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Parent‐Adolescent Congruency in Reports of Adolescent Sexual Behavior and in Communications about Sexual Behavior
Author(s) -
Jaccard James,
Dittus Patricia J.,
Gordon Vivian V.
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
child development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.103
H-Index - 257
eISSN - 1467-8624
pISSN - 0009-3920
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-8624.1998.tb06146.x
Subject(s) - psychology , developmental psychology , sexual behavior , perception , adolescent development , clinical psychology , neuroscience
Agreement between mothers' and adolescents' reports of communication about sex, satisfaction with the parent‐child relationship, maternal disapproval of adolescent sexual activity, and adolescent sexual behavior was investigated in a sample of 745 African American adolescents (ages 14–17) and their mothers. Congruence between the 2 sets of reports tended to be low. Adolescent perceptions and reports were found to be more predictive of adolescent sexual behavior than maternal reports. Mothers tended to underestimate the sexual activity of their teens and teens tended to underestimate their mothers' level of disapproval of their engaging in sexual activity. Reasons for these misperceptions were explored.