Interpersonal competence, family functioning, and parent-adolescent conflicts.

摘要

This study investigated the key antecedents of parent-adolescent conflicts. Using ecological and interpersonal competence theories, this thesis proposes that individual functioning of parents and adolescent, and family functioning are the key antecedents of parent-adolescent conflicts. To address several deficiencies of previous studies in parent-adolescent conflicts, this study was based on a well-articulated theory that examined the individual, dyadic, and systemic predictors of conflicts, as well as investigated gender differences by comparing the antecedents of conflicts in the four parent-adolescent dyads. In addition, a large sample of Chinese respondents was recruited and a number of validated instruments were incorporated in the study.; The first part of the study was to translate and validate three instruments for measuring interpersonal competence, including the Chinese Interpersonal Reactivity Index, the Chinese Social Problem Solving Inventory and the Chinese Vengeance Scale. The validation study, based on a convenient sample of over 800 subjects, showed that the three instruments have stable factor structures, acceptable to high test-retest reliability and internal consistency. Explorations of differences in scores between males and females and across the levels of study were lamely consistent with overseas results. As a result of this study, three reliable and valid instruments, particularly their short forms, were developed.; Based on a cluster sampling strategy, 1462 junior secondary school students from twelve schools participated in the main study. The respondents completed a 167-item questionnaire which measured their interpersonal competence, perceived parental interpersonal competence, family functioning, and socio-demographic profile.; While most of the proposed antecedents were found to be related to conflicts, higher parental empathy and social problem solving, higher family communication, lower parental control, were predictive of lower parent-adolescent conflicts in multiple regression analyses. A higher discrepancy in interpersonal competence between parents and adolescent was related to a lower level of conflicts. Higher level of father-son conflicts was found in families with economic disadvantage, when compared to families without economic disadvantage. These findings indicated that individual and family functioning, and the discrepancy of parents and adolescent functioning are the key building blocks for constructing a model of parent-adolescent conflicts, and this provides valuable information for further refinement or modification of existing models on parent-adolescent conflicts.; The study also provides support for the ecological perspective, as the findings demonstrated that the ecological niches of the parent, child, and family systems, were predictive of parent-adolescent conflicts. Successful fitting of the mediation and moderation causal models reflected that conflicts is shaped by the complex interplay of individual and family functioning, reflecting the mutual dependencies of different units in the family microsystem.; The present findings suggest that in family counseling or interventions for parent-adolescent conflicts, social workers need to: (a) engage parents in conflicts management and promote their empathy and social problem solving, (b) assist parents to accept discrepancy in parent and adolescent perception, (c) encourage fathers to attend more to the emotional needs of childrer, (d) promote family communication and emotional expressiveness, (e) adopt gender-sensitive practice in handling conflicts in different parent-adolescent dyads, and (f) attend to the specific needs of families with economic disadvantage.