Burk, William Jay

This study examined associations between friends, perceptions of conflict and friendship qualities. Early adolescent participants and their same-sex friends (N = 199 dyads) separately completed measures describing actual disagreements, friendship positivity, and negativity. Similar patterns of associations emerged for participant and friend reports of conflict and relationship qualities. Actor and partner associations were estimated with two statistical methods, the APIM (Kashy & Kenny, 2000) and the IDM (Griffin & Gonzalez, 1995). Actor associations suggested perceptions of conflict were linked to self-perceptions of friendship negativity and positivity. Partner associations suggested perceptions of conflict were linked to partner perceptions of friendship negativity, but not to partner perceptions of friendship positivity.

This study examined early adolescent perceptions of daily disagreements and negative interactions in relationships with mothers and fathers and their association with adolescent reports of self-esteem, self- and mother reports of behavior problems, and school grades. An I-States as Objects Analysis (ISOA: Bergman, 1998) identified seven distinct conflict patterns in parent-adolescent relationships: amiable, squabbling, discordant, hostile, labile, tranquil, and avoidant. These groups exhibited structural and interindividual stability, with groups characterized by constructive conflict processes demonstrating more stability than adolescents in groups characterized by non-constructive conflict processes. ISOA procedures failed to identify coherent adolescent adjustment groups. Person-oriented analyses indicated adolescents in the amiable, labile, and tranquil groups tended to have the best adjustment outcomes, followed by adolescents in the discordant and avoidant groups, with the worst adjustment outcomes reserved for adolescents in the squabbling and hostile groups. Variable-oriented analyses indicated that conflict rate and relationship negativity predicted concurrent and subsequent adolescent adjustment; behavior problems predicted concurrent and subsequent characteristics of parent-adolescent conflict. Person-oriented failed to reveal statistically significant associations involving change in parent-adolescent conflict and adolescent adjustment aver time. Variable-oriented analyses indicated adolescent adjustment predicted changes in parent-adolescent conflict variables more consistently than parent-adolescent conflict predicted changes in adolescent adjustment variables.