This study examined the longitudinal relationship between perceived family adjustment and emotional adjustment in a group of 235 sixth- and seventh-grade students. The study had two primary purposes: (a) to assess the predictive relationship between family adjustment and emotional adjustment (indexed by scores for anxiety and depression); and (b) to test whether the adolescents' levels of self-worth, peer support, and coping abilities significantly moderated the relationship between family adjustment and emotional adjustment. As expected, perceived family adjustment and emotional adjustment were reciprocally related. In addition, adolescents who had high levels of self-worth, high levels of peer support, and good coping techniques appeared to be somewhat protected from the potentially harmful effects that maladaptive family functioning may have on emotional adjustment. These results highlight the importance of focusing on the underlying processes involved in human development.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Baltes, P. B.
(1987). Theoretical propositions of life-span developmental psychology: On the dynamics between growth and decline. Developmental Psychology, 23, 611-626.
2.
Barnes, G. M.
, & Farrell, M. P. (1992). Parental support and control as predictors of adolescent drinking, delinquency, and related problem behaviors. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 54 (4), 763-787.
3.
Bronfenbrenner, U. B.
(1979). The ecology of human development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
4.
Burt, C. E.
, Cohen, L. H., & Bjorck, J. P. (1988). Perceived family environment as a moderator of young adolescents' life stress adjustment. American Journal of Community Psychology, 16, 101-122.
5.
Compas, B.
(1987). Coping with stress during childhood and adolescence. Psychological Bulletin, 101, 393-403.
6.
Conger, J. J.
, & Petersen, A. C. (1984). Adolescence and youth: Psychological development in a changing world. New York: Harper & Row.
7.
Crouter, A.
, Belsky, J., & Spanier, G. B. (1984). The family context of child development. Annals of Child Development, 1, 201-238.
8.
Ebata, A.
, & Moos, R. (1989). Coping and adjustment in distressed and healthy adolescents. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University, Social Ecology Laboratory, and the Department of Veteran Affairs Medical Centers.
9.
Erikson, E. H.
(1963). Childhood and society (2nd ed.). New York: Norton.
10.
Farber, S. S.
, Primavera, J., & Felner, R. D. (1983). Older adolescents and parental divorce: Adjustment problems and mediators of coping. Journal of Divorce, 7, 59-75.
11.
Farrell, M. P.
, & Barnes, G. M. (1993). Family systems and social support: A test of the effects of cohesion and adaptability on the functioning of parents and adolescents. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 55 (1), 119-132.
12.
Gallimore, M.
, & Kurdek, L. A. (1992). Parent depression and parent authoritative discipline as correlates of young adolescents' depression. Journal of Early Adolescence, 12 (2), 187-196.
13.
Garmezy, N.
(1983). Stressors of childhood. In N. Garmezy & M. Rutter (Eds.), Stress, coping, and development in children (pp. 83-84). New York: McGraw Hill.
14.
Guerney, L.
, & Arthur, J. (1984). Adolescent social relationships. In R. M. Lerner & N. L. Galambos (Eds.), Experiencing adolescents: A sourcebook for parents, teachers, and teens (pp. 87-118). New York: Garland.
15.
Harter, S.
(1982). The perceived competence scale for children. Child Development, 53, 87-97.
16.
Harter, S.
(1983). Supplementary Description of the Self-Perception Profile for Children: Revision of the Perceived Competence Scale for Children. Denver: University of Denver Press.
17.
Harter, S.
(1985). Manual for the Social Support Scale for Children. Unpublished manuscript, University of Denver, Department of Psychology, Denver.
18.
Hetherington, E. M.
(1984). Stress and coping in children and families. In A. Doyle, D. Gold, & D. S. Moskowitz (Eds.), Children in families under stress: New directions in child development (No. 24, pp. 7-33). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
19.
Hetherington, E. M.
(1989). Coping with family transitions: Winners, losers, and survivors. Child Development, 60, 1-14.
20.
Jessor, R.
, & Jessor, S. (1977). Problem behavior and psychosocial development: A longitudinal study of youth. New York: Academic Press.
21.
Kandel D. B.
, Kessler, R. C., & Margulies, R. (1978). Adolescent intiation into stages of drug use: A developmental analysis. In D. Kandel (Ed.), Longitudinal research on drug use: Empirical findings and methodological issues (pp. 73-99). Washington, DC: Hemisphere-Wiley.
22.
Kurdek, L. A.
, & Sinclair, R. J. (1988). Adjustment of young adolescents in two-parent nuclear, stepfather, and mother-custody families. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 56, 91-96.
23.
Lerner, R. M.
(1984). On the nature of human plasticity. New York: Cambridge University Press.
24.
Lerner, R. M.
(1986). Concepts and theories of human development (2nd ed.). New York: Random House.
25.
Lerner, R. M.
(1987). A life-span perspective for early adolescents. In R. M. Lerner & T. T. Foch (Eds.), Biological-psychosocial interactions in early adolescence: A life-span perspective (pp. 9-34). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
26.
Lerner, R. M.
, Hultsch, D. F., & Dixon, R. A. (1983). Contextualism and the character of developmental psychology in the 1970s. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 412, 101-128.
27.
Lerner, R. M.
, Lerner, J. V. & von Eye, A. (1988). Early adolescent school achievement: Organismic Bases (NICHD Grant No. HD 23229). Washington, DC: National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.
28.
Lerner, R. M.
, & Tubman, J. G. (1991). Developmental contextualism and the study of early adolescent development. In R. Cohen & A. Siegel (Eds.), Context and development (pp. 183-210). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
29.
Maccoby, E.
(1983). Socio-emotional development and response to stressors. In N. Garmezy & M. Rutter (Eds.), Stress, coping, and development in children (pp. 217-234). New York: McGraw-Hill.
30.
Montemayor, R.
(1983). Parents and adolescents in conflict: All families some of the time and some families most of the time. Journal of Early Adolescence, 3, 83-103.
31.
O'Malley, P. M.
& Bachman, J. G. (1983). Self-esteem: Change and stability between ages 13 and 23. Developmental Psychology, 19, 257-268.
32.
Papini, D. R.
, & Roggman, L. A. (1992). Adolescent perceived attachment to parents in relation to competence, depression, and anxiety: A longitudinal study. Journal of Early Adolescence, 12 (4), 420-440.
33.
Papini, D. R.
, Roggman, L. A., & Anderson, J. (1991). Early-adolescent perceptions of attachment to mother and father: A test of the emotional-distancing and buffering hypotheses. Journal of Early Adolescence, 11 (2), 258-275.
34.
Petersen, A. C.
, & Hamburg, B. A. (1986). Adolescence: A developmental approach to problems and psychopathology. Behavior Therapy, 17, 480-499.
35.
Raja, S. N.
, McGee, R., & Stanton, W. R. (1992). Perceived attachments to parents and peers and psychological well-being in adolescence. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 21 (4), 471-485.
36.
Rutter, M.
(1985). Family and school influences in behavioural development. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 26, 349-368.
37.
Rutter, M.
, Graham, P., Chadwick, O., & Yule, W. (1976). Adolescent turmoil: Fact or fiction? Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 17, 35-56.
38.
Slater, E.
, Stewart, K., & Linn, M. (1983). The effects of family disruption on adolescent males and females. Adolescence, 18, 931-942.
39.
Spanier, G. B.
(1976). Measuring dyadic adjustment: New scales for assessing the quality of marriage and similar dyads. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 38, 15-28.
40.
Spielberger, C. D.
, Gorsuch, R., & Lushene, R. (1970). Manual for the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory. Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press.
41.
Steinberg, L.
(1981). Transformations in family relations at puberty. Developmental Psychology, 7, 833-840.
42.
Steinberg, L.
(1987). The impact of puberty on family relations: Effects of pubertal status and pubertal timing. Developmental Psychology, 23, 451-460.
43.
Steinberg, L.
(1989). Adolescence. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
44.
Steinberg, L.
(1990). Interdependency in the family: Autonomy, conflict, and harmony. In S. Feldman & G. Elliot (Eds.), At the threshold: The developing adolescent (pp. 255-276). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
45.
Steinberg, L.
, & Hill, J. P. (1978). Patterns of family interaction as a function of age, the onset of puberty and formal thinking. Developmental Psychology, 14, 683-684.
46.
Steinberg, L.
, & Silverberg, S. B. (1986). The vicissitudes of autonomy in early adolescence. Child Development, 57, 841-851.
47.
Weissman, M.
, Orvaschell, H., & Padian, N. (1980). Children's symptom and social functioning: Self-report scales. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disorders, 168, 736-740.
48.
Werner, E. E.
, & Smith, R. S. (1982). Vulnerable, but invincible: A longitudinal study of resilient children and youth. New York: McGraw-Hill.
