How do adolescents manage conflicts with their mothers? A developmental and micro-contextual perspective

Conflicts are a normative feature of parent-adolescent relationships due to the realignment of this relationship from being vertical to more horizontal. Such conflicts, however, are not necessarily detrimental for adolescent development. The way conflicts are handled or managed is of crucial importance. We focus on four conflict management styles that adolescents and mothers may use when they have disputes with each other: positive problem solving, conflict engagement, withdrawal, and compliance. Because effective conflict management is an important developmental task for adolescents with important implications for their psychosocial functioning, the present dissertation had four main objectives: (1) unraveling temporal dynamics of adolescents’ conflict interactions with both parents; (2) examining potential contextual and individual determinants of adolescents’ conflict management; (3) investigating how adolescent and maternal conflict management styles naturally co-occur; and (4) examining adolescents’ conflict management in their daily lives. Seven studies, summarized in six empirical chapters, have been conducted to address these four aims.
To address the first aim, in a 5-wave longitudinal sample of 1313 adolescents, cross-lagged panel analyses indicated that conflict frequency predicted more engagement, withdrawal and compliance, and less positive problem solving one year later. Positive problem solving predicted fewer conflicts and maladaptive conflict management styles over time, pointing to the potential protective role of positive problem solving against a conflictual climate and maladaptive management styles. Results were largely similar in both the mother and father model. Ancillary multi-group analyses revealed no moderation by gender or age.
To address the second aim, we examined the role of parenting and personality as potential determinants of adolescents’ conflict management styles in three studies. A first cross-sectional study revealed that maternal responsiveness was related positively to problem solving and negatively to withdrawal. Psychological control was positively associated with destructive conflict management styles. Extraversion predicted more problem solving and conflict engagement, and less withdrawal. Agreeableness predicted more problem solving and less conflict engagement. Finally, certain personality traits moderated associations between parenting and conflict management, indicating that some adolescents are more sensitive to these parenting dimensions than others. We found, for instance, that introverted adolescents displayed lower levels of positive problem solving in a low-responsive climate as opposed to extraverted people, indicating that introverted adolescents seemed to suffer the most from a non-responsive climate with respect to their conflict resolution. In a three-wave longitudinal study, we found that supportive parenting was associated with fewer conflicts and more problem solving one year later, and that adolescents’ reactance was related to more destructive conflict behaviors over time. We did not find evidence for the mediating role of reactance in the over-time associations between parenting and adolescents’ conflict management and frequency. Both parenting and reactance appeared important and unique determinants for adolescents’ conflict management styles and frequency. A third cross-sectional study demonstrated that the way in which adolescents tackle identity-relevant issues was also related to adolescents’ conflict management with mothers. The information-oriented identity style was positively associated with positive problem solving and negatively with conflict engagement and withdrawal, the normative style was positively associated with compliance, and, finally, the diffuse-avoidant style was positively associated with withdrawal and conflict engagement and negatively with positive problem solving.
To address the third aim, we used both mothers’ and adolescents’ conflict management styles to identify meaningful dyadic conflict management constellations through latent class analysis. Findings pointed to four meaningful conflict management constellations: Dyadic negative resolution, Dyadic positive resolution, Adolescent negative resolution, and Unbalanced resolution. These constellations were differentially related to individual and relational functioning of mothers and adolescents. This study emphasized the importance of a typological dyadic approach in examining conflict management.
To address the fourth aim, a daily diary study revealed that on days on which adolescents engaged in a hostile way in a conflict with their mother, this was related to lower levels of relationship satisfaction. Further, daily conflict engagement was positively related to a host of negative emotions experienced during daily conflicts (anger, humiliation, shame, and guilt). Daily positive problem solving was related to feelings of hope, respect, disappointment, and shame.
To conclude, the present dissertation provided a developmental and micro-contextual perspective on adolescents’ conflict management with mothers. We addressed important gaps in the literature on parent-adolescent conflict and our studies raised new questions which hopefully inspire future research avenues.