Investigating the Interplay Between Identity Gaps and Communication Patterns in Predicting Relational Intentions in Families in the United States.

We tested the degree to which identity gaps mediate the association between family communication patterns and relational intentions. Participants included 498 emerging adults from the United States. Both personal-enacted and relational-communal identity gaps mediated the relationship between conversation and conformity orientation and relational intentions. Moreover, family identification (the extent to which one feels a sense of connection with their family group) moderated the mediation effect, altering the relationship between the personal-enacted and relational-communal identity gaps and relational intentions. Such that, when family identification is low it does not buffer the negative effect of the relational-communal gap, and when it is high, it exacerbates the negative effect of the personal-enacted identity gap on relational intentions. Specifically, the direction of moderating effect of family identification was in opposite directions for these two identity gaps. The only direct effect was a curvilinear relationship between conformity and relational intentions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]