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Some parents may engage in overparenting, often characterized as overprotection, to ensure their college student's academic success, yet, findings show that such parental efforts undermine performance. In the present study, we propose that there are interpersonal (parental hostility) and intrapersonal factors (depression and self-regulation) that act as mechanisms through which anxious overprotective parenting leads to diminished emerging adult academic confidence. Emerging adults (N = 967; 75.6% women; M age = 18.71, SD =.94) who were primarily in their first (60.5%) or second (35.7%) year of college completed measures of academic confidence (academic adjustment, academic efficacy, confidence in graduating), reports of mothers' and fathers' anxious overprotective parenting, perceptions of maternal and paternal hostility, depression, and self-regulation. Employing a double mediation structural equation model, results revealed that anxious maternal and paternal overprotective parenting operated through perceived parental hostility to intrapersonal processes (depression, self-regulation) in predicting academic confidence. Maternal and paternal hostility, in particular, was paramount as an interpersonal mediator through which overprotective parenting led to emerging adult intrapersonal and academic outcomes. Although cross-sectional, the current findings are suggestive of the developmental cascade model (Masten & Cicchetti, 2010), whereby diminished family dynamics are associated with internalizing symptoms and self-regulatory issues, which, in turn, are linked with lower academic achievement in children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Attributional accuracy focuses on the extent to which one person accurately judges the reasons that another person acts the way they do. Research has shown that relationship quality, individual factors, and the overall context of a discussion, all play a role in the accuracy of attributions within adult relationships. However, little research has examined these patterns for parents and adolescents. Within the parent–adolescent literature, research on informant discrepancies has found agreement between family members' reports can highlight the overall functioning of the parent–child relationship but has not focused on perceptions of motives. This study assessed mothers' and adolescents' attributional accuracy during conflictual discussions and the extent to which such accuracy was associated with their relationship quality and individual perspective-taking abilities. One hundred twenty-three mother (MAge = 43) and adolescent (MAge = 14, 54% female, 52% White) dyads participated in a discussion about an issue commonly causing adolescent guilt and rated their own and their partner's motives during the discussion. They also self-reported on their relationship and perspective-taking abilities. Results showed that mothers and teens reported overall more positive discussion motives, when their relationship was better. There was also moderate agreement between mothers' and adolescents' attributed motives and their partners' self-reported motives. Adolescents' accuracy regarding both positive and negative maternal motives improved with better perspective-taking. Mothers' accuracy improved with better relationship quality, but only regarding negative adolescent motives. This study highlights individual factors may be more relevant for adolescent attributional accuracy whereas relational factors may be more relevant for mothers' accuracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In line with increasing calls for within-family analyses of monitoring processes, this study examined profiles of (combined) adolescent information management strategies and parent knowledge-gathering strategies among 174 families with middle adolescents (Mage = 15.7 years; 164 mother-teen and 112 father-teen dyads). Three mother-adolescent profiles (open, intrusive, indirect) and two father-adolescent profiles (reserved, covert) emerged, with voluntary disclosure and snooping particularly differentiating profiles and fathers reporting gaining more knowledge from others. Profile membership was associated with adjustment and relationship quality both concurrently and over one year, controlling for prior levels. For mother-teen dyads, open communicators reported less behavioral control over time, intrusive communicators reported more negative interactions concurrently and greater depression and less maternal knowledge over time, and indirect communicators reported more problem behavior over time. For father-teen dyads, covert communicators reported more problem behavior concurrently and more negative interactions over time. Profile membership in mother-teen and father-teen dyads was not significantly associated. Results confirm the importance of disclosure and the problematic nature of snooping, while highlighting diverse ways that monitoring processes play out within families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Parent and adolescent ( M = 15.7 years) beliefs regarding parents' right to know ( RTK) about adolescents' activities were examined in 174 middle-class U.S. families. Mean differences and associations with latent changes in teens' concealment were assessed. RTK was greatest about risky prudential activities, least for personal activities for parents and romantic activities for teens, and higher for mothers' ratings of girls' than boys' romantic behavior. Adolescents' stronger RTK beliefs predicted lower concealment 6 months later and less increase in concealment over time, although less so for romantic issues. In contrast, mothers' stronger RTK beliefs predicted more concealment over time. For personal issues, greater teen RTK beliefs slowed increases in concealment only when parents' RTK beliefs were low. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]