Do You See What I See? Longitudinal Associations Between Mothers’ and Adolescents’ Perceptions of Their Relationship and Adolescent Internalizing Symptoms

Stefanie Nelemans; Stefanos Mastrotheodoros; Leyla Çiftçi; Wim Meeus; Susan Branje

doi:10.1007/s10802-022-00975-5

Do You See What I See? Longitudinal Associations Between Mothers’ and Adolescents’ Perceptions of Their Relationship and Adolescent Internalizing Symptoms

Stefanie Nelemans, Stefanos Mastrotheodoros, Leyla Çiftçi, Wim Meeus, Susan Branje

Utrecht, the Netherlands

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Academic › peer-review

Abstract

This 6-year community study examined how discrepancies in mothers’ and adolescents’ perceptions of their relationship were longitudinally associated with adolescent internalizing symptoms, and vice versa. 497 adolescents (57% boys, Mage T1 = 13.03, SDage = 0.46) and their mothers reported in 6 annual waves on conflict and warmth in the mother-adolescent relationship and adolescents reported on their depressive and Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) symptoms. Latent Congruence Models suggested that both adolescent depressive and GAD symptoms significantly predicted higher levels of conflict as well as stronger discrepancies in perceptions of conflict 1-year later. In turn, higher levels of conflict significantly predicted both adolescent depressive and GAD symptoms 1-year later. For warmth, lower levels significantly predicted adolescent depressive symptoms 1-year later. Concluding, these findings suggest (1) more systematic evidence for longitudinal associations between conflict than warmth in the mother-adolescent relationship and adolescent internalizing symptoms; (2) support for a transactional model, including support for both interpersonal scar or symptom-driven effects (concerning both levels of and mother-adolescent discrepancies in conflict) and interpersonal risk or relationship-driven effects (concerning levels of both conflict and warmth); (3) longitudinal effects from adolescent internalizing symptoms to mother-adolescent discrepancies, but not vice versa; and (4) strong consistency in patterns of findings across both adolescent depressive and GAD symptoms, with few differential longitudinal associations with aspects of mother-adolescent relationship quality. Thereby, this study provides a more nuanced understanding of the direction of effects between adolescent internalizing symptoms and both levels of and discrepancies in mothers’ and adolescents’ perceptions of their relationship.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	177–192
Number of pages	16
Journal	Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology
Volume	51
Early online date	17 Sept 2022
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-022-00975-5
Publication status	Published - Feb 2023

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This research was funded by Vietnam National Foundation for Science and Technology Development (NAFOSTED) under grant number 501.02-2016.03. Implementation of the project used research infrastructure developed by U.S. National Institutes of Health, Fogarty International Center Grant D43-TW009089. The Redcap system used for online collection of the delay discounting data was supported by the U.S. National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, CTSA award #UL1 TR002243. The content of this report is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of any of these institutions.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022, The Author(s).

Keywords

Adolescence
Informant discrepancies
Internalizing symptoms
Latent Congruence Modeling
Longitudinal
Parent-adolescent relationship quality

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This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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Cite this

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title = "Do You See What I See? Longitudinal Associations Between Mothers{\textquoteright} and Adolescents{\textquoteright} Perceptions of Their Relationship and Adolescent Internalizing Symptoms",

abstract = "This 6-year community study examined how discrepancies in mothers{\textquoteright} and adolescents{\textquoteright} perceptions of their relationship were longitudinally associated with adolescent internalizing symptoms, and vice versa. 497 adolescents (57% boys, Mage T1 = 13.03, SDage = 0.46) and their mothers reported in 6 annual waves on conflict and warmth in the mother-adolescent relationship and adolescents reported on their depressive and Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) symptoms. Latent Congruence Models suggested that both adolescent depressive and GAD symptoms significantly predicted higher levels of conflict as well as stronger discrepancies in perceptions of conflict 1-year later. In turn, higher levels of conflict significantly predicted both adolescent depressive and GAD symptoms 1-year later. For warmth, lower levels significantly predicted adolescent depressive symptoms 1-year later. Concluding, these findings suggest (1) more systematic evidence for longitudinal associations between conflict than warmth in the mother-adolescent relationship and adolescent internalizing symptoms; (2) support for a transactional model, including support for both interpersonal scar or symptom-driven effects (concerning both levels of and mother-adolescent discrepancies in conflict) and interpersonal risk or relationship-driven effects (concerning levels of both conflict and warmth); (3) longitudinal effects from adolescent internalizing symptoms to mother-adolescent discrepancies, but not vice versa; and (4) strong consistency in patterns of findings across both adolescent depressive and GAD symptoms, with few differential longitudinal associations with aspects of mother-adolescent relationship quality. Thereby, this study provides a more nuanced understanding of the direction of effects between adolescent internalizing symptoms and both levels of and discrepancies in mothers{\textquoteright} and adolescents{\textquoteright} perceptions of their relationship.",

keywords = "Adolescence, Informant discrepancies, Internalizing symptoms, Latent Congruence Modeling, Longitudinal, Parent-adolescent relationship quality",

author = "Stefanie Nelemans and Stefanos Mastrotheodoros and Leyla {\c C}ift{\c c}i and Wim Meeus and Susan Branje",

note = "Funding Information: This research was funded by Vietnam National Foundation for Science and Technology Development (NAFOSTED) under grant number 501.02-2016.03. Implementation of the project used research infrastructure developed by U.S. National Institutes of Health, Fogarty International Center Grant D43-TW009089. The Redcap system used for online collection of the delay discounting data was supported by the U.S. National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, CTSA award #UL1 TR002243. The content of this report is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of any of these institutions. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2022, The Author(s).",

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doi = "10.1007/s10802-022-00975-5",

language = "English",

volume = "51",

pages = "177–192",

journal = "Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology",

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Do You See What I See? Longitudinal Associations Between Mothers’ and Adolescents’ Perceptions of Their Relationship and Adolescent Internalizing Symptoms. / Nelemans, Stefanie; Mastrotheodoros, Stefanos; Çiftçi, Leyla et al.
In: Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology, Vol. 51, 02.2023, p. 177–192.

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Academic › peer-review

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AU - Nelemans, Stefanie

AU - Mastrotheodoros, Stefanos

AU - Çiftçi, Leyla

AU - Meeus, Wim

AU - Branje, Susan

N1 - Funding Information: This research was funded by Vietnam National Foundation for Science and Technology Development (NAFOSTED) under grant number 501.02-2016.03. Implementation of the project used research infrastructure developed by U.S. National Institutes of Health, Fogarty International Center Grant D43-TW009089. The Redcap system used for online collection of the delay discounting data was supported by the U.S. National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, CTSA award #UL1 TR002243. The content of this report is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of any of these institutions. Publisher Copyright: © 2022, The Author(s).

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AB - This 6-year community study examined how discrepancies in mothers’ and adolescents’ perceptions of their relationship were longitudinally associated with adolescent internalizing symptoms, and vice versa. 497 adolescents (57% boys, Mage T1 = 13.03, SDage = 0.46) and their mothers reported in 6 annual waves on conflict and warmth in the mother-adolescent relationship and adolescents reported on their depressive and Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) symptoms. Latent Congruence Models suggested that both adolescent depressive and GAD symptoms significantly predicted higher levels of conflict as well as stronger discrepancies in perceptions of conflict 1-year later. In turn, higher levels of conflict significantly predicted both adolescent depressive and GAD symptoms 1-year later. For warmth, lower levels significantly predicted adolescent depressive symptoms 1-year later. Concluding, these findings suggest (1) more systematic evidence for longitudinal associations between conflict than warmth in the mother-adolescent relationship and adolescent internalizing symptoms; (2) support for a transactional model, including support for both interpersonal scar or symptom-driven effects (concerning both levels of and mother-adolescent discrepancies in conflict) and interpersonal risk or relationship-driven effects (concerning levels of both conflict and warmth); (3) longitudinal effects from adolescent internalizing symptoms to mother-adolescent discrepancies, but not vice versa; and (4) strong consistency in patterns of findings across both adolescent depressive and GAD symptoms, with few differential longitudinal associations with aspects of mother-adolescent relationship quality. Thereby, this study provides a more nuanced understanding of the direction of effects between adolescent internalizing symptoms and both levels of and discrepancies in mothers’ and adolescents’ perceptions of their relationship.

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