, 8% mixed race/ethnicity, 5% other groups) were observed interacting with their parents at age 13 and with romantic partners at ages 20 and 27 to examine origins of you-talk usage and its links to romantic relationship dysfunction. Links were explored in a series of hierarchical linear regressions. Adverse conflict navigation behaviors established in one’s family-of-origin during adolescence (i.e., autonomy-relatedness undermining behavior) predicted target’s use of you-talk during conflict with their romantic partners at age 20. You-talk was concurrently associated with autonomy-relatedness undermining behavior and relational aggression, and you-talk in turn predicted a relative increase in both undermining behavior and relational aggression at age 27. Use of you-talk is discussed as disrupting key features of conflict navigation and having potential developmental origins which may serve as targets in efforts to reduce relational aggression.

Empathy requires the ability to understand another’s point of view and is critical for motivating a person to help others. However, little is known about the link between experiences of empathic emotional engagement in close friendships during adolescence and neural correlates of empathy in adulthood. Beginning in 1998, N = 88 participants drawn from a demographically diverse community sample were observed annually from ages 13 to 21 and rated on the amount of emotional engagement displayed toward a close friend during a support task. At approximately age 24, participants underwent functional brain imaging while a partner or stranger was under distress. Contrary to predictions, greater emotional engagement with close friends during adolescence corresponded prospectively with reduced temporal pole activity (a region associated with cognitive empathy and perspective taking) while observing threats directed at others. Results have implications for understanding the neurodevelopmental roots of empathy.

This study examined the predictors and sequelae of exposure to peer pressure from close friends in adolescence. Adolescents (99 female; 85 male) were followed from age 13 to 24 utilizing peer, parent, and romantic partner reports and observational data. Participants who were exposed to high levels of peer pressure as teens were more likely to experience higher levels of coercive behavior from romantic partners (as reported by those partners), as well as lower levels of parent-reported functional independence. All findings held even after accounting for baseline levels of teen assertiveness. Adolescents at risk for increasing exposure to peer pressure were characterized by poor-quality parent and peer relationships, as well as baseline deficits in ability to assert autonomy. Results suggest that exposure to peer pressure, aside from its potential effects on deviant or risky behavior, may reflect a powerful threat to the autonomy development process as adolescents transition from parents to peers as primary sources of support and interaction.

The oxytocin system plays a role in social stress adaptation, and this role is likely to be particularly important in adolescence. One method of regulating the oxytocin system is through DNA methylation in the promoter of the oxytocin receptor gene (OXTRm), which reduces the gene’s expression. This multi-method, longitudinal study, using a diverse community sample of 184 adolescents followed from age 13–28, examined the links between OXTRm and exposure to over-controlling parenting in adolescence and conflict with romantic partners and internalizing symptoms in adulthood. Female, but not male, adolescents who were exposed to psychologically controlling parenting at age 13 had lower levels of OXTRm at site −924 at age 28. Reduced OXTRm at site −924 was associated with greater romantic partner-reported relationship conflict at age 27, and reduced OXTRm at site −934 was marginally associated with greater participant-reported conflict for males. Reduced OXTRm at site −924 was also associated with fewer internalizing symptoms at ages 24–25. These results in adulthood are consistent with an upregulated oxytocin system reducing the salience of negative socioemotional stimuli. Overall, findings are consistent with oxytocin playing a role in the stress response system, and more specifically, by helping us to adapt to social environments like parenting and romantic relationships, reducing the salience of negativity, and reducing risk for common emotional problems.

Fathers play a critical yet underappreciated role in adolescent development. To examine contributions of fathers’ parenting to attachment in adolescence and adulthood, this longitudinal study followed 184 adolescents from ages 13–24. At age 13, adolescents reported on their fathers’ parenting behavior and were observed in a father–teen conflict task; at ages 14 and 24, they completed the Adult Attachment Interview. Adolescents who lived with their father showed higher attachment security at age 14 (Cohen’s d = .72), compared to those with non-residential fathers. Fathers’ positive relatedness and support for teens’ psychological autonomy predicted attachment security at age 14. Fathers’ physical aggression predicted attachment insecurity in adolescence, whereas fathers’ verbal aggression predicted insecurity in adulthood, illuminating developmental shifts. Pathways to security were moderated by father residential status, adolescent gender, and race. Findings underscore the importance of fathers’ presence, autonomy support, and non-aggression in predicting adolescents’ state of mind in close relationships.